RISC-V Group Says Restrictions on Open Technology Would Slow Innovation 29
The chief executive of RISC-V International says that possible government restrictions on the open-source technology will slow down the development of new and better chips, holding back the global technology industry. From a report: The comments come after Reuters last week reported that a growing group of U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to impose export control restrictions around RISC-V, the open-source technology overseen by the RISC-V International nonprofit foundation. RISC-V technology can be used as an ingredient to create chips for smartphones or artificial intelligence. Major U.S. firms such as Qualcomm and Alphabet's Google have embraced RISC-V, but so too have Chinese firms such as Huawei, which the U.S. lawmakers argue constitutes a national security concern.
In a blog post, Calista Redmond, chief of RISC-V International, which coordinates work among companies on the technology, said RISC-V is no different than other open technology standards like Ethernet, which helps computers on the internet talk with each other. "Contemplated actions by governments for an unprecedented restriction in open standards will have the consequence of diminished access to the global marketplace of products, solutions, and talent," Redmond wrote. "Bifurcating on the standards level would lead to a world of incompatible solutions that duplicate effort and close off markets."
In a blog post, Calista Redmond, chief of RISC-V International, which coordinates work among companies on the technology, said RISC-V is no different than other open technology standards like Ethernet, which helps computers on the internet talk with each other. "Contemplated actions by governments for an unprecedented restriction in open standards will have the consequence of diminished access to the global marketplace of products, solutions, and talent," Redmond wrote. "Bifurcating on the standards level would lead to a world of incompatible solutions that duplicate effort and close off markets."
Idiots (Score:2, Interesting)
Iâ(TM)m not sure why America thinks it has control over this open standard, but if it actually does, and it tries to pull this, All it will accomplish is to destroy RISC-V and Force other countries to start using a new standard, which the US will have control over. The word standard means itâ(TM)s the same everywhere and accessible everywhere. Politicians are idiots, ESPECIALLY in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
How can it? It's an open-source design -- it's data. No more would they have control over this than the Linux kernel, or any other open-source project.
Re: (Score:1)
It can control it using sanctions.
The US government can declare that any part of RISC-V made in the US must not be used outside of the US by anyone without an export authorization. If a company outside of the US still use it without authorization, the US government will impose sanctions on it, mainly by limiting or forbidding its ability to make international transactions.
China, Russia and many other countries are now working to implement a real alternative to Swift and ultimately to the US dollar, but it w
Re: (Score:2)
You're talking about hardware. RISC-V is an open processor design that can be fabbed by anyone. Sure, the US could enforce export restrictions of fabbed micros, but that does very little to control the same design being etched on silicon in, say Malaysia, and shipped anywhere. It's sort-of similar to "ghost gun" design files being openly available to anyone wi
Re: (Score:2)
No, I'm also talking about the ISA. Part of this ISA was designed in the US, therefore the US government considers this is US technology. Supposing the US government decides to impose export restrictions on the RISC-V ISA, if a company in Malaysia makes its own processor that uses the RISC-V ISA and then sell this processor to a country where there is no export authorization, then the US government will sanction that Malaysian company for exporting "US technology".
It goes even beyond this. If that Malaysian
Re: (Score:2)
"I'm not sure why America thinks it has control over this open standard..."
It doesn't, what's more interesting is why you think that has been claimed.
"All it will accomplish is to destroy RISC-V and Force other countries to start using a new standard"
Why would "America" care? Its goal is its own physical security, if it accomplished that it won't care if you have a tantrum over the side effects.
"The word standard means it's the same everywhere and accessible everywhere."
The US military doesn't care about y
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't, what's more interesting is why you think that has been claimed.
Really?
a growing group of U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Biden administration to impose export control restrictions around RISC-V, the open-source technology
There. That is why he think it has been claimed. You can lawyer and pick over the particular words and definitions, but a cursory read by an average person would lead them to the conclusion that the US is trying to control an open technology.
Re:Idiots (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not about attempting to control an open standard - it's about attempting to kill it. RISC-V poses a long-term threat to the incumbent chip designers, almost all of whom are located in the US. Those chip designers currently use their own proprietary instruction sets, which they license for nice fees and exercise full control over. If an alternative, such as RISC-V, begins to gain traction then competition within the chip design industry could heat up, and that would threaten the incumbent players in the US. Therefore, they want to use fearmongering to prevent that from happening and China is currently a great target to aim that fear.
That's their goal, but it could backfire if enough countries outside the US band together around RISC-V, especially China since they're being denied access to lots of US tech due to the trade war. The ban on US participation would likely be a setback for RISC-V initially, but if it survived that, it could potentially be a boon in the long-term.
There's no need for the US to come up with another standard - we already own many of the important instruction sets.
