On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 03:05:03PM -0500, [email protected] wrote: > -------- Original Message -------- > From: Jonathan Neuschäfer<[email protected]> > Apparently from: [email protected] > To: Eco-Conscious Computing <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: [Arm-netbook] sifive sells a riscv cpu mainboard > Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2018 18:49:36 +0100 > > > On Mon, Feb 05, 2018 at 12:39:57PM -0500, [email protected] wrote: > > > Sifive has a mainboard for sale with a running riscv cpu. Many > > > of the devices on the mainboard require non libre software. > > > > > > https://youtu.be/LAA1B5QNbO8?t=1507 > > > > What do you mean exactly? > > I do not know exactly what I mean. Go to 31.20 in the video > to hear what sifive means.
"As I told you, the Freedom Unleashed 540 chip is based on the Freedom platform, but unfortunately, there are things that we can't open-source, for example the IPs that we got from the third-parties, such as the standard cells, the pads, the PLLs, the OTPs, the mask ROMs, the DDR controller PHY, the gigabit MAC." This is all hardware, not software. > Can you tell if the mainboard is free software foundation > compliant? As far as I understand, yes. > If that is the case, I understood the video wrongly. I got > the impression the mainboard requires non libre software > to run. Software which makes the mainboard not free > software foundation compliant. > > At 43.39 in the video they say, they are using an > external non libre software graphics card. If we got > all of the source code for one of the mali gpu's, > could the aforementioned gpu then be used on > a riscv mainboard? This was a regular desktop graphics card, connected over PCIe. > Or in general, can you place a mali gpu on a riscv mainboard? No, MALI is (AFAIK) not available as a separate chip, so you can't put it on a board if the SoC doesn't already have it. And since it's ARM MALI, I don't think ARM will license it for use in RISC-V SoCs… Jonathan Neuschäfer _______________________________________________ arm-netbook mailing list [email protected] http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to [email protected]
