Google’s temporary retreat on RISC-V is a good example of the kind of basic stumbling block that a new architecture faces on the road towards mainstream - the lack of a mature and unified ecosystem.

I think RISC-V is positioned well to be the preferred architecture for an open ecosystem. But that’s not necessarily going to help it compete. If RISC-V is ever able to compete with Arm it will be because some company developed a chip based on a proprietary implementation of RISC-V, that is able to outperform Arm based offerings in some key way. Proprietary is just more profitable than open, so that’s where the money is going to go, and you need money to compete.

That being said, I’m glad an open standard ISA like RISC-V exists.

Why you asking me?

Ecosystem is the key thing here. It’s a hard thing to go from cute embedded nonsense hacks to standard firmware booting distro cdroms/usb sticks and “boring” installs with strong upstream support. I’ve watched this first hand from the Arm ecosystem point of view and I don’t know who or where this work is being driven from for RiscV. Defining the ISA is really just the first step.

Google’s temporary retreat on RISC-V is a good example of the kind of basic stumbling block that a new architecture faces on the road towards mainstream - the lack of a mature and unified ecosystem. Most are familiar with the Arm ecosystem, with Qualcomm doing its thing in the laptop market currently with Windows on Arm devices, and Arm already has a foothold in the mobile ecosystem with companies such as MediaTek using the architecture to full effect within its flagship mobiles. But where does RISC-V potentially fit into the equation?

Even Microsoft and Qualcomm are having massive challenges with launching WoA and they’ve been at it for what seems like more than a decade. It’s not only about the smartphone apps, but everything else that comes with it; the whole “supply chain” and ecosystem.