Hi, I have very little insight other than google news what it means that the flagship of risc-v, a company called sifive, had a lot of layoffs. I have heard scarecrow stories of the US Chip Act or something that the US is moving anti-riscv.
I have three riscv computers right now, all of them come out of China and one of them uses sifive cpu's, so it's half american. I had planned to buy more american risc-v but the politics around chips and riscv aren't particularily positive. I can probably forget buying a Sifive/Intel P550 now. It was in competition with a Lichee Pi or a Milk-V Oasis-type board. And now the choice from three became two. I want this as my workstation. I wrote about this before and it was suggested to me that I get a Milk-V Pioneer but I can't afford the electric bill for that, I figure. So, I have to ask does anyone have interesting insights as to perhaps US or European riscv efforts? I would buy if affordable and competive with what Chinese manufacturers are offering. I do believe risc-v with its openness is my favourite architecture so far. Also, I told my close ones, that I won't be buying for just myself but also for someone at OpenBSD (so twice) as riscv is still bleeding edge somewhat especially on the desktop. I was very happy with what was announced with the Oasis board. The price is right ($120) to perhaps get two boards to OpenBSD here, given that someone at OpenBSD wants to give it a turn to do development on it, and they might be able to do it with two+ people. I have been looking around others who in the past wanted to donate and we could possibly get an even larger donation together, given, only if there is interest in the OpenBSD developer community. That was a few weeks ago before Oasis was announced for the Lichee Pi, but I think the Oasis to me is a lot more interesting than a Lichee Pi and may be cheaper in the end. One particular nice thing about it is my interpretation that it has non-soldered on RAM. Let me know if you have some answers and if potentially anyone is available to receive Oasis-type boards perhaps after Christmas, I'll be following up with a purchase in March 2024 or so. By then there might be even sweeter deals considering how fast this all moves, we should see then. Best Regards, -peter -- Over thirty years experience on Unix-like Operating Systems starting with QNX.
