tsuraan wrote: >>>I don't really see >>>how you could keep an unethical company from doing the same with >>>hardware made from your design. I'm not trying to annoy you or weasel >>>out of your license; I just really want to see the open graphics >>>project succeed, and my hardware design skills are somewhat lacking... >>> >>> >>Yes. Proving that someone's copied your chip is very challenging. >>This is surely one of the major reasons why hardware developers do not >>share their HDL. The OGP and Traversal are taking a major risk doing >>it this way. We have copyright law on our side, but physics is >>another matter. >> >>You might say that one of the reasons that we're releasing our >>hardware HDL under GPL is that the community demanded it. If that >>turns out to be a bad decision, and it ruins our plans for developing >>open hardware, they have only themselves to blame. >> >> My response also speaks to response Peter Brett had. The licenses are simply there to keep honest companies honest. Even with the big commercial players there is remarking and industrial espionage stuff happening all the time. Here is the way I look at it. A company who is going to steal the code will do so regardless of the license and will probably be outside the reach of the US legal system anyway.
Enforcement of the license is the other side of the coin. When someone does misuse some of the code (it will happen) you have to go after them with a big hammer. I'm generally not a fan of throwing lawyers at problems, but in this case, if you can reasonable prove it, it is something you have to do. I would certainly argue for releasing the PCI core under the GPL. Patrick M _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
