the assumption here is that OpenPOWER === IBM. IBM is only one of many implementors of the OpenPOWER ISA. The OpenPOWER Foundation is being very supportive of Libre-SOC’s efforts to add modern Vectorisation to OpenPOWER.
they don’t have to. we are putting an experienced business team together, to commercialise LibreSOC, and that means that multiple customers all together get what they want, where just one customer on their own could not.
we have two customers already: ideally we need three more. Purism would be a great 3rd.