That's what I thought at first, but in this particular case I think they know exactly what they're doing. Whether or not they go through with it and whether or not it backfires is far from certain yet.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not about attempting to control an open standard - it's about attempting to kill it. RISC-V poses a long-term threat to the incumbent chip designers, almost all of whom are located in the US.
Nice conspiracy, but that's all it is. In reality RISC-V doesn't pose any threat in the slightest. It is literally over a decade behind US chip design, and the ability to catch up in any meaningful way would mean American companies ceasing all R&D and just doing nothing for that decade.
Re: (Score:3)
So what's your alternative explanation of why, with everything going on in the world right now, the US government is considering banning US organizations from contributing to a technological standard?
They said similar thi
Re: Idiots (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Linux was useful from day one. RISCV is nowhere near that. It is being used in deeply embedded cores to avoid paying arm license fees.
And to avoid being crippled by export restrictions on the other instruction set technology.
Also to avoid the embedded hard-spyware included with cutting-edge processors by rolling your own perfectly adequate (if not bleeding-edge) machine cores for which you have the source and it's being looked at by thousands of others with similar biases against hard-spyware.
Article does not mention government motive. (Score:5, Interesting)
The article complains about government regulation slowing progress. It does not mention why the government wanted the regulation.
Let me be clear, ALL government regulations slow progress. Most of the time it is worth it. I think everyone will agree that government restrictions on Thalidomide (dangerous sedative that causes birth defects, but has real medical advantages) are a good thing even though it slowed progress on certain cancers.
This is incredibly bad reporting.
The purpose of the RISC-V regulation is because RISC-V chips are used in certain US military devices. If you trust China with some of America's technological secrets, then obviously you should not regulate the RISC-V technology. If you think the US should not trust China with it's military secrets, then the relatively small loss in technological innovation is a no brainer, and the regulations are obviously a good thing.
Talking about the issue without even mentioning the fact that the RISC-V technology is a military secret is the kind of thing someone does after they have been bribed by foreign 'lobbyists'.
Note, I am not myself embracing an opinion on whether the technology should or should not be regulated. I dot know whether the RISC-V is an important government secret, or junk.
I do however know that not mentioning the military aspects of it is a corrupt bit of reporting and the reporter should be fired. (or disconnected if it is a ChatBot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Just how would the US attempt to regulate the open aspect of RISC-V?"
The same way it regulates everything else. "Open aspect" means nothing.
Re: (Score:3)
It is not merely a question of whether RISC-V is a "government secret" but whether enemies of the state should have access to domestic technology of significant military value. If a country is annihilated, it won't be around to ponder whether RMS's open source sensibilities were properly satisfied. We may all be dead, but at least Stallman got his printer source code, right?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"RISC-V chips are used in certain US military devices"
Citations, please?
Re: (Score:2)
The politicians specifically mentioned 'security concerns'. Also, Here are two citations:
https://www.theregister.com/20... [theregister.com]
https://militaryembedded.com/r... [militaryembedded.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Misplaced concern. RISC-V being essentially open-source, that is the IP is open to anyone to take, modify as they wish, and generate tape to their specs, it's more open and can be more secure than any other CPU out there. Onshore dev of CPUs such as Intel and of course IBM PowerPC (RISC), being sourced form domestic partners, was essential for most military applications, but RISC-V can be just as secure - take the base IP out there, evaluate it to element level if you've got the time and expertise, add your
Re: (Score:2)
Let me be clear, ALL government regulations slow progress.
That's quite a claim to make. I hope you have extraordinary evidence to back up your extraordinary claim?
Just off the top of my head, most antitrust regulations exist to promote progress. An established company can't abuse its monopoly to crush competition and avoid having to compete with them. Then there's patents and copyrights, which are a type of government regulation. But they're widely believed to promote progress in at least some situations by encouraging creating new products. Laws requiring tr
Biden needs to change this (Score:2)
There really is no way to stop China from building nuclear, chemical and biological loaded missiles. They already have all 3, it is just matter of how good of control they have. And Xi is NOT interested in peace, but in controlling other nations. As such, this chips really will do NOTHING to stop it.
The best thing that the west can and needs to do, is have a decent defense against missiles and dron
Re: Biden needs to change this (Score:2)
You know laser missile defense is a rapidly evolving technology right? Railgun slugs still have to come down somewhere. Photons don't.
The horse left the stable long ago (Score:2)
China got the chips to market first, so I'm happy to have a couple of SiFive chips plus a MangoPi to play with. I shudder to think how long I've have needed to wait for the likes of Qualcomm and Intel to get around to it. As it is, any news on Horse Creek is very thin, even with that competition. I'm just waiting for Intel to show the rest of the world how it's done. But they tend to drop anything that's not x86-related in practice. (xscale, for example)
So what's the point of reacting that way now? As
dumb restrictions (Score:2, Troll)
besides restrictions on open tech are not implementable. shows how stupid the US governement is at every levels