[ChiefOBrien]

> ARM's less open platform also comes with some advantages though. It's easier for ARM to prevent ecosystem fragmentation and non-standard instruction set extensions.

It's kind of funny way of looking at the core part of the ARM ecosystem while forgetting how much outside of the CPU is non-standard, undefined. None of the ARM devices share bootloader, device enumeration, and a plethora of things needed for an open, non-fragmented OS/Software ecosystem like how PC does.

Maybe you can run parts of the same ARM machine code on most devices, but it's not terribly portable to be honest, it has to be very generic. For example, Android devices end up in a pile of trash because you can't just upgrade the kernel to the latest version on a 1, 5, 10 year old smartphone without losing functionality or being stuck at step 1 for the lack of tools from broken forum links and shady fileshares. So much for software flexibility...

[klelatti]

So you're criticising Arm fragmentation but the possibility of more fragmentation in RISC-V is ok?

[ChiefOBrien]

My idea is that a CPU is just a component and it's useless by itself without considering the rest of the computer system. ARM needs to dip more into standardising the rest of the picture, and the RISC-V guys could also start looking into creating an open computer architecture initiative/group to prevent further fragmentation.

[humanwhosits]

RISC-V is trying to create a standard platform specification to address some of these concerns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2w4cWFpqAA

[klelatti]

Agree 100% - Arm could certainly do better.

I do worry though that the RISC-V ecosystem could be really torn in two by a big player (Intel?) who adds proprietary extensions and associated software.