alt Hacker News> A machine expected to run for 15 years should not depend on one company's roadmap, or one government's decisions."
> A machine that runs for 15 years needs software that can be maintained for 15 years.
I don't quite understand. Has this been a problem for industrial machines? Can't they already run for 30 years and more?
What exactly is this initiative looking to fix and improve? Besides of the basic idea of FOSS being good, and whatever.
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They can run, but if one of the computer-related parts breaks down your only choice is scrounging eBay for replacement parts because (as an example) the software is proprietary and it runs on a weird MCA card with really precise timing and strong anti-piracy measures.
In the 90s and early 2000s server uptime might be counted in multiple years and extremes in the decades
The industry can barely keep an npm update from breaking the world now.. and that’s build tools and environments and so it’s independent of “we use stable languages”
Now add the possibility of political sanctions on ISA licensing and you have -
Hardware that’s fails quicker and may not be available to buy, software that barely builds months later, and a world where the US president can sanction entities at will if they don’t comply…
Yeah, open source isn’t all that’s required
You need to maintain both the software and hardware. It is not just that time an installation may last but the time the ecosystem stays viable.
There are many CPU architectures, even some that became quite popular, that have gone extinct. Some lasted less than 30 years in total.
x86 has lasted decades but, as it relies on only one to two companies, it is not guaranteed to do so.
But the biggest risk going forward is geopolitical. You may completely lose access to a technology even if it continues to be available elsewhere. If you are in Europe, technology from the US in particular may be a concern. I think that is the main motivation for this project.