Huang: Towards a More Open Secure Element Chip

Well, as Huang points out, the general attitude of the Free Software community is to refuse to get involved, until the battle is pretty much lost. At which point, making up ground is pretty much impossible.

Huang has found a company that is open to Open/Free software, persuaded them to put a Risc/V core on the chip in addition to the Arm, and is busy writing test suites to prove that the Open code works as designed on the Open Risc/V core.

If everything goes according to plan, there will be a (possibly only small) hopefully well-entrenched Open competitor in the space. That space being things like your credit card, your company id/access card, etc etc.

You can't advertise "Open" as being an advantage, unless you have a product to fill that space. If we've got a product out there, the big boys will have to compete, and if Open wins, it'll be a massive help breaking into other markets.

Cheers,
Wol