OPEN SOURCE PROCESSORS

Monopolies aren’t all bad. At least, they don’t have to be. But with a single corporation owning the rights to the x86 instruction set, the consumer processor market is hardly abuzz with competition. It’s true enough that AMD’s star is on the ascent, but that’s been helped by a decade of stagnation by Intel, ever since the heights of the original Core 2 releases.

The situation is an indication, though, of what would happen if x86’s only competitor dropped out of the processor market: Intel could stop all development and you’d still have no option but to buy its processors.

It isn’t healthy to overspecialise. “But there’s Arm!” you rightly cry. Arm is a peddler of intellectual property, though. The company licenses its design and manufactures nothing itself. It’s a healthier arrangement than that of Intel and AMD –there’s a range of competition, big and small – but the licence fees are far from trivial.

Of course, this is hardware we’re talking about. People can’t just give it away for free, like software…. or can they? Just as the open-source Linux kernel has ultimately triumphed over all other competitors (in many areas, anyway), it’s now the turn of open hardware to have its day.

So, how is this revolution going to happen? What devices are we going to see powered by