On Thursday 05 May 2005 20:43, Daniel Phillips wrote: > Hi Lourens, > > On Thursday 05 May 2005 13:46, Lourens Veen wrote: > > On Thursday 05 May 2005 18:36, Timothy Miller wrote: > > > My partners and I can afford to buy our own copies of the tools. > > > The bigger problem is making them available to end users. > > > > Or replacing them with free alternatives. Which is probably > > practically impossible due to the proprietary nature of the FPGA > > itself (IIRC, someone here linked to a project that tried to do so > > some time ago, but they ran into this problem). Anyway, a discussion > > on the need for free hardware development tools is probably something > > for a different forum. > > As I understand it, only the "net list loader" (is that what they call > it?) that loads the synthesized logic into the FPGA is not available as > a free tool. I for one can live with that so long as Xilinx lets ogc > users have the free webpack, and the webpack supports the 4000. How > about you?
You're right, the situation is not as bad as I thought. According to the Icarus FAQ: What else do I need to make working Xilinx Designs? Besides Icarus Verilog, you will need Alliance or Foundation software packages from Xilinx to place-and-route and to generate configuration bit streams. So the upshot is that you can write your hardware description in Verilog, and simulate it using the free vpp, but if you want to actually put it into your OGP then you need the web pack for actually converting the net list into a bit stream that can be written to the chip. I can imagine hardware being developed by exchanging Verilog code over the web, and developers using free tools to simulate and test, and if there is at least one developer who can create "binaries" then it would be enough. I just found JBits (http://www-unix.ecs.umass.edu/~wxu/jbits/) as well, which if I understand correctly could replace the other bits, but it's rather limited and it doesn't support the 3S4000. Besides, being Java the question arises whether it will work with gcj and GNU classpath... > > I'm probably in the minority here (and of course this won't be an > > issue for the ASIC) so don't let this weigh in too heavily, but I've > > gotten rid of all proprietary software, and I'm not going back. It's > > just way too much of a hassle. > > I am not sure at all that you are in the minority. Time to take a poll? Well I don't know too many hardware engineers, so I have no idea, but most people I know of in the software world are more like Linus (I don't care if it's Open Source as long as it works) than like RMS (I don't care if it works as long as it's Free Software). So I figured most interested people would be okay with a proprietary-but-gratis Xilinx WebPack. And with Icarus at least half of it will be free. Anyway, is there an alternative option? A poll can't hurt I suppose, but what if everyone demands a fully free toolchain? Lourens
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