Seems AMD and Intel may be feeling the pressure from Arm? Today both companies announced the forming of a new x86 ecosystem advisory group to help shape the future of the platform.
It's not just them though they've pulled in Linus Torvalds (creator of Linux) and Tim Sweeney (Epic Games), along with companies including: Broadcom, Dell, Google, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP Inc., Lenovo, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and Red Hat as founding members.
From the press release:
“We are on the cusp of one of the most significant shifts in the x86 architecture and ecosystem in decades – with new levels of customization, compatibility and scalability needed to meet current and future customer needs,” said Pat Gelsinger, Intel CEO. “We proudly stand together with AMD and the founding members of this advisory group, as we ignite the future of compute, and we deeply appreciate the support of so many industry leaders.”
“Establishing the x86 Ecosystem Advisory Group will ensure that the x86 architecture continues evolving as the compute platform of choice for both developers and customers,” said Lisa Su, AMD Chair and CEO. “We are excited to bring the industry together to provide direction on future architectural enhancements and extend the incredible success of x86 for decades to come.”
Their plan is to come together to find new ways to expand the x86 ecosystem with their intended outcomes to be:
- Enhancing customer choice and compatibility across hardware and software, while accelerating their ability to benefit from new, cutting-edge features.
- Simplifying architectural guidelines to enhance software consistency and standardize interfaces across x86 product offerings from Intel and AMD.
- Enabling greater and more efficient integration of new capabilities into operating systems, frameworks and applications.
Quoting: PeakI understand the rest, but why in the world is Sweeney involved?Sweeney has a bunch of lawsuits on his name that clearly indicate he cares a lot about competing on embedded platforms and since that is what they're trying to achieve his power and experience could actually help.
Quoting: CyborgZetaShould've been done years ago. I, for one, do not want an ARM takeover. Locked bootloaders, and unable to easily install whatever Linux distro I want. No thank you.
It's strange about ARM it's both the absolute pinnacle of software freedom and the absolute worst.
Thanks to getting completely roasted by the DOJ Microsoft enforces the freedom to switch.
The GPL enforces that one technically on ARM too, but it doesn't have as powerful backers, so it's a lot more spotty there.
I really hope the SFC vs Vizio case ends favorably, so non-gpl copyright holders can start suing.
I also hope Google loses its anti-trust fights, so the DOJ can achieve the same for them.
Contrary to x86 there is the option to run an ARM device on completely FOSS firmware, but it requires specific processors.
It doesn't have as much invasive ME firmware.
"Sigh"
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