> [...] > You're quite happy to use Linux and GCC, yet almost all the development > on those fully open source tools has been by fully paid professional > engineers. > [...]
That model works well because no single private company controls the Linux kernel development. They contribute to it, but do not control it. The Linux kernel people exchange their views in a mailing list that's not controlled by any single company either. Imagine for a moment that the Linux kernel and its e-mail lists were hosted by IBM. All other competitors would fork immediately. > [...] > It's no different from SourceForge, GitHub or any of the other similar > websites. > Like all those websites, the owners invest in the equipment and software to > run the > site and hope to make a return, primarily through advertising. > [...] It is different to SourceForge or GitHub in that they do have a registration wall in place for most of the source code repositories. The only exception I know of is the recent opening of the OpenRISC repository, which was not "long ago" as you suggest. But some components typically used by OpenRISC projects are still behind the registration wall. Another important difference is that SourceForge and Co. do not have a direct financial involvement with the projects they host. > I've taken the numbers off the