Android Ported to RISC-V
theregister.com
theregister.com
Unsurprisingly, this has been done by Alibaba-owned T-Head Semiconductor. The obvious result if Chinese vendors start facing obstacles to obtain licenses to manufacture ARM-based chips (or any other non-Chinese architecture).
How can anyone expect that software/hardware-bans to global superpowers can result in anything but their software/hardware-independence in the long run?
If they invest in R&D, they need creative people who are up to date. Such people tend to bring change to the society at large(I'd say democracy is really good for creativeness to flourish).
Basically, the goal is not to expunge them from the market, the goal is to make them compete under the same rules.
How is it then, that inventions seem to accelerate during times of war? WWII alone saw the invention of, or massive improvements to rocketry, the jet engine, cruise missiles, Radar, and the Atomic bomb
People tend to focus on wars during discussions about history so their time periods are overemphasized.
To be pedantic about terminology the Kalashnikov family of rifles are generally not Battle Rifles. Of your listed examples only the FN FAL and some models of the FN SCAR are considered Battle Rifles.
Battle Rifles as a term came out in the 80s to distinguish between autoloading rifles soldiers had fielded since WW2 that weren't assault rifles. Assault rifles are defined as a selective fire rifle using an intermediate cartridge with a detachable magazine.
An intermediate cartridge being one that is more powerful than a pistol but less so than a traditional rifle cartridge. Germany pioneered, or at least mass-adopted, this concept with the 7.92 Kurz [short] round in WW2. The USSR ran with this concept - through seeing the STG-44 (German 7.92 kurz assault rifle), capturing some German weapon designers and following the train of thought of the period. This ended up with the AK-47, then later variants on this pattern.
NATO countries generally also wanted to do this, see the .280 British - the original cartridge of the FAL (and the EM-2). With one big exception - the US Army Ordnance Corps pushed for adoption of a traditional cartridge, and NATO bowed (in part as the US agreed to adopt the FAL) and everyone ended up with the full powered 7.62 NATO round.
Despite pushing for it, the US soon found out that having a high powered cartridge (and the sort of weapon that goes with it) wasn't what they actually needed, and they chose the 5.56 NATO round as used in the original M16 rifle (AR-15 platform). The rest of NATO caught up soon enough, often with platforms based of the AR-18/AR-180. This left them in the 80's with a new type of rifle that we would call an Assault Rifle but they also needed to refer to the (more) modern rifles they'd been fielding since the 2nd World War.
This resulted in the term Battle Rifle being created to refer to a self-loading rifle using a full power cartridge with a slew of (optional) features like full auto (the SLR [UK's inch pattern FAL] was semi-auto only), pistol grips (the M14 had a traditional stock) and the like. The 7.62 NATO calibre versions of the FN SCAR are generally considered Battle Rifles, whereas the 5.56 NATO versions aren't.
Perhaps using something like Military Rifle would allow you to refer to such without being technically wrong?
Really? The most performing rocket-engine for a long time was the Russian RD-170. The most impressive performing Fighter (aeronautic wise the Su-27) The fastest Sub also Russian, the biggest ICBM (R-36M) too and so on.
>best they managed to build were AKs, Soyuz, Chernobyl
The US did Agent Orange, Fat Man and Apollo 1, was that the best the US manged to build?
Well that was more or less the only field where money and researchers where available in huge quantities.
That's kind of a interesting article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Russian_innovation
https://strelkamag.com/en/article/what-happened-to-the-sovie...
Same for the AK, it was reliable and accurate at a fraction of the cost which is why it is so popular still today.
There is a lot more to engineering than top performance. Reliability and cost is just as important. When you factor that in, it's clear that Soviet engineering was excellent, and frankly could hardly have been better. Production though? Yes, not that great. But the engineers were able to meet their goals brilliantly.
Edit: It looks like NASA has already agreed to allow SpaceX to re-use first stages and Crew Dragon capsules for crew flights as well, starting this year.
Be that as it may, today in 2021, the cheapest and most reliable way we have to send someone to LEO is to make a Soyuz and use that to send them.
Maybe eventually SpaceX will catch up in cost. But in 2021 it hasn't yet.
Edit: Parent filled in data below, it looks like Soyuz in cheaper. :)
The total cost in 2018 for a Soyuz launch to Roscosmos is 3.5 to 4 billion 2018 rubles, which is around 20-23 million dollars per seat.
The cost is kind of at the factory because Roscomos partially builds some systems of Soyuz. But in the end it costs Roscosmos 20 million to put someone into space using a Soyuz, and it costs NASA 55 million to do it via SpaceX.
I'm comparing the cost of launching an astronaut to the ISS. For Soyuz, since the rocket is not reusable, this is the cost of the rocket plus capsule plus payload plus préparation, tracking, etc.. For SpaceX, it is just the cost of their launch. Soyuz is simply so well engineered that it still is cheaper, even though the SpaceX rocket is reusable.
As I pointed out already, the original NASA contract was signed long before SpaceX recovered a single core. Tose prices don't take into account reusability at all. SpaceX already has two pre-flown crew rated first stages ready to fly again. NASA has recently approved using them, and refurbished capsules, for upcoming missions. The cost calculation today is nothing like 2014 when SpaceX signed Commercial Crew.
