Episode 874 transcript

FLOSS-874 Jonathan: Hey folks. This week I'm talking with Andrea Gallo of RISC-V International. We talk all about everyone's favorite open ISA, the fact that there might be more RISC-V cores in the world than there are people, and lots more. You don't wanna miss it, so stay tuned. This is Floss Weekly, episode 874, recorded Tuesday, July the 7th. Really, we do PDFs It's time for Floss Weekly. That's the show about free, libre, and open source software. I'm your host, Jonathan Bennett, and today we're gonna be a little risky today. We're talking about RISC-V. I, I had to make the pun. I know. I'm sorry. I'm a dad. I make dad jokes. Anyway, we're talking about RISC-V, the open ISA, the open ecosystem. And we've got somebody, we have somebody very special from RISC-V International and from various places. He does a lot of things. It's it's the man when you talk about RISC-V. We have we have Andrea Gallo. I think I got that did I pronounce that right, sir? Andrea: Perfect. Yeah, perfect. Jonathan: Okay. Excellent. Perfect. Excellent. And where I forget to ask this sometimes, but where are you speaking to us from? Where are you at in the world? Andrea: I'm just close to Milan, Italy. Jonathan: Oh. Oh, my goodness. You lucky dog. That's awesome. I'm in Southwest Oklahoma, which has its own charms. A business colleague of mine- Of course ... just the other day was driving through Oklahoma, and they stayed at a, he stayed at a little tiny town with his family in Oklahoma. And he's "Oklahoma's really nice." I tried to tell you it's really nice here. So Andrea, y- you are you're now the, let's see, the CEO at RISC-V International, and I have about three different questions that go along with that. And I think the first one is what's your background? Y- if I remember correctly, you're you've come from the technical side of things, not the- ... i, I don't mean to be derogatory here, but not the bean counter side of the house. What i- what has that been like to go from the very technical side of things to you're now CEO of this huge organization? Andrea: Oh it's a big honor and quite a challenge, of course. Yeah, I have a mixed background of hardware and software for- ... for, since the beginning I've always messed up because I always enjoyed mixing the hardware side and the software side- ... in many different roles. And I've al- always enjoyed facing customers as well. So I started as application engineer in my early professional days. But even before that I was writing little games that were published by one of those old style magazines where you had all the listings, and so I always enjoyed the public facing side as well. And I was also responsible for business development in a previous professional role. So I always enjoys the mix of both technical and customer facing. And, Jonathan: I was thinking as you were saying that, th- there, there's some combinations that c- give you superpowers. For example I've, one of the lawyers that I work with, she's also studying to be a CPA, and o- once you have both passed the bar and passed the CPA exam in the US you're a superhero in the legal world. And I think in the software hardware world, someone that has written firmware and dabbled with software, has done hardware designs being able to do both of those sort of gives you a superpower. And then on top of that, you also do the business side of things. No wonder they made you the CEO. Andrea: No, the real guys are the founders of RISC-V, and all the great minds on the technical steering committee that drive the work on RISC-V. Those are the real brains. I think at RISC-V International, we're just serving these big brains. That's our role, help them achieve what they are, they're really doing. Jonathan: So that's a, that's actually a really good segue. What is RISC-V International? How does it fit into the puzzle of what RISC-V is? Andrea: RISC-V International is the nonprofit association is the organization that hosts and coordinates the evolution of the RISC-V ISA. So we ensure that the evolution of the specifications is done in full coherence with the missions and standards set by the original founders of RISC-V and we ensure that there are no deviations along the path and that we ensure that the process follows the right policies and procedures, and it's transparent and collaborative. I think our role is to ensure that all the members that found the work at RISC-V, they collabor