Android Ported to RISC-V • Hacker News Board

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#21

Post by dkjaudyeqooe » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

d3ckard wrote: post #11

AlexAltea wrote: post #8

Related: https://www.cnet.com/news/chip-designer-arm-ditches-huawei-b... Unsurprisingly, this has been done by Alibaba-owned T-Head Semiconductor. The obvious result if Chinese vendors start facing obstacles to obtain licenses to manufacture ARM-based chips (or any other non-Chinese architecture). How can anyone expect that software/hardware-bans to global superpowers can result in anything but their software/hardwar…

That's good though. That means they have to invest in R&D instead of depending on exploiting cheap labour to brute-force their way into the market. If they invest in R&D, they need creative people who are up to date. Such people tend to bring change to the society at large(I'd say democracy is really good for creativeness to flourish). Basically, the goal is not to expunge them from the market, the goal is to make th…

> exploiting cheap labour to brute-force their way into the market.

Do you mean like slavery in the United States?

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#22

Post by varispeed » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:53 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #16

varispeed wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that restrictions are not thought through. If they were banned from using Android altogether, they wouldn't be able (legally) to port it on that architecture in the first place. The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely. These obstacles are kind of similar to patents. When you discover something and then you learn someone was first…

You cannot legally ban them from using Android. Google play store and other proprietary apps, sure, but the actual android OS is free software. > The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely And how would the US enforce such a law abroad? Even admitting that European countries (UK included), Japan, South Korea, and most of latin America decided to p…

They could copy and paste laws that are used for illegal drugs enforcement - just replace drugs with Android from China and then force other countries to support that.

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#23

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:54 PM UTC

d3ckard wrote: post #11

AlexAltea wrote: post #8

Related: https://www.cnet.com/news/chip-designer-arm-ditches-huawei-b... Unsurprisingly, this has been done by Alibaba-owned T-Head Semiconductor. The obvious result if Chinese vendors start facing obstacles to obtain licenses to manufacture ARM-based chips (or any other non-Chinese architecture). How can anyone expect that software/hardware-bans to global superpowers can result in anything but their software/hardwar…

That's good though. That means they have to invest in R&D instead of depending on exploiting cheap labour to brute-force their way into the market. If they invest in R&D, they need creative people who are up to date. Such people tend to bring change to the society at large(I'd say democracy is really good for creativeness to flourish). Basically, the goal is not to expunge them from the market, the goal is to make th…

[deleted]

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#24

Post by dkjaudyeqooe » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #12

AlexAltea wrote: post #8

Related: https://www.cnet.com/news/chip-designer-arm-ditches-huawei-b... Unsurprisingly, this has been done by Alibaba-owned T-Head Semiconductor. The obvious result if Chinese vendors start facing obstacles to obtain licenses to manufacture ARM-based chips (or any other non-Chinese architecture). How can anyone expect that software/hardware-bans to global superpowers can result in anything but their software/hardwar…

The problem is that restrictions are not thought through. If they were banned from using Android altogether, they wouldn't be able (legally) to port it on that architecture in the first place. The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely. These obstacles are kind of similar to patents. When you discover something and then you learn someone was first…

Pedophiles use computers, the internet, encryption, cars, roads, and the products and services of various business to sexually abuse children.

How should all the people who built those things feel?

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#25

Post by literallycancer » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 1:03 PM UTC

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #21

d3ckard wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's good though. That means they have to invest in R&D instead of depending on exploiting cheap labour to brute-force their way into the market. If they invest in R&D, they need creative people who are up to date. Such people tend to bring change to the society at large(I'd say democracy is really good for creativeness to flourish). Basically, the goal is not to expunge them from the market, the goal is to make th…

> exploiting cheap labour to brute-force their way into the market. Do you mean like slavery in the United States?

Slavery resulted in zero pressure to innovate and industrialize and was the number 1 reason why the South had a garbage economy.

