Sun says its open source RISC processor design community is gaining momentum. The “OpenSparc” project's early milestones include the addition of an UltraSparc T1 port to the 2.6.17 Linux kernel, OpenSPARC-specific Gentoo and Ubuntu distributions, a new single-core UltraSparc design, and the formation of an OpenSPARC community advisory board (CAB).

Sun launched its OpenSparc initiative in March, with the release of an 8-way, 64-bit UltraSparc T1 processor design under the GNU GPL license. Subsequently, a single-core “S1” design derived from the T1 was created by SimplyRISC, a group of former STMicroelectronics engineers working in the U.K. and Italy.

On the software side, David Miller led the Linux community in creating a Linux port for the T1 that was added to the mainstream Linux tree as of 2.6.17. Since the T1 and S1 are based on the same SPARC v9 ISA (instruction set architecture), the port will likely support chips based on S1 design, as well.

And, distributors Ubuntu and Gentoo came out with OpenSparc-specific distributions, Sun says.

Finally, Sun announced that an OpenSparc community advisory board (CAB) has been launched, with initial members that include:

• Simon Phipps, Sun's “chief open source officer”
• David Weaver, senior staff engineer at Sun
• Nathan Brookwood, analyst with Insight64
• Jose Renau, an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz
• Robert Ober, a fellow in LSI Logic's CTO office

More details about the OpenSparc initiative, including its newly formed CAB's mission statement, can be found here.

 
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