RISC-V Foundation Moving To Switzerland Over Trade Curb Fears (reuters.com) 76
hackingbear writes: The RISC-V Foundation, which sets standards for the open-sourced CPU architecture and controls who can use the RISC-V trademark on products, will soon move to Switzerland to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology. "From around the world, we've heard that 'If the incorporation was not in the U.S., we would be a lot more comfortable,'" its Chief Executive Calista Redmond said. Redmond said the foundation's board of directors approved the move unanimously but declined to disclose which members prompted it. More than 325 companies or other entities pay to be members, including U.S. and European chip suppliers such as Qualcomm and NXP Semiconductors, as well as China's Alibaba Group and Huawei Technologies.
The foundation's move from Delaware to Switzerland may foreshadow further technology flight because of U.S. restrictions on dealing with some Chinese technology companies, said William Reinsch, who was undersecretary of commerce for export administration in the Clinton administration. "There is a message for the government. The message is, if you clamp down on things too tightly this is what is going to happen. In a global supply chain world, companies have choices, and one choice is to go overseas," he said. The U.S. has increased tenancy to sanction foreign, especially Chinese, companies using national security as an excuse, thus conveniently evading legal due process in the U.S. justice system without providing any actual evidence.
The foundation's move from Delaware to Switzerland may foreshadow further technology flight because of U.S. restrictions on dealing with some Chinese technology companies, said William Reinsch, who was undersecretary of commerce for export administration in the Clinton administration. "There is a message for the government. The message is, if you clamp down on things too tightly this is what is going to happen. In a global supply chain world, companies have choices, and one choice is to go overseas," he said. The U.S. has increased tenancy to sanction foreign, especially Chinese, companies using national security as an excuse, thus conveniently evading legal due process in the U.S. justice system without providing any actual evidence.
Would this also block National Security Letter.. (Score:3, Interesting)
... mandated backdoors?
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The needed data flowed back to the USA.
Now tech expects to be safe outside the USA in a nation that is happy to work with the USA on other issues?
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How many fabs are in Switzerland?
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Re: Would this also block National Security Letter (Score:2)
More than there are in Switzerland?
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Quite a few in fact:
https://www.intel.com/content/... [intel.com]
https://www.globalfoundries.co... [globalfoundries.com]
TSMC has an 8" fab in Camas, WA:
https://www.tsmc.com/english/c... [tsmc.com]
There are likely others.
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It will be a loss, but Intel only has themselves to blame. And let's not beat around the bush: nearly every silicon foundry business out there has either failed or taken a back seat. Globalfoundries is out of the race now, so that leaves TSMC; Samsung; and Intel. Intel may (as you say) kick the bucket in the foundry race soon if 7nm doesn't deliver for them.
As for other countries getting into the assembly and testing business? It all comes down to costs. Intel definitely lead the charge there. Do you re
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What do fabs have to do with this?
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How many FABS are in the UK (the home of ARM)?
Re:Would this also block National Security Letter. (Score:4, Informative)
... mandated backdoors?
National security letters couldn't mandate backdoors, at least not backdoors that reveal content. The scope of NSLs is explicitly limited by law to metadata only. There's also nothing in the law that would seem to authorize mandate of any system modification or other sort of pre-emptive access, only access to stored records. Further, the sort of information NSLs allow access to is more easily obtained from service providers than from CPUs.
You can read the law here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... [cornell.edu] (it's not long, or terribly hard to read).
I think a lot of the erroneous understanding of the scope of NSLs comes from confusion with CALEA, which does explicitly mandate that communications systems operators provide law-enforcement access, i.e. build in back doors for law enforcement use.
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I don't see how that would be practical. At least not yet. RISC-V as standard is primarily an instruction set so far. How do you put an "backdoor for NSA" command into an instructions set for a processor?
I guess open source RISC-V hardware designs will be highly welcome at the foundation, but even then it should be fairly obvious what is going on.
Re: Would this also block National Security Letter (Score:2)
The standard itself will have a backdoor? Insert a paragraph in the RISC-V specification document that a backdoor must exist? That seems like a dumb thing to do because literally everyone will find out. Backdoors are put in the implementation/fabrication not the specification.