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#26

Post by dkjaudyeqooe » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 1:06 PM UTC

AlexAltea wrote: post #8

Related: https://www.cnet.com/news/chip-designer-arm-ditches-huawei-b... Unsurprisingly, this has been done by Alibaba-owned T-Head Semiconductor. The obvious result if Chinese vendors start facing obstacles to obtain licenses to manufacture ARM-based chips (or any other non-Chinese architecture). How can anyone expect that software/hardware-bans to global superpowers can result in anything but their software/hardwar…

The irony is that the Chinese strategy is the make the West dependent on it for various goods, while the US strategy is to ensure China is not dependent on it for the key goods the US has a competitive advantage over.

Given that necessity is the mother of invention you can imagine that with China's economies of scale and cheap labor that they will have a competitive advantage sooner than later and the US will become dependent on them for advanced semiconductors.

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#27

Post by xiphias2 » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 1:12 PM UTC

,,Compatibility with graphically intensive apps, like games, will be a problem as many game engines are written natively in C and C++, and specifically target the Arm architecture.''

I'm quite OK with that if I get a better battery life in return. I depend on Google services though.

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#28

Post by littlestymaar » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 1:14 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #22

littlestymaar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You cannot legally ban them from using Android. Google play store and other proprietary apps, sure, but the actual android OS is free software. > The same goes with the RISC-V as well - the law could be written to allow only certain countries to use it freely And how would the US enforce such a law abroad? Even admitting that European countries (UK included), Japan, South Korea, and most of latin America decided to p…

They could copy and paste laws that are used for illegal drugs enforcement - just replace drugs with Android from China and then force other countries to support that.

> They could copy and paste laws that are used for illegal drugs enforcement

Given how well it worked, I'm not sure it's a great path to follow…

> then force other countries to support that.

Well, that's where it becomes interesting. Where are those countries supposed to get their Android phones from? Samsung cannot double their Android phone production.

And what if China responded by not allowing the China-made iPhones to be shipped abroad?

Geopolitics is a tough topic, and even as powerful as they are, the US can't just control everything directly. And on most actions, they can only pull the trigger once.

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#29

Post by kls » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #20

varispeed wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know that nothing stops them from rounding up engineers are move them to a camp with an order to develop certain technology in exchange for bread and water and that their families will live? Soviet Union for example used to build entire cities where they crammed engineers from all over the Union, however rather than being exploited, the engineers had special privileges. But that easily could change with a stro…

There is sense of mystique associated with the Soviet Union but the best they managed to build were AKs, Soyuz, Chernobyl, all interesting and robust in its own ways but not all that competitive in terms of performance, so,

I understand the sentiment you are trying to express and to some degree I agree but I would argue that the AK is a really bad example that actually is probably the greatest example of the Soviet simple utilitarian technology. Out of all of the battle rifles designed (The big three being the AR, AK and FAL/SCAR) the AK has gone under the least amount of revisions, the biggest revision being the AK-74 where the Soviets decided to go to a smaller caliber to compete with the introduction of the AR and more importantly, really the only revision functionally was the 74 went to a short stroke vs the 47's long stroke. The AK platform has not only survive the test of time, but is probably the most reliable battle rifle built, it is a testament to the genius of Kalashnikov that the AK produced today is functionally the same design as built in 1947. It is also very emblematic of the Soviet thought process in design.

Re: Android Ported to RISC-V

#30

Post by zamadatix » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 1:27 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #19

zamadatix wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a country isn't willing to honor human rights why do you think they'll honor some foreign group's license.txt when it comes down to it?

The products containing code or chips that are not allowed could be incorporated in the same regime as illegal drugs - so trading or possessing a device with such operating system or technology could be deemed illegal.

I'm more talking the 1.4 billion people in China that need CPUs when you try to tell them they can't use ARM or RISC or etc. not the 330 million in the US that want something manufactured. We've already import restricted Android devices from e.g. Huawei, it has had no impact to their need for CPU designs for them though.