Hacker News Reader

Comment by taffronaut | Hacker News Reader

As Thomas Gleixner has been the x86 maintainer since 2008, what do they gain from this? It seems a pretty close relationship already. It's not as if they're acquiring IP. Conversely if they'll allow Linutronix to continue "to operate as an independent business" and e.g. work on other architectures like RISC-V, then that dilutes their access to the talent they're acquiring.

View on HN

Yes, it's been a pretty close relationship for a long, long time.

What does Intel get out of this? I'm really hoping that Intel gets help improving the kernel from a talented bunch of kernel developers who have experience working closely with paying customers. Intel has tons of kernel developers, but few of us are very directly customer-facing.

I also hope the Linutronix folks can spend less time on "castle maintenance" and more time on kernel maintenance. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=PREEMPT_...

(BTW, I work on Intel at Linux).

Yeah, Intel clearly has no interest in helping RISC-V succeed.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-invests-in-open-source-r...

Intel is well aware that their x86 IP isn't the secret sauce it used to be. If RISC-V takes over the world, they won't be caught off-guard.

Maybe, but I think the more immediate motivations are

- Get customers for their fab services division, now that they're making a serious push to fab 3rd party chips.

- Help RISC-V threaten ARM at the low end, thus taking away attention and resources ARM could otherwise use to compete with x86 servers.

Maybe Intel is developing a new chip architecture and want to support linux from day 0? Or does Intel want a team of Kernel developers for their AI Silicon play, support the lower level architecture, or for their GPU play?

Maybe he was going to go do something else and they purchased some golden handcuffs and a smooth transition?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com