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Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

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Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#51

Post by darklycan51 »

RetroTechie wrote: post #16

It's amazing that the move of RISC-V Foundation to Switzerland (as RISC-V International) was actually called for. Even more amazing is US lawmakers continuing to try & shoot the US in the foot. RISC-V is now globally developed, that ship has sailed. Same for products based on it. The US can't prevent its 'proliferation'. Only reduce the degree to which US entities are part of, and profit from that. Are US lawmakers t…

It's so beyond dumb that they think this in any way is related to national security, this has the potential very literally create some huge troubles for the US in the future...

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#52

Post by butlerm »

OhMeadhbh wrote: post #12
deutschepost wrote: post #4

Wasn’t RISC-V developed in the US? And the first company to produce chips with this ISA, SiFive is US based too. Why would it make sense to ban it in the US? They literally invented it.

SiFive launched a chinese subsidiary (StarFive) in 2017/2018. And they just announced they were giving designs for some of their high-end cores to Sophgo (a company out of Beijing.) My guess is US administrators want SiFive to apply for export licenses before they do this again. I pretty much agree w/ Bunnie on this one. I lived through the Crypto(graphy) Wars of 90s and still have my "Sink Clipper" poster around her…

As I understand it, the U.S. does not subsidize petroleum marketers, or at least not very much. Oil companies are generally taxed on net income after expenses and depreciation, same as all other businesses.

Plus depletion, which like depreciation reflects the value of an asset going down over time, making the company in question worth less than it would be otherwise, i.e. the book value is going down.

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#53

Post by beebmam »

DangitBobby wrote: post #47
RetroTechie wrote: post #16

It's amazing that the move of RISC-V Foundation to Switzerland (as RISC-V International) was actually called for. Even more amazing is US lawmakers continuing to try & shoot the US in the foot. RISC-V is now globally developed, that ship has sailed. Same for products based on it. The US can't prevent its 'proliferation'. Only reduce the degree to which US entities are part of, and profit from that. Are US lawmakers t…

US lawmakers are just a mouthpiece for whoever is paying them.

I think this discounts the genuine political opinions that many elected officials in the US government have, especially about the new cold war with China.

It's worth noting that China spends more money lobbying the US government than any other country on earth: https://www.opensecrets.org/fara/countries

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#54

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

Headlines so weird, you have to click...

I was thinking to myself, there's no way that someone's acting like it's 1988 again, and we have to embargo this from leaving the country for fear Saddam Hussein will use it to construct a 50 megaflops supercomputer with which to pre-calculate artillery firing solution tables.

Then I clicked, and it really is that dumb. Way to go Congress.

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#55

Post by tcgv »

While I strongly agree with the blog post and letter, I believe the letter would be more effective if it spent more time explaining how the proposed restrictions will most likely backfire, i.e., put the US in a less advantageous position to defend its dominance in CPU technology with regard to China.

No politician or regulator would like to be labelled as someone who favored a foreign competitor country.

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#56

Post by addicted »

lolinder wrote: post #48
RetroTechie wrote: post #16

It's amazing that the move of RISC-V Foundation to Switzerland (as RISC-V International) was actually called for. Even more amazing is US lawmakers continuing to try & shoot the US in the foot. RISC-V is now globally developed, that ship has sailed. Same for products based on it. The US can't prevent its 'proliferation'. Only reduce the degree to which US entities are part of, and profit from that. Are US lawmakers t…

> Are US lawmakers that dumb? I posted the numbers as a top level comment here [0], but the short version is that a lot of the signatories of this letter received (small) donations from Intel in the last election cycle. My best guess is that Intel is actively lobbying against RISC-V using China as the boogeyman, and that these lawmakers were persuaded (sincerely or otherwise) to treat RISC-V as a threat. [0] https://…

I think the donations part of it isn’t even that important.

If you think about how legislation does (and can) work, lawmakers, even if they were the most gifted people on the planet, obviously are not experts on everything. As a result they have to rely on others.

But who should those others be? When it comes to something like chip manufacturing, you’re down to essentially 1 major U.S. company in this area that can provide guidance.

One could argue they could go to academics, but a single academic is good for going deep into a specific area and not so good at cross concerns.

And bringing together all those people is effort.

On the other hand you have Intel that’s got scores of researchers, marketing experts, and lobbyists who are basically giving you high quality data and information for free.

Even without money and therefore outright corruption playing any role, companies like these have an outsized influence on lawmakers for absolutely practical reasons.

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#58

Post by mschuster91 »

> This has long been a trade-off of American innovation philosophy: we can freely exercise our First Amendment rights to share ideas, creating a vibrant intellectual exchange, even at the risk of others benefiting from reading our textbooks, journals and patents.

Sometimes, we have to re-evaluate our positions. We cannot risk supplying our enemies with stuff they can turn around and use as weapons against ourselves any more. The sooner broader society wakes up and realizes that we, as collective Western nations, are at war, the better. It may not be a "conventional" war yet, but that doesn't make it less dangerous!

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#59

Post by lolinder »

rany_ wrote: post #37
lolinder wrote: post #33

The numbers aren't large, but it's worth noting that 7 out of 18 signatories of the original letter received donatations from Intel's PAC in 2022 [0]: Mike Gallagher: $6000 Marco Rubio: $2500 Haley Stevens: $2000 Carlos Gimenez: $5000 Darin LaHood: $7000 Andy Barr: $2000 Ashley Hinson: $10000 Total: $34500 [0] https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...

I sure hope they aren't that cheap.

As I understand it, the donation is not the price of legislation, it's the price to get your foot in the door for additional lobbying efforts later.

If a lobbyist connected to a donor requests a meeting, they get it, and if the lobbyist can then make a convincing enough case (preferably legally but sometimes otherwise) they can get action in their favor.

Re: Regarding Proposed US Restrictions on RISC-V

#60

Post by Qem »

zelon88 wrote: post #24

So correct me if I'm wrong, but you'll still be allowed to push public commits to a public RISC-V related repo, but you'll need a special government license to resolve issues opened by anyone related to China?

People will need to publish commits in book form again, like the Phil Zimmerman did with PGP, to have freedom of expression.

See: https://philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/BookPreface.html

I'm picturing RISC-V processors being sold in boxes that are actually small bible-like books with ornate binding, full of paper printed source code, with small hollows inside where the chips fit.

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