On 11/25/06, Lourens Veen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would call that "Fully documented hardware". That sounds like it would include hardware for which the documentation was only available under NDA. We want documentation to exist, and to be available, copyable, and usable by anyone on a royalty-free basis. That's an open standard.
We can quibble about what it means to be a "standard". Just because something is published royalty-free doesn't mean it's widely accepted for interoperability or whatever.
> With open hardware, lots of things are different. If someone uses a > piece of open hardware in a closed way, it's still good for us, > because (a) they had to pay for it, and (b) they're dependent on us. > The only time their actions are restricted is if they try to > DUPLICATE the hardware. Then the IP license comes into effect. > Otherwise, the hardware was duplicated by someone authorized to do > so, and now it's a physical good that can be bought and sold at will. But note that you're speaking (I assume) for Traversal Technology, LLC here regarding the current situation with OGD1 and OGA1. This hardware, if used under the terms of the TT proprietary licence rather than an open one, would be proprietary, and as such outside the scope of this discussion.
No. What I'm talking about is not necessarily in the best interests of Traversal's profit margin. I'm talking about the open IP that defines the logic of the hardware and how it can be used under open source terms. If someone orders 1000 TRV10 chips, and they pay us for them, we don't care what they do with those chips. The physical silicon is their property now. If you bought an OGC1 from me, you wouldn't want me telling you what you could and could not do with it, right? The intellectual property isn't theirs to duplicate, however. One can duplicate the silicon under the terms of the GPL, but that means they must comply with the terms of the license for that. The point is that use of the silicon that was made and sold legally is different from reproduction of that silicon. The only thing we can do to protect ourselves from people duplicating the logic at the transistor level is to be sneaky and slip in some logic that is not under a libre license, which others are therefore not authorized to duplicate. We're still batting around the idea of doing an open design that is not, at first, also libre. So you can download the Verilog code, but others are not authorized to turn it into silicon, resell it, etc. We (Traversal) would never license anything like this in perpetuity; we (OGP) would do it only as a means to protect our interests as a nacent project. Oh yeah, so let's work on definitions some more: "open source hardware" -- You can download (but not necessarily redistribute) the HDL code, but you may or may not be allowed to manufacture silicon from it. "libre hardware" -- Not only can (or must) you download and redistribute the HDL code, but you can also make silicon from it all you like. Traversal may take advantage of this distinction in order to temporarily have a corner on the market for the physical silicon. Few will complain about restrictions on their rights to manufacture silicon from our IP, given that they couldn't afford to do it if they wanted to. In the long term, we'll make the HDL code libre mostly so that when we want to wash our hands of it, we can do it with a clean conscience. _______________________________________________ Open-graphics mailing list [email protected] http://lists.duskglow.com/mailman/listinfo/open-graphics List service provided by Duskglow Consulting, LLC (www.duskglow.com)