If it is the case then we will see SpaceX charging NASA less than a Soyuz launch amortized over the number of passengers per launch. But in 2021 it still isn't the case.
Not to say that never happened, but its incredibly reductionist and inaccurate.
There still are walls, limits, secrets of course.
Just saying there are any number of ways to advance and they are all available to a sovereign willing to get after advancement. Size matters too. China has size enough for these things to be true.
Using cheap labor, copying foreign products, and bypassing copyright worked for the US, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan when they were in their own economic rise, and thus far has been working for China.
>Basically, the goal is not to expunge them from the market, the goal is to make them compete under the same rules.
What "level field" rules would that be?
The European powers used 2/3rds of the world as colonial resources, the US was founded upon the land grab from the native Americans, and benefited from slavery for centuries, and on top of it it uses it diplomatic and military power to gain favorable trade deals, topple and influence local governments to gain them (from banana republics in L.A. to Asia and Europe), and control resources and trade routes.
That's what makes the arguments from USA so amusing.
I mean they basically nicked, against British law, the designs how to mass manufacture textiles. Is US willing to repay, with interest, all the economic damage that did to British industry? Same with all the later patents. US basically started respecting patents of others when they got to the point that they had more of their own. So only when it was profitable.
It's basically "It's fine when I do it but now that I'm the big dominant power everyone else must stay in line and let me stay dominant"
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that US did what it did. I'm also happy that the other countries did what they did, because in the end we all benefit more from the countries being more developed than being less developed by "following the rules". Once China gets bit more R&D of their own they will start following the rules simply because it's mostly reciprocal.
And used slaves to pick the cotton! Talk about "cheap labor".
It might sound quaint now, but textiles then where one of the engines of industry growth. The world didn't have mass textiles/clothes production until the industrial revolution.
It's like "Yeah, my ancestors bootstrapped this country doing that, and I benefit massively from them doing so, but you shouldn't do it now to bootstrap your country's economy, because I'm all about being legit now - well, aside when I'm not, but we're talking about you now, not me. Heck, no I ain't giving any of those ill granpa's gains back either" - aka "kicking the ladder".
Now, China is not only technologically competitive, but an authoritarian regime. Theft of IP no longer represents trying to get to where the rest of the world is, but rather trying to dominate it. At the same time, every advantage the CCP gets is quickly utilized not just to intimidate neighbors, but to oppress the Chinese people.
Even if we go so far as to say the situation is exactly the same otherwise, (I might get hate on HN for this) 'why' you do something matters too. If you do it for freedom and democracy vs. authoritarianism, that matters.
I guess we're so benevolent as to allow them to also steal the fire and wheel IP.
But textiles were part of the 17th-18th century chasm the US had to overcome. China has the equivalent 20-21st century chasms, which are not about textiles but more modern manufacturing and IP.
>Now, China is not only technologically competitive, but an authoritarian regime. Theft of IP no longer represents trying to get to where the rest of the world is, but rather trying to dominate it.
And yet, China has been non-intervetionist for most (all) of its existance (except for neighbor disputes all countries have), whereas the US has been in constant wars (literally, in the old sense, meaning: literally).
If anything, China itself was invaded, from the British and the Japanese.
Them being authoritate is, (a concept seemingly forgotten in the era of rampant interventionism and lack of respect for sovereignity), their problem.
Their people can take them up for it, now, or when they find it convenient. Or they might prefer it that way, for their own (e.g. cultural or historical) reasons. Or just because it works for them (since they did good, poverty, technology, education, etc. wise in the last 50 years or so).
Authoritative concerns are used politically (and thus selectively and at convenient times). When China was a convenient outsourcing outlet for US companies, being "authoritative" didn't matter one iota. When China grew more competitive itself, it suddenly became a problem.
>If you do it for freedom and democracy vs. authoritarianism, that matters.
Who "does it" for "freedom and democracy"? US businesses or state interests? They do it for control, greed, and lining their pockets, lip service to useful (for polemic) notions aside. And they do it in a much worse way (invasions, bombing, blackmailing governments, toppling governments, banana republics, etc) than anything China has done.
To the point that "delivering democracy" has become an international joke.
(Note also how they're also except from war criminal international treaties, environmental treaties, etc: "we judge, we don't allow anyone to judge us").
Well, you're obviously not making good faith arguments. An authoritarian regime with 1 billion subjects and the world's largest intelligence network is definitely not just 'their' problem.
To be clear, I'm not saying that any of these actions are justified.
Though you are correct, there have been various concerns for the welfare of the slaves over history, and cost of getting more is a major factor into that.
One of Socrates's rants on record is deriding an argument that negligence causing your slave to die should be a crime.
Do you mean like slavery in the United States?
I am not sure what the implication of garbage economy is, but the south was fairly wealthy antebellum. So much so that they supported a large tax base for the federal government which they resented, it lead to the nullification crisis in 1832 and started the long road to the civil war. Southern universities where also considered to be some of the best in the nation pre-war.
