-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 tonyb wrote: > At the risk of stating the obvious, it sounds like we need a > lawyer. >
Maybe... Or maybe groklaw would be willing to help in that respect. Personally open-hardware to me means open specifications. And a license to use the hardware to it's best ability without prejudice. As a couple of examples? The 6502 would be open. Because it's well documented at the register level & connectivity. You can (could?) download specs & put it into your own designs without signing non-disclosures & were free to create programs to run on a design based around the 6502 without paying license costs to anyone. Specs good enough to simulate in sofware & build your own, even of HDL not available for it. At the other end of the spectrum is chips like the ATI x1400 (R5xx family IIRC). You can't do squat without a non-disclosure from ATI. No register level docs etc. Sparc (And powerPC now?) can also be considered open... Although I'm not sure what you get with open powerpc is that CPU or whole system with bits inside still hidden? Maybe we do need several levels of openness... With the lowest being complete register level... But what about something like ipw2100? I know the hardware itself isn't open, but there is a relatively open interface to the proprietary firmware... Maybe there needs to be a level for hardware that although runs closed proprietary firmware, there's still a usable & generic documented interface to it... Hmm... I'm thinking maybe good docs for the interface to the hardware are probably more important than the HDL itself... What if someone like ATI released an obsfuscated HDL description of what they claimed was an r5xx chip just to claim openness(If any open hardwaer spec was based on HDL alone)... You still wouldn't necessarily have any register level description... And their own hardware would still be slightly incompatible with it... But how long & how much effort to prove it... Sorry... Brain dumping here without too much thought... Ramble ends... Hamish. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFI5w3/3QXwQQkZYwRAkhYAKCj+2S3egjHK7Af1TN3z6j0goQfXwCeOZPt O0qMMoINctdSSrt/cSFiQiY= =zXWS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
