On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 9:36 PM, Dieter BSD <[email protected]> wrote:
> [ quotes are from various people ] > > >> Could we try for something LGPL like instead of GPL. This allows this > >> code to be mixed with freely licensed hardware as well without losing > >> the motivation for the restrictive license. > > > > I specifically DO NOT want this. By applying LGPL some company could > sell > > this in their SoC for $billions, as long as they published their > > modifications to just the GPU portion. If someone uses this under the > > terms of the GPL (like putting it together with other open source > hardware > > components), then I want to encourage that and don't want to ask for > > royalties. If some smart phone maker decides that our design is more > > energy efficient than PowerVR and wants to use it in their SoC, then I > want > > us to bring in revenue in the same way that PowerVR does. > > The smart phone maker could make the entire SoC GPL, make $billions, > and not pay us a penny. > Encouraging 100% open designs is a good thing. > > Since you are concerned about this, we ought to go over the > story and try to figure out where the problem was. Something > to do with trading resources for rights to use the design > in closed proprietary commercial products, and the group > didn't know about the deal until later and didn't like > the competition (real or perceived). Is that the trouble > you're worried about? > Just to note, the OHF board knew all the details (or at least several of them did). It was part of their job to make sure that secret deals are okay, which they did, and it was part of my job to disclose these things to them, which I did. > > IIRC you've said that people didn't understand the dual license, > and that was the source of the trouble. If that is the problem, > rewriting the license isn't necessarily the best solution. > Maybe write up a good explanation of the license for non-lawyers. > I think this is going to be moot now. BU's licensing department will be responsible for deciding who can license it and how. > > Or,... maybe part of the trouble was that people objected to the > deal being secret? The project is supposed to be about being > open and transparent. Secret deals raise lots of red flags. > Remember it isn't just about actual wrongdoing, it is also > about the perception of possible wrongdoing. > The project was about having a fully documented graphics card. Engaging in licensing deals (secret or otherwise) was part of Traversal's mandate from its inception. > > It may be that some people are GPL purists, and are never going > to be happy with allowing undocumented products to use our > technology. > Some of that too. > > It may be...<something else I haven't thought of> > > > I'll get way more help from my > > students, and if THEY contribute, I have no choice but to let SUNY own > it. > > I would think that the students would own their work? > Not sure. > > > NYS would take 60% of any revenue > > I assume NYS = New York State. > > So this 60% goes where? Some NYS general fund? And therefore > goes to some random mixture of good and bad things? > I'm assuming most of it stays within BU and the SUNY system. > > You've said you are concerned that others might object to "evil" NYS > taking 60%. How do *you* feel about it? Both the NYS and the 60%. > "Evil" is what I assumed other people's opinion would be. It's not my opinion. I feel fine about this arrangement, and I feel finer about it every day. Frankly, if they're any good at marketing (and not just the tech transfer department but also PR who likes to mine what faculty do for newsworthy items that make BU look good), that remaining 40% is likely to be greater than whatever we would have made otherwise. This leads, in my estimation to the increase in: The probability of completing the project, the probability of licensing it, and the total revenue. All good things. If this makes money, then I'll take responsibility for making sure the remaining 40% is used wisely. Y'all can make recommendations. > My idea of a roadmap for OGP: > > Timothy and team design a GPU. In parallel with this, we design a > video card with framebuffer and a socket for optional GPU. I'm > working on this, but will need help. The card will be useful for > many applications even without the GPU. A major goal is to make the > card as useful as possible for a wide range of applications, while > keeping the cost reasonable. Once the GPU is designed, get the thing > fabbed. Now the video card is useful for most applications. > Oh, that makes me think: Using BU resources, we could fab chips, and BU could sell them. (Probably. I'm not sure if this happens much.) Also, one of my students has suddenly become very enthusiastic about learning chip design. Who better to involve in this project? -- Timothy Normand Miller, PhD Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Binghamton University http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~millerti/<http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti> Open Graphics Project
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