2H23 Priorities Update (08/23/2023)

Owned by Andrei Warkentin
Last updated: Aug 23, 2023
4 min read

Contents:

Work Group-Identified Priorities

Developer Infrastructure

This is a new WG that currently oversees the Build Farm project. 

System Libraries

Lead is Nathan Egge (Google).

Current focus is mostly Standard C and SSL library enablement.

This WG has 3 distinct subcategories:

  • Core system libraries (applies anywhere)
  • Android enablement
  • HPC

System Library work has the following cross-WG dependencies:

SSL work is blocked on vector crypto being ratified.

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Simulators/Emulators

Lead is Daniel Barboza (Ventana).

Current focus is on Qemu improvements to improve overall developer experience around Qemu, including feature completeness in modeling the emulated userspace Linux environment, improvements to host support for certain platform features and improvements to the emulated platforms to sustain new use-cases.

A number of projects are already completed and upstreamed, and these are consequently crossed out.

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Language Runtimes

Lead is Ludovic Henry (Rivos).

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Kernel and Virtualization

Lead is Anup Patel (Ventana).

Current kernel projects focus on core ISA ("V" extension), feature completeness (KASAN, memory hotplug) and platform enablement (ACPI, IOMMU). Current KVM focus is on AIA virtualization and "V" extension virtualization.

A number of projects are already completed and upstreamed, and these are consequently crossed out.

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Firmware

Lead is Sunil V L (Ventana).

Currently prioritized projects primarily revolve around Tiano EDK2 enablement - core support to support new hardware (SSTC, CMO, MMU), platform support projects (StandaloneMmPkg for secure flash, MultiArchUefiPkg for PCIe OpRom emulation). Some work is already completed and is either going through upstreaming (CMO, MMU support) or further community validation (MultiArchUefiPkg). Two of the projects are net new contributions - StandaloneMmPkg port to RISC-V and TF-M port to RISC-V.

The CoVE and CoVE-IO specs need to evolve to accommodate StandaloneMmPkg scenario.

There's been an interest in porting TF-A, but this has not yet solidified into something concrete.

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Distro Integration

Lead is Brian Harrington (Red Hat).

Work is focused on two kinds of projects.

  • Issues common to multiple Linux distros (e.g. bugs/features in common packages)
  • Enabling a specific Linux distro, provided the Linux distro has a champion/vendor
    • The champion identifies the directions/projects.
    • The WG works to prioritize, unravel dependencies on other WGs or file projects in other WGs .
    • Further scoping happening with Tizen enablement based on Tizen RISC-V Status.

Overall, this WG currently suffers from very weak team engagement. This may indicate a lack of interest on behalf of WG members to invest into this category.

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Debug and Profiling

Lead is Fei Wu (Intel).

Only two project have been identified with sufficient scope and detail.

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Compilers and Toolchains

Lead is Jeff Law (Ventana).

Focus is LLVM and GCC-based projects targeting features and distro blockers (Zfa, shadow stacks, atomics) or optimization (fusion, autovectorization). Although some of the projects represent ongoing work, the WG has identified new projects like binary distribution of GCC-13 with backported patches for autovectorization.

A number of projects are already completed and upstreamed, and these are consequently crossed out.

LLVM Enablement

GCC Enablement

Distribution

The following cross-WG dependencies exist:

No projects are requesting RISE resources at this time.

Specification Dependencies