<span style="font-size:16px;">An important part of the RVBoards Team's work is to drive the open source software ecosystem infrastructure for RISC-V. This includes building the RISC-V base software capability, building the RISC-V application developer ecosystem, and building the RVBoards board-level open source hardware standards and partners, with the ultimate goal of driving RISC-V adoption and innovation. Similar to the OpenHW Group's open source hardware development philosophy in the direction of RISC-V processor cores and SoC design, the OpenHW Group focuses on the RISC-V ip platform level and the RVBoards Team focuses on RISC-V base software open source and board-level open source hardware. But even if the need for these things is public knowledge, it will be difficult to avoid facing some plain questions: does open source mean free? And if it's free, who should pay for open source? </span> ### Free lunch or freedom of design? <span style="font-size:16px;">A common question for industry partners is: "Is OPEN SOURCE free?" My answer to this question is "With the RISC-V development opportunity, do you want to focus on getting free resources or freedom to design?" . I think Simon Davidmann, CEO of Imperas Software, put it more bluntly than I could: "People in one camp are looking for a free lunch and they don't want to pay anything. If they can get something without having to pay for it, then they can get something done. Those in the other camp want freedom." Here, I would like to advocate that "the open source concept of RISC-V should be implemented throughout the industry chain, and industry partners should work together to support and invest in open source projects in various forms, otherwise we will continue to miss this development opportunity". . Only in this way will RISC-V have the opportunity to realise its common vision and truly seize the development opportunities that are coming with the intelligence of everything. Why do you say this? </span> <span style="font-size:16px;"> 1. Some RISC-V IP design companies are more or less trying to emulate ARM's licensing mechanism and business model, however you can think about it, CPU licensing can feed one ARM, but, how many of these companies can it feed? 2. We are bullish on RISC-V, with a focus on giving developers the freedom to design. So, why is freedom of design so important? a. Under the influence of increased world trade frictions and the rise of neo-conservatism, we suddenly understand that freedom from constraints is so important. b. We are about to enter a new era of trillions of connected smart devices. The era of application-defined chips is coming, and only with the freedom of design can we achieve the ultimate innovation and be able to seize this important development opportunity. 3. A successful smart chip, RISC-V is only a basic key technology, not the whole chip, but also includes a large number of other IP, SoC design work, tool chain, basic software and application development, AI will also be increasingly weighted. Likewise, the chip is not the whole product; the product is the result of a division of labour and effort across the entire industry chain. The point I want to make here is that RISC-V, as a new technology system, is a huge systemic project in terms of its technical development to the general application of products. Then, each company must have a basic technology open source ecology to support, in addition to focusing on their own areas of expertise, and this ecology is something that everyone needs to build together. For example, giants like Apple, Google, intel, amd and Nvidia, which have full-stack R&D capabilities and massive capital investment, also need the same ecology. 4. Why does the whole RISC-V chain need the spirit of open source? Taking RISC-V IP customisation as an example, the work involved in extending or customising the added instructions, processing the required architecture content, validation, etc. is extremely challenging for companies without deep experience, while the IP must meet strict validation standards and long-term support and maintenance in today's commercial hardware; taking the underlying software required for RISC-V as an example, similar to OpenBLAS, compute libraray, OpenCV, etc., the amount of code migration required is enormous, as well as the ability to adapt and optimise the underlying Kernel, etc. Not every commercial company can have such a full-stack, sustained technical and financial investment. As well, the advantages you might be able to leverage to the best of your ability at the HW layer will be drained away by a poor, underlying software system that doesn't iterate consistently. 5. There must be an open source hardware ecology to avoid repetitive and meaningless R&D investment in the industry; there must also be an open source software ecology to face the fragmentation caused by the differentiated hardware world, making the application engineers at the end of the industry chain at a loss, otherwise, there will be the same repetitive R&D investment within the industry. 6. Open source is a major investment and a long-term endeavour, and any investment in open source is a development boost downstream. Are you sure you want to go forward alone? </span> ### Change is happening in the chip industry chain <span style="font-size:16px;"> I have made a few bold predictions about the future trends in the chip sector. 1. The era of application-defined chips will come. 2. The era of civilianization of chip design will come. 3. The cost of a chip from design, MPW to flow will become lower and lower, while efficiency will become higher and higher. </span> ### RVBoards Team Open Source Software Ecology Project <span style="font-size:16px;">Finally, I would like to stress once again that "we should implement the RISC-V open source philosophy throughout the entire industry chain in order to truly capture the smart future of everything that is coming", which is also the vision of the RVBoards Team! Development boards are available to all developers.</span> <div style="width:100%;text-align:center;">  </div> ### Conclusion <span style="font-size:16px;">I came across an interesting post before posting this article and share it with you. Application developers are the closest to the users and in most cases they don't care what platform they use, they are more concerned about the performance of the chip, software resources, cost and ease of use.</span> <div style="width:100%;text-align:center;">  </div> ### Important Notes <div style="width:100%;text-align:center;">  </div> ---