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RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

reuters.com

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Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#221

Post by microtherion »

I'm not sure this move accomplishes that much. It seems none of the technology is moving abroad, just the legal seat. And on trade issues, Switzerland moves pretty much in lockstep with the US, at least officially (cf. Iran sanctions).

To me, this smacks of the kind of legalist thinking that software engineers are prone to: Assuming that if some legal construct is implemented according to some rules, governments and the legal system will disregard the actual physical reality, and will refrain from employing their political leverage.

Then again, I'm sure the RISC-V Foundation has professional legal advice at their disposal.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#222

Post by mcguire »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #165
gonational wrote: post #149

> wants to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology Read as: > wants to ensure that China... Let me see if I understand this correctly. US tax dollars funded (in part, via UC Berkeley) this technology, and now this organization is moving outside of the US specifically so that it can work with China in ways that the US would not appreciat…

The signals from the current US administration is pretty clear. It is a government that puts American interest ahead of any other concern. Naturally universities in other western countries are going to have their doubts about cooperating on crucial technology if it is under control by a government which only cares about national interests. Same reason I favor exiting NATO and building a European alliance only. The US…

The US pays 22% of the relatively tiny (~2B€) NATO direct budget. France, Germany, and England supply 34% combined. The US also has the something like the idea9th largest military in Europe at ~65K.

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-biggest-standing-arm...

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#223

Post by Twixes »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #165
gonational wrote: post #149

> wants to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology Read as: > wants to ensure that China... Let me see if I understand this correctly. US tax dollars funded (in part, via UC Berkeley) this technology, and now this organization is moving outside of the US specifically so that it can work with China in ways that the US would not appreciat…

The signals from the current US administration is pretty clear. It is a government that puts American interest ahead of any other concern. Naturally universities in other western countries are going to have their doubts about cooperating on crucial technology if it is under control by a government which only cares about national interests. Same reason I favor exiting NATO and building a European alliance only. The US…

Absolutely. In light of all this American antipathy Europe should form its own strong alliance. Relying on an overseas superpower when we could be a superpower ourselves as the EU will bite us eventually. And we will definitely achieve nothing as more than two dozen separate countries.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#224

Post by wsy »

onepointsixC wrote: post #190
DethNinja wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol that’s a huge jump from developing open source cpu without backdoors to genocide of Uyghurs.

It's not at all. RISC-V Foundation can develop open-source CPU's in the US as they have thus far. They are moving explicitly to circumvent US export restrictions to China. The CCP's mass surveillance in Xin Jiang is incredibly sophisticated[1]. It is simply not possible for them to accomplish this computationally without state of the art hardware which they will now have a new avenue to acquire. [1]: https://www.nyti…

The impact on China's mass surveillance capabilities is negligible, because RISC-V work is open source already.

What the foundation avoids by moving to Switzerland is fragmentation of their ecosystem due to US foreign policy decisions.

Note that China is already among the technology leaders in the world. Even if cut off from the remaining world, they would have no issue in manufacturing and operating sophisticated surveillance infrastructure. So I can't see how the foundation would help suppressed minorities in China by staying in US.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#225

Post by microtherion »

beatgammit wrote: post #206
microtherion wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's what we LIKE the others to think. Realistically, our armed forces are at a strength of about 140K soldiers right now (pretty sure that's not a state secret). The parts of the terrain that are actually inhabited are not particularly forbidding (let them build their RISC processors in a hut nestled beside an 8500ft mountain pass. Don't forget to bring popcorn as you watch them). And nuclear power plants ma…

According to Wikipedia [1], you have ~160k active military with ~1.5M that could be conscripted. That's not huge, but it's enough to give an enemy a bad time, especially with the Swiss terrain and strategic defenses. And I'm sure they'd have a bunch of other countries willing to back them up, depending on the belligerent. I highly doubt it'll come to that. It would be much easier to just infiltrate the fab and replac…

160k may have been accurate 2 years ago, but the number is shrinking continuously: https://interaktiv.tagesanzeiger.ch/2019/militaer/bestand.sv...

