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Transparency in Hardware/Software Interfaces
Computing systems consist of both hardware and software components. The interface between hardware and software can be tricky, creating vexing problems when they operate at cross-purposes.
This RFD elucidates the motivation for this constraint, the reticence that we have encountered to it, the counter-arguments against that resistance, and the ultimate commercial argument for hardware makers in providing transparency in their software interfaces. If a chip maker believes that divulging a hardware/software interface represents a security concern, a crash course in Kerckhoff’s principle is clearly warranted — and the objection to transparency on those grounds should be rejected with extreme prejudice. If this sounds appealing to a chip vendor, it shouldn’t: distancing software from the underlying hardware also serves to preserve optionality around using a different part entirely — and discourages use of a component’s differentiators even where they have been made available through a proprietary layer.
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