This could have been a story about any ISA but it warms my heart to see RISC-V optimizations like this appearing bit by bit every day.RISC-V chips that are fast enough to get used are appearing now and, when they do, the software ecosystem is going to be ready to meet it.In the past, the hardware usually came first with the software slow to appear after. This time, it is happening the other way around.

SVGs on Firefox are broken (like 0.1% of the size it needs to be).

Why not though? The entirety of the LLVM project is available to them, and you, for free, as is the RISC-V ISA itself. A lot of people are getting a lot of value from free and open software, and they may feel their contributions are in a like spirit.

I would suggest that’s an availability bias, those who do it for free are more likely to blog about it.There is a common distinction between professional and amateur with the former getting paid for their work. In general there is an understanding that someone getting paid can focus and do it full time and are expected to be better than someone who does it as a hobby.Perhaps coding is an unusual space where the best coders are often misfits who have a hard time holding down a job.

Sure but then they have to waste time working for money, rather than doing God’s work.

Folks that do this work for &quot;free&quot; do it because they enjoy it.And a small observation: if you require money to do something, you usually have no chance of being as good as the folks that do it for the pleasure.

This really shouldn&#x27;t be free work.

Tracking down a 25% Regression on LLVM RISC-V