> it's enough to give an enemy a bad time

That depends a lot on the objective, I think. The defenses against an enemy controlling the transalpine transportation axes are fairly strong. But I think this scenario gets talked up a lot for exactly that reason.

The defenses against an enemy controlling 80% of the population and 90% of the economy are much weaker. Then again, it might only take a few sysadmins armed with SQL queries to deal significant economic damage against any attacker.

> It would be much easier to just infiltrate the fab and replace stock going to an important destination.

True. And if I've understood the article correctly, no fabs would be changing location. RISC-V is an open source design, so the fabs in question would probably be located in the "enemy" countries anyway.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#226

Post by wsy »

some_random wrote: post #191
Isinlor wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both sentiments are pointed in the same direction - more freedom. Also, Blizzard, South Park, NBA are part of popular culture in the west. Cooperation with China is endangering that culture, so you see backlash. Standards related to RISC-V are not part of popular culture and there is no danger of Chinese censorship. There is however danger of USA protectionism. And yes - I can see Americans using microchip intellectu…

> USA protectionism Is it just maybe possible that the US public is waking up to the ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansings, and widespread human rights violations in China, which may lead to the state being sanctioned like so many other despicable regimes?

No, because then US would stop doing business with Saudi-Arabia.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#227

Post by justin66 »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #57
coliveira wrote: post #14

This is a great move. It is time to punish countries that impose restrictions on technology. I don't want to be a prisoner in a place where technology is simply considered "illegal" because it doesn't further the interests of the ruling class.

I think standards development should be open, so Switzerland is the ideal host in any geopolitical situation. Otherwise, I do think the American economy could benefit from restrictions on imports. It's called import substitution economics, which worked very well for american steel back in the late 19th century. Not sure if it'll work again though. Things are different now.

> I think standards development should be open, so Switzerland is the ideal host in any geopolitical situation.

If you think Switzerland is particularly "open" in terms of intellectual property law it would be interesting to understand why.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#228

Post by justin66 »

gonational wrote: post #149

> wants to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology Read as: > wants to ensure that China... Let me see if I understand this correctly. US tax dollars funded (in part, via UC Berkeley) this technology, and now this organization is moving outside of the US specifically so that it can work with China in ways that the US would not appreciat…

> based in the Occident

OK Rudyard Kipling.

> Let me see if I understand this correctly. US tax dollars funded (in part, via UC Berkeley) this technology, and now this organization is moving outside of the US specifically so that it can work with China in ways that the US would not appreciate.

Given the open source nature of the tech, one assumes they are (rightly or wrongly) moving out of the US so they can continue to work with whoever they want.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#229

Post by pohl »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #165
gonational wrote: post #149

> wants to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology Read as: > wants to ensure that China... Let me see if I understand this correctly. US tax dollars funded (in part, via UC Berkeley) this technology, and now this organization is moving outside of the US specifically so that it can work with China in ways that the US would not appreciat…

The signals from the current US administration is pretty clear. It is a government that puts American interest ahead of any other concern. Naturally universities in other western countries are going to have their doubts about cooperating on crucial technology if it is under control by a government which only cares about national interests. Same reason I favor exiting NATO and building a European alliance only. The US…

> It is a government that puts American interest ahead of any other concern

Usually, that's the case, but these days: all roads lead to Putin.

Re: RISC-V Foundation moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears

#230

Post by nine_zeros »

riversflow wrote: post #203
wayoutthere wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are such things as universal human rights, and China is absolute violation of them. You mean the ones that the US routinely violates for "terrorists" and "criminals"? China uses the exact same rhetoric for the people whose rights it violates. The situation with the Uyghurs mirrors a lot of the tactics used in the 70s by American police against black Americans under the guise of the "war on drugs" (hint: our p…

>What else could we have done? We could have engaged with the Japanese in the Pacific and let Europe duke it out and weaken themselves to nothing. Then rolled into Europe with tanks and taken over the whole world? Seriously. I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure we could have taken a very different route in WWII. If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countrie…

The America of WW2 was very different from America of today.

Today, America is the thug that everyone wants to replace.

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