From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Craven Subject: Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Free firmware - A redefinition of the term and a new metric for it's measurement. Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2017 11:41:24 +0100 Message-ID: References: <87tw8bjhqm.fsf@gmail.com> <2c7ae911-863f-4831-f024-060e5f899d3a@alaskasi.com> <87k2948d2q.fsf@gmail.com> <06cfad8d-0222-1c63-522d-013ecd2e6ce8@alaskasi.com> <874lzy4lq2.fsf@gmail.com> <20170213084231.GA16213@jocasta.intra> <87inod2rd4.fsf@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45651) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdaY5-0003Hi-2Z for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 05:41:30 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdaY2-0002HX-1b for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 05:41:29 -0500 Received: from mail-qk0-x241.google.com ([2607:f8b0:400d:c09::241]:36631) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1cdaY1-0002HE-Su for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 05:41:25 -0500 Received: by mail-qk0-x241.google.com with SMTP id p22so10751056qka.3 for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2017 02:41:25 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87inod2rd4.fsf@gmail.com> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Maxim Cournoyer Cc: guix-devel , Christopher Howard , Workgroup for fully free GNU/Linux distributions > I had followed some earlier developments but had lost track recently! > I'm happy to see that they have released the sources of their > microcontroller chip design. It's more than a microcontroller chip design. The people behind sifive are from uc berkeley and also developed a full gcc toolchain backend, a linux port, a qemu and a clang port. They have taped out multiple chips capable of booting Linux, and are still working on putting the finishing touches on the privileged architecture spec which is an open collaborative effort of the RISCV foundation, before releasing their SoC.. The sifive developers play an important role there. Benchmarks for code size and performance show that their SoC and the ISA they developed is comparable to and out performs at least all ARM cortex-a chips with an in-order-pipeline. They also are developing and have taped out an out-of-order core. All of their developments are released as free hardware. Their specifications have enabled me to study a real world instruction set architecture, studying something like ARM or x86 - I'm sure people have looked at those manuals - are not something a beginner can study to any form of completeness, they are simply to large and too complicated. Cheers, David