If you where referring to an economy based on the backs of slaves then yes it could be labeled a garbage economy but if it is in reference to the poverty seen across the south in modern day, the antebellum south was a totally different economy and honestly an entirely foreign culture a culture that was decimated (the bad and good parts) in Reconstruction.
Not so much when you properly account for the enslaved population. It's just not sensible to only count free citizens, that's clearly a misleading impression.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Impending_Crisis_of_the_So...
I think what China has shown is that democracy and capitalism can be decoupled. Ive always believed that capitalism and democracy are synergistic forms of freedom. The individual freedom to own property and trade with each other on the one hand, and our freedom as sovereign individuals to have a say in the organisation of society. The CCP has established that these do not depend on each other.
China's economy is big because there are a lot of Chinese, not because the average individual is doing so well.
> The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely
And how would the US enforce such a law abroad? Even admitting that European countries (UK included), Japan, South Korea, and most of latin America decided to pass similar laws to pleasure the US, how are the US supposed to enforce that in China (and their growing area of influence, in Africa and Central Asia)?
> I wonder how authors of RISC-V must feel when their architecture is being appropriated by a country that violates human rights. Is that in the spirit of the free license?
Unfortunately, countries not violating the human rights are too few to be a viable market (and the US is definitely not one of them).
Also, what zamadatix said.
Given how well it worked, I'm not sure it's a great path to follow…
> then force other countries to support that.
Well, that's where it becomes interesting. Where are those countries supposed to get their Android phones from? Samsung cannot double their Android phone production.
And what if China responded by not allowing the China-made iPhones to be shipped abroad?
Geopolitics is a tough topic, and even as powerful as they are, the US can't just control everything directly. And on most actions, they can only pull the trigger once.
Its copyrighted software, how is this supposed to work? What are the implications for other copyrighted works?
As a result China will simply ignore the US and do whatever they want.
How should all the people who built those things feel?
Luckily, the people behind RISC-V were smart enough to protect it as well as they could against politicians using this open technology as a political tool. Not only it uses an open license, but also IP is owned by entity registered in Switzerland, so people and organizations all around the globe can collaborate and use results without being afraid to fall under yet another sanctions, which more often than not are simply a salvo in an ongoing economic warfare.
Like the US? Yeah that probably does bother them.
I mean the US has killed 1000x more people and was engaged in far, far more wars in the last 50 years. Destabalisng whole regions, overthrowing governments all over the place, supported some of the most vile people ever (and still do).
But I guess morality only matters if you are bad to your own population.
Given that necessity is the mother of invention you can imagine that with China's economies of scale and cheap labor that they will have a competitive advantage sooner than later and the US will become dependent on them for advanced semiconductors.
The US is already dependent on them. Some debate weather Taiwan is part of China, but either way the US is very dependent on TSMC and has lost its lead in semiconductors.
And sadly China isn't lacking in stolen valuable CPU IP. The Chinese branch of ARM went rogue last year. I think its a safe assumption that any sensitive information they may have had is no in the hands of the CCP and will be used to its full potential.
But it likely will come close to converging around 5 years from now -- at least somewhat competitive in core count and single core performance.
Interesting times.
I look forward to the first AMD Ryzen-like chipset designs for ARM and RISC-V. That is an innovation that is just waiting to be taken advantage of by these newer architectures.
The ISA may be open, but there is no requirement for the microarchitecture implementing the ISA to be, and it's hard to imagine anyone doing the work to produce a performance-competitive chip and then giving it away. Even if there is a "consortium" model where multiple companies benefit from a single design, they would likely set up some sort of licensing arrangement to prevent free-riding by companies that did not contribute to the design.
I agree with you on this as an eventuality of risc-v. But my casual following of the space leads me to believe that a high-performance open baseline of these architectures will be available and customization/special purpose of these archs will be for purchase.
I'm hopeful some of the benefits will be contributed upstream.
As long as there is some competition in the architecture space (ARM, x86, risc-v), the more likely builders will share gains upstream to compete against rival platforms.
That's my wishful thinking at least.
Note that in the ARM world everyone except Apple and Nvidia have given up on developing their own microarchitectures - they all just license one from ARM and maybe apply some customizations on top.
I'm quite OK with that if I get a better battery life in return. I depend on Google services though.
[Warning, large text file] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/T-head-Semi/aosp-riscv/mai...
Instead, it's much more important to promote the "porting", or rather the adaptation, of Linux and *BSD distributions to work on RISC-V. Like with the Raspberry PI I suppose.
https://developer.harmonyos.com/en/docs/documentation/doc-gu...
Huawei claimed that HarmonyOS is a microkernel-based, distributed OS that is completely different from Android and iOS. [23] However, it was later revealed that HarmonyOS 1.0 was based on Android 9 and supported ADB, the Android Debug Bridge. [24] In September 2020, it was found that HDC, the debug bridge in HarmonyOS 2.0, was again based on ADB. [25][26] A video of HarmonyOS 2.0 developer beta running on mobile was then posted, showing that the beta was just the same as Android 10 and no significant changes have been made in the name of HarmonyOS operating system. [27][28][29][30]
The future architecture, however, would be based only on HarmonyOS microkernel, according to the HarmonyOS roadmap.