Over reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
So drawing moral equivalency between the US and China, that's what the cool kids are doing today?
Funny, I'd have thought if anything, ACTUAL crackdown in Hong Kong, and the increasingly lurid revelations of what's being done to Chinese Uighurs might suggest to the professional whiners in the USA what ACTUAL totalitarianism looks like, not just the poseur-declared "Trump-is-a-fascist-because-I-don't-like-him" faux criticism.
Re:Over reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world doesn't care all that much about U.S. political squabbles (outside of being able to talk about them to deflect from their own issues, but one can hardly fault them for that) and shouldn't have to suffer for them. If you have an organization whose goals include letting everyone in the world participate and join in then it hardly makes sense to stay in a place that makes those kind of things difficult.
Maybe there's some ulterior political motives behind the move, but on the face of things it makes sense. Let's just take it for that without trying to attach anything more to it. But if you have evidence that it's just a political stunt feel free to post it and I'll gladly join in and call the people doing it shit heads from the comfort of my own computer chair.
Re:Over reaction (Score:5, Interesting)
So drawing moral equivalency between the US and China, that's what the cool kids are doing today?
Funny, I'd have thought if anything, ACTUAL crackdown in Hong Kong, and the increasingly lurid revelations of what's being done to Chinese Uighurs might suggest to the professional whiners in the USA what ACTUAL totalitarianism looks like, not just the poseur-declared "Trump-is-a-fascist-because-I-don't-like-him" faux criticism.
You didn't see them moving to china, did you?
I don't think this has to do directly with the present occupant, but the fact that the USA is becoming unpredictable. To the world it is starting to appear that if you say the wrong thing, oor do not do as ordered, the USA might cut you off.
The free world likes a bit of stability, and as the USA shifts to a Post-Communist Russian style of government, there are others who are concerned that stability is lost. Doesn't have to do with levels of whatever boogyman is pissing anyone off, but that we are changing in an unpredictable and unstable fashion. That is all.
Re:Over reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think this has to do directly with the present occupant, but the fact that the USA is becoming unpredictable.
Actually it does, no point in tip toeing around the elephant in the room. Even America's long time western allies pretty much all consider the country not just unpredictable, but also completely untrustworthy right now, They may be polite enough not to say it, but you know they all think it, and you can't deny there is really only one rather obvious reason for that state of affairs.
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You mean the fact that Europeans have been ruthlessly freeriding on American security guarantees while sneering at them in contempt for being the only nation with a military? That was unsustainable. They are wealthy First World nations, they can easily afford to pay for their own defense. You never outsource core competencies.
Britain and France both have nuclear arsenals. Europe does not need the US as badly as many Americans think. NATO is mostly off fighting in other parts of the world these days where the threats eminating are towards the US as well as Europe.
Re: Over reaction (Score:2)
Awesome - I totally agree. I propose the United States immediately withdraw _all_ troops and equipment from Europe. You guys are proudly multilingual, so you already speak Russian - right?
Feel free to call us when the Ruskies roll into Berlin. We might - or might not - give a damn.
100% serious on this. I will both vote for and contribute money to any politician promising immediate withdraw of the American military from Euro-peon Union territory.
Thanks for the demonstration (Score:2)
You know, nobody on Slashdot takes your childish and unreliable reaction to criticism and facts for serious. Personally I‘d guess that even outside of Slashdot nobody does give a flying fsck for your thoughts, but I may be wrong.
The problem is, that the US nowadays is making the same impression to the world that you do on Slashdot. Having the letters USA in ones plan or calculation has become a liability. That‘s why everybody and their dog is reducing their area of contact to the US.
Just like p
Re: Thanks for the demonstration (Score:1)
Like I said broham, the faster my country's military is out of Europe, the happier I am.
But it sounds like that's not really what you want. It sounds like you want to continue to freeride off American defense. While at the same time complaining loudly when America seeks to improve the one one-sided trade relationships established by a generation of corrupt leaders.
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Like I said broham, the faster my country's military is out of Europe, the happier I am.
You can leave Canada and NORAD too, makes no difference to me. But I don't think your leaders, no matter how much they whine about Europe, are going to vacate Ramstein and Incirlik anytime soon. They are not there for the protection of Europe, they are there as staging areas for operations elsewhere.
Re: Thanks for the demonstration (Score:2)
I assure you, my brother, those "operations elsewhere" are very unpopular with a large segment of the American people.
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Feel free to call us when the Ruskies roll into Berlin. We might - or might not - give a damn.
It's funny how the US presidents argument for calling the NATO obsolete was that the cold war was over while you seem to argue that the Ruskies will roll over europe.
Have you even seen how much russia spends on military? (not very much, about 1/10th of what NATO spends) It wouldn't make any sense for russia to start world war 3. Not only would russia lose, but such a war would screw up their economy which at the moment heavily relies on europe buying lots of shit from them (mainly natural resources). A war
Re: Over reaction (Score:1, Troll)
Smug Euro-peon is proud of himself for not understanding colloquial use of "Ruskies". Nothing to see here...
But I guess we at least agree now would be a splendid time to end NATO and let the EU shoulder the cost of its own defense. Right?
Re: Over reaction (Score:2)
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Right, some of us do, since speaking several languages broadens one's worldview. And by the way, "ruskies" is a double plural and hence stupid.
It seems you have watched too many cold war movies for your own good.
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And by the way, "ruskies" is a double plural and hence stupid.
Slang is rarely intended to follow any commonly recognized grammar rules, no matter what language it's in. Being a grammar nazi over it thus seems pointless.
Re: Over reaction (Score:2)
I am a German, what else did you expect?
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This is a REALLY REALLY STUPID statement that Republicans started. Also one of the reasons why our allies think we are drunk at the wheel.
Are you implying that foreign governments bribe or blackmail our Congress members into approving so much for military aid... more specifically Republicans because they usually vote yes? Are you saying that the US military with its massive budgets and big guns is just too weak to say NO to all those beggars? There has been no military engagement where the UN or NATO vot
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The US has - for the bulk of its history - been considered an unstable, revolutionary state; our government has always been inconstant, prone to extremism in one direction or another, and unreliable in its promises.
It takes a serious case of historical blindness to miss that.
Only since 1945 has the US been seen as some sort of Old World classical-format Great Power whose role has been as a guarantor of *anything*.
I'm not refuting the "bull in china shop" reputation of our clown-in-chief, but perhaps we're s
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In that case I guess the apropos response is "it was nice while it lasted".
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Well, I guess we could hope for another world-shattering war to leave us as the only ones standing again? 2nd time lucky?
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They may be polite enough not to say it
They are polite enough not to say it?
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
Over Canada. (Score:2)
Then they would have moved to Canada. Or is that too unstable for people?
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Our last couple of Prime Ministers have had a habit of just rolling over and doing whatever the US asks, so it might be.
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Besides the fact that Canada is more dependent on US trade then the US is dependent on Canadian trade, thus basically forcing our government to roll over. It is too easy to accidentally end up in the US. Recently a domestic plane got diverted from Vancouver to Seattle, lots of panic about people without proper documentation (passport), the possibility of being arrested for being illegally in the US (criminal records and such) and a big panic due to some passengers having substances illegal in the USA (mostl
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Funny, I'd have thought if anything, ACTUAL crackdown in Hong Kong, and the increasingly lurid revelations of what's being done to Chinese Uighurs might suggest to the professional whiners in the USA what ACTUAL totalitarianism looks like
Fascism is not a boolean. It's a spectrum.
Re: Over reaction (Score:2)
Let me guess, when you lived in "another country" it was closer to your hometown than New York is to Chicago.
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There is China the country run by the CCP, and there are the Chinese people who largely don't even know about most of the bad stuff it is doing. They are victims of the CCP too, only told that hooligans are rioting in Hong Kong and that free education and vocational training is being offered to millions of Muslim Chinese.
Things that make life worse for most Chinese people are not going to do much to hurt the CCP. If anything they help it because it's just more evidence they can use of Western Imperialism an
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On a completely unrelated subject (Score:4, Funny)
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Am I the only one who has “Ads Disabled” checked, but is still seeing video ads popping up on the main slashdot page anyway? Just trying to figure out if those are being injected by my ISP or if they’re actually just a feature of today’s slashdot.
I'm not seeing any of those... but since slashdot is HTTPS now, it should not be possible for your ISP to inject ads or otherwise muck with the content.
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The fix is easy (Score:1)
From the article
Some Republican U.S. lawmakers said they are concerned the United States will lose influence over RISC-V chip architecture
That is rich. The fix is easy, but the Rs are still to busy letting their "Glorious Leader" give it to them were the sun don't shine.
Until they decide to stop watching after themselves, this could grow from a trickle to a waterfall. But in any case, next year is shaping up to be quite interesting, and I am starting to suspect the Ds convention will be quite like the 68 convention.
I'm out (Score:1)
As an American innovator I can't continue to support Chinese tech companies. My company is currently a member of RISC-V foundation, but I am under no obligation to select R5 for our next chip project. We have tooling for our custom ASIC that we can revive, and we can still license ARM affordably.
RISC-V is a specification, and each vendor US and otherwise is allowed to implement it without license. Some implementations are completely open source, some are proprietary. You can license another implementation f
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Thanks, but no thanks (Score:2)
I recognize this happening to some degree but as a German I really don’t feel good about it. If the light we produce here is considered to resembling a beacon in the least the world has become a darker place than I realized...
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Nobody trusts China. Don't be ridiculous.
Re: I'm out (Score:2)
Bye bye.
Isn't it true that arm were affected by the "entity list" nonsense, despite not being a US or US-based company? It seems to me it is evidence *for* making a move out of US, not against it.
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So either the US is the only one doing it (while blaming everyone else)
OR
The US is incompetent (and gets caught).
My guess is that its actually both.
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The Chinese and the NSA are both risks that need to be mitigated.
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Any IT the US can get it's fingers into cannot be trusted. period. We can say the same for many other countries too.
However there's one thing that seems to be missed in the whole discussion - backdoors from a foreign country are less of a threat to my freedom than backdoors from my own country - simply because the foreign nation has little legal influence where I reside.
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Hyperbole much? I think you are just a paid troll...
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[Switzerland probably has more guns per head than America, but Swiss gun crime is closer to the rest of Europe than to America].
Right-wing Nationalism is creeping through Europe like a quiet plague. At least in the US it's slapped us in the face and we have a chance to wake up before it's too late. I would feel less comfortable immigrating to Western Europe than I would to the US. Of course it depends on circumstances.
American car fatalities are higher than the gun fatalities, so in terms of priorities I worry about: cancer, obesity related illness, car accidents, ...
Gotta keep China happy (Score:2)
Yes, the governments of Russia, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and — last, yet foremost — China.
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Cuba ain't designing shit.
declined to disclose (Score:2)
"Redmond said the foundation's board of directors approved the move unanimously but declined to disclose which members prompted it."
Sounds like someone was the lucky recipient of a suitcase full of cash in a dark parking lot =)
"we have heard"? No proper study? (Score:2)
No facts? Someone tells you something and then you change your policies?
Do you think you are still a serious organization?
Naive Nerds (Score:2)
Sorry, but these guys really have a naive understanding of how the world works.
Switzerland in particular isn't some "safe neutral haven" . The Swiss earn their neutrality by sucking on both sides of a war. They enabled the Nazi regime and also enable Russia and China through elaborate financing mechanisms.
This might be hard to swallow (pun intended) but when it comes to real life, you will always be kissing the boot of a thug. And those thugs are the Americans, Russians, and the Chinese.
I'll tell you this,
Re: Naive Nerds (Score:1)
If it promotes collaboration and innovation (Score:2)
Looks like the Trump administration... (Score:2)
...are making America grate again.
What I wanna know is what are those techies gonna do in all that fresh, clean Swiss mountain air? I guess pot's legal (but you have to say it's potpourri or for medical purposes or something) & so is LSD (no excuses necessary for that one). Switzerland is also only a hop skip & jump away from Paris, Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Milan, Prague, etc.. I know it's hard but I'm sure they can survive surrounded by socialists with their free healthcare & publi