Technology

FOSS will be fine because software has won. Open hardware is only feasible again because architecture doesn't fucking matter. Is there a half-decent compiler? You're golden, everything will work.

The 1980s had a dozen competitive architectures because a computer was a silo. Programs were solipsistic, networks barely existed, and it took very few companies to make a platform viable. If you had a spreadsheet you were in business and every game was uniquely ugly.

The 1990s saw x86 swallow everything. People expected the programs they already knew to run faster every year. Two companies delivered on that, with a third company lording over both of them, because everything past the CPU was still a bit-banging nightmare.

The 2000s killed consoles and nobody noticed. RenderWare let every platform run the same games the same way - even Macs! - and it turns out devs like reaching customers. The two brands of video card and the two brands of driver got stuck in a loop until graphics were just... code.

The 2010s made that code low-level, but it needed to work for different hardware, so virtualization, recompilation, intermediate formats, yadda yadda yadda. Inscrutable software for drivers that were mostly compilers. Or at least linkers. Android programs went basically the same way, even though ARM gradually swallowed everything.

The 2020s have a Valve-branded Linux / x86 device running Windows games, effortlessly... and if you jump through hoops then your Android / ARM phone can do the same. There is no secret sauce, anymore. Every game is on every platform worth reaching unless bribed into monogamy. Monster Hunter Wilds should probably run on whichever smartphone you own currently, but for some obscure details that one hyperfixated dork could unravel.

RISC-V's expansion won't need to worry about native software because there is no such thing. The only remaining difference is that proprietary code runs worse on fewer machines.

With tariffs and sanctions, it has become clear that open standards which can’t be controlled by governments are what is needed.

With what’s been happening over the past few years, there will be a lot of interested in this. Recently, I’ve seen lots of news about it, but that could just be the algorithm.

Feasible, yes. Practical, hard to say. Good idea, yes.

RISC-V is open-source architecture based in Switzerland (although it started in University of California).

One thing going for it is China is spending billions a year towards RISC-V adoption so they do not get sanctioned by the US. You need money and engineers working on it towards these type of open source to compete with existing players.

Yes, yes and yes, but it'll take a while. It's a six year project overall.

Considering that you can buy some Raspberry Pi micro computers (these are ARM architecture computers) for less than €100 that are performance competitive with a lot of existing hardware; this idea would make a ton of sense for Europe to implement. I think Europe could probably start designing and manufacturing chips locally within 2 to 5 years on the low end 5 to 10 years on the high end.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer, but I know China's also going big on RISC-V.

What's the give away there? Not doubting just wondering.

I see impedance matched traces so seems like something fast, but that's all I'd be able to guess.

afaik, risc and cisc are pretty much the same anymore. x86, risc v and arm all have bloated instructions sets, and they all decode to risc microcode under the hood anyways.