Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms • Hacker News Board

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#151

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #145

nickpsecurity wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SPARC is owned by SPARC International, a non-profit. Its specs and everything are open: http://sparc.org/technical-documents/ One embedded implementation with a ton of supporting I.P. is GPL'd, FPGA-proven, ASIC-proven, and rad-hard in some verisons: http://www.gaisler.com/index.php/downloads/leongrlib?task=vi... And then there's Oracle, their badass chips, and their evil ass lawyers. We can stay away from all that.…

Is there are repository for this? Or do they still do the cathedral model?

I'm pretty sure it's the catheral model. I'm not even sure that they're doing open-source with Leon4 onward as pretty much nothing happened with GPL'd Leon3 and GRLIB. Comp Sci people and companies doing rad-hard, space apps are still getting and building on it.

Best way to deal with them is to straight-up license their tech for a Pi- or router-style board. Then fab, assemble, and sell that joker. That gets the ecosystem going. CompSci people doing CPU's or RISC-V work can keep building reusable components both can use. Then we just pay for the integrations.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#152

Post by wolfgke » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #144

wolfgke wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because ARM and MIPS chips are a lot more power-efficient.

Because the chip-makers and chip buyers are using ARM and MIPS in power-efficient SOC's. They could do the same with SPARC. They just didn't for whatever reasons. Far as power efficiency, kristoffer might be able to chime in as it's not in the data sheets for Gaisler. That's suspicious: either the numbers are bad or they leave it off given its meant for customization. Anyway, the Leon4... http://www.gaisler.com/index…

> I'll take 6watts consumption in a router in exchange for quad-core, IOMMU-enabled, fault-tolerant, open CPU.

The router vendor surely looks at the cost of the CPU - ARM and MIPS cores are probably much cheaper.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#153

Post by lolidaisuki » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:18 PM UTC

riscy wrote: post #40

I'd personally like to see the FOSS community try to embrace the POWER architecture: Ubuntu/Canonical are major members of the OpenPOWER foundation [1], so at least an entity sympathetic with our philosophy has an influence on the architecture. [1] http://openpowerfoundation.org

Raptorengineering is planning to release computer that's based on OpenPOWER.

https://raptorengineeringinc.com/TALOS/prerelease.php

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#154

Post by valarauca1 » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:19 PM UTC

jclulow wrote: post #89

mordocai wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd imagine people don't bother looking at an oracle technology and just assume it is closed or unsupported due to the ways they generally operate. That doesn't make it right to do this, but that'd be my guess. I certainly didn't know SPARC was open until your comment.

As far as I know, Oracle has not made any SPARC intellectual property available since the acquisition of Sun. The T1 and T2 lines were emphatically Sun-era products.

So if API's are copyright-able.

And SPARC T1/T2 are GPL CopyLeft.

Shouldn't Oracle have to open source T3/T4/T5/M7 processors also?

(No I don't have the money required to sue Oracle and keep this suit open for the 2 decades settlement will take).

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#155

Post by rsync » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #42

Unbelievable. Yet again, we have a post on finding x86 alternative that's most FOSS friendly. Yet again, the author is unaware of or ignores the only architecture that's open, has GPL cores, and an ecosystem. That's SPARC. Oracle's T1 and T2 cores are open-source to study. More appropriately, Cobham-Gaisler's Leon3 HW is dual-licensed under GPL and commercial. The Leon4 is 4-cores. SPARC ISA is open. Open Firmware ex…

"Oracle's T1 and T2 cores are open-source to study."

If you had to pick a Oracle (Sun?) T2 based system to purchase off of ebay, with the interest in using it as a "more free, more open" system, what would you buy ?

What OS would you run on it ?

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#156

Post by nickpsecurity » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

wolfgke wrote: post #152

nickpsecurity wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the chip-makers and chip buyers are using ARM and MIPS in power-efficient SOC's. They could do the same with SPARC. They just didn't for whatever reasons. Far as power efficiency, kristoffer might be able to chime in as it's not in the data sheets for Gaisler. That's suspicious: either the numbers are bad or they leave it off given its meant for customization. Anyway, the Leon4... http://www.gaisler.com/index…

> I'll take 6watts consumption in a router in exchange for quad-core, IOMMU-enabled, fault-tolerant, open CPU. The router vendor surely looks at the cost of the CPU - ARM and MIPS cores are probably much cheaper.

Remember, I mentioned the SOC vendors as well. They currently license MIPS and ARM. Many choose MIPS due to cheap license. ARM's license, royalties, and restrictions are ridiculously expensive. SPARC has a cost advantage over it. So, once again, it's neither energy nor costs that are reasons they chose MIPS and ARM over SPARC.

Keep guessing.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#157

Post by digi_owl » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:20 PM UTC

DenisM wrote: post #19

speeder wrote: post #5

I've been looking into this recently. Basically, the things mentioned on the text, made free software bios and firmwares impossible, some of the free software projects that exist now are mostly "binary blobs loaders", having more binary blob than free software code running. There is some good analysis on why even Intel can't fix this if they wanted to, unless they stopped shipping some features entirely, their Intel…

Apple will be sitting pretty with their own CPU, heh? At least in the iOS devices, but who knowns what the (near) future brings to the Mac line.

With the iPad Pro and iOS9 multitasking ui, i find it more likely that they would discontinue the iMac models.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#158

Post by marssaxman » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:24 PM UTC

muricula wrote: post #34

DenisM wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple will be sitting pretty with their own CPU, heh? At least in the iOS devices, but who knowns what the (near) future brings to the Mac line.

I doubt it. The powerpc to Intel switch was really painful because the desktop platform has the perpetual ball and chain of backward compatability. I doubt Apple would try to beat Intel at their own high performance game anyway.

Having previously gone through the 68k-PowerPC switch, the PowerPC-x86 switch seemed to me like a non-event. The desktop platform most certainly does not have a perpetual backward compatibility obligation; Apple has always been far more willing than Microsoft to break old stuff after a few years if it happens to conflict with their new stuff.

I would expect that they have already been building OS X for ARM internally for several years, and that they'd prefer to avoid switching again but would certainly do it if they ever felt like the use of Intel's architecture was creating a problem for their business.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#159

Post by occamrazor » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:25 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #127

ricardobeat wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging by the specs on their current lineup, it looks like Apple already gave up on performance anyway.

Aside from the stale Mac Pro, which current Macs do you think are indicative of Apple giving up on performance?

The new macbook 12" is thinner and lighter than the older MBA, but without significant performance improvements.

Re: Freedom and security issues on x86 platforms

#160

Post by reirob » Mon, Apr 04, 2016, 7:27 PM UTC

dublinben wrote: post #148

mpnordland wrote: post #21

It's great that these guys pushing POWER8 at least have a workable situation, but at least for me, throwing $3,700 at a motherboard (Alone!) just isn't feasible. I would love to be free of proprietary firmware, but it would seem that's only for people better off than myself.

You can buy a Libreboot-compatible Thinkpad X60 for $50. It is absolutely not the case that fully free firmware is only available by paying lots of money.

Yes there is even a company shipping T400 and X200 Thinkpads pre-installed with libreboot and I see they have now an option for a server: https://minifree.org/