1. Is any of these "Open" architectures actually used in production anywhere serious when not implemented by their creators? I'm actually interested to know of examples.
2. How do we know that the actual chip IBM provides is the thing in the spec? The comparison was with Intel, how can we prove that there are no backdoors for PowerPC? If we can't prove, does it matter if it's "Open"?
I never claimed it was, and this is starting to reek of a straw-man argument where you’re opposing a statement I haven’t actually made.
(1) Yes, I am aware of situations where this architecture has been chosen by a body that isn’t a chief implementor, and no, I am not at liberty to discuss it.
(2) Having an open spec to compare against, even though I actually don’t know how, is already another plane of existence compared to not having something to compare against.
Decapping and microscopy? Pushing edge cases onto the chip and comparing expected outputs? Implementing all or part on an FPGA and seeing how they compare at a severely clock-reduced rate? It’s well beyond my technical ability, but it’s not beyond expert technicians’ abilities. That’s the key point.
EDIT: Also you can set your own keys for the root trust, and remove others’. That’s very important, and radically orthogonal to the competition of ARM and x86₆₄.
How do you reconcile this comment with the one from reacharavindh?
What use is the "Open Architecture" part if they're super expensive (ok, maybe you can ignore this part) and you have to go through sales representatives for a simple sale?
Those are still barriers to entry, even if they're not technical.