Posts by 3arn0wl 336 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Oct 2013
Well…
Firstly they have their own operating system - Tizen - and app ecosystem. These days Tizen is mostly confined to their TVs (and I've heard it said that it's preferable to Android TV, but I wouldn't know). However, in the past, Samsung have marketed Tizen smartphones, and could fairly easily do so again. Tizen is obviously Google-free, making it acceptable in some regions.
Secondly, although they have chosen to use Qualcomm chips, they also design and build their own silicon, so they're not beholden to Western chip design companies. And
Thirdly, they've been involved with RISC-V since 2017, and are said to have some RISC-V ISA CPU designs, so they are not dependent on Arm Holdings either.
All these elements, whilst undoubtedly being contingency at the moment, nevertheless puts pressure on Google, Qualcomm and Arm. As you say, Samsung is a big player, and the loss of - or just a decline in - their custom would be keenly felt.
"How so?"
As per the headline, really! Distancing themselves with both hardware and software.
You're right to suggest that Samsung have a business model similar to other tech giants: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Huawei and Samsung are all cows that produce both milk and beef, to use your analogy.
I'd just like to see the market swing towards self-hosting, tbh. I think it's more of an education issue than a legislation issue: average Jo/e doesn't realise
- what the cloud is
- where they are
- the amount of energy they use or
- their potential vulnerabilities.
Perhaps people would make better choices if they were better informed.
There was general surprise and disappointment at the announcement that they'd chosen the StarFive JH7110 SoC. There's already much more performant RISC-V silicon available, with more coming along soon.
But it does show a) that RISC-V is approaching consumer-grade and b) that there is an eager market for it. Google, take note.
My blood pressure spiked at a paragrah I read in Forbes :
“Don’t wait until the last minute,” the Windows-maker has just warned the 750 million users sticking with Windows 10 for now at least… If your PC hardware is eligible for the free Windows 11 upgrade, then do that now. If it’s not eligible, do not try to upgrade your PC — instead look at recycling OR LANDFILL. :/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2025/04/12/microsofts-free-upgrade-offer-for-500-million-windows-users/
Apparenfly, according to Distrowatch -
https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20250127#sitenews
- Facebook now deems Linux to be malware, which is ironic, since Meta itself uses Linux.
Malware
n.
Malicious computer software that interferes with normal computer functions or SENDS PERSONAL DATA ABOUT THE USER TO UNAUTHORIZED PARTIES OVER THE INTERNET.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Malware
As this article suggests, it's doubly ironic since Microsoft harvests your data.
With respect to the judge, I can't see mediation working : Arm seem to feel it their right to demand their pound of flesh - oddly, in the form of destroying years of revenue-generating work, rather than the more prosaic and lucrative financial remuneration.
And Arm's vow to seek a retrial makes little sense either... Qualcomm's licenses would probably be up for renegotiation before it got to court, judging by how long the process took this time. Plus, why demand a retrial when there's just as much chance of losing again?
Reuters - "Arm Holdings' lawsuit against Qualcomm ended on Friday with a jury delivering a mixed verdict that found for Qualcomm on a crucial issue, saying Qualcomm had properly licensed its central processor chips."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-jury-deadlocked-arm-trial-193123475.html?guccounter=1
Äpologies up front if this is not the forum, but I wanted to pose a generral political question, rather than make a tech observation...
Which side wins if it's free-market-capitalism against the great America - built on the foundation of tech supremecy?
Can Intel really be allowed to fail?
And doesn't America need it's own foundries?
Intel above any company, except perhaps Boeing (and NASA, which isn't on the same footing) is a symbol of America's tech supremecy. To lose it would be a damning statement of technological decline.
The disruptive nature of the permissively open RISC-V ISA encourages the prodding of the received orthodoxy, and produces unexpected solutions, like the Universal Processor here : https://www.ubitium.com/press-release-series-seed/
That has to be healthy for the industry, whether other tacks are eventually taken or not.
Qualcomm expressed an interest in RISC-V in 2017, and had RISC- V microcontrollers in itheir chips by 2019. I'd be staggered if they aren't busy developing some performant RISC-V silicon. They've had the time and have the expertise to design something better than any RISC-V silicon currently available, so why not launch it?
a) They don't consider the lawsuit to be anything more than theatre, and haven't actually developed anything. In that case, Quintaris would be nothing more than leverage against Arm.
b) They have some RISC-V kit, but it's either not very performant, or it's too power-hungry. They announced that they were designing RISC-V silicon for wearables a year ago - where is it?
c) They have the designs, but aren't realising them. Why? Customers and revenue. Qualcomm's fortunes are largely tied to Google's software. For whatever reason, Google has downgraded the development of Android for RISC-V - Android on Arm is the cash cow.
Of course, the same Qualcomm chips could just as easily run AOSP but - outside Chinese handheld hardware - shipping with AOSP-based OSs isn't done (ask yourself 'why not'.) Qualcomm's chips have also been open enough to be able to port a mobile Linux OS, which some OEMs, like Shift, have worked on to offer. That still seems niche though.
Plus, Qualcomm is about to enjoy a lucrative love-in with Micro$oft who, at last, seem to see the value in Windows on ARM.
What if Arm does win the lawsuit? Would that prompt Qualcomm go all-out on RISC-V? Would the consumer stomach a slightly cheaper device with mid-range specs and AOSP?
"CIOs may even decide to reassess their existing, perfectly functional fleet of computers and decide that now is the time to consider an alternative operating system."
I sincerely hope that the majority of consumers go for this option, saving money, resources and a considerable amount of completely unnecessary e-waste - Canalys Research warned that Microsoft’s decision to end support for Windows 10 next year could result in 240 million PCs being sent to landfill.
For all the Chinese government's encouragement, Chinese Linux desktop* market share sadly languishes at 1.33% - not even in the Top50 of countries using Linux desktop OSs.
Will this initiative improve matters?
* I realise other form factors may be more popular, but they won't boot Kylin.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/china
I see that Christopher Barnatt posted a video on his Explaining Computers YouTube channel yesterday. It shows Bianbu (a Debian based OS) running on the Banana Pi BPI-F3 (which has the same SpacemiT K1 processor).
It would seem to me to be a consumer-grade PC...
- It has LibreOffice, a Web browser and an email client,
- It didn't seem particularly sluggish,
- And he said it had been very stable.
So what's the definition of consumer-grade hardware, as distinct from a developer board?
I'm just tagging on in general agreement with this discussion.
Canonical have been very good about supplying unique individual images for the low-performance RISC-V boards we've seen so far. My guess is : they want Ubuntu to be associated with RISC-V for the lucrative China market - an independent, well-known, open source provider with a user-friendly UI.
I share the general thought that a more lightweight OS would be better. I seriously considered buying the recently launched BananaPi board which has the same processor, but then I learnt that the OSs haven't been optimised to take advantage of the processor. There's an Armbian image available for it, for example - which would be much better, imo - but the GUI wasn't working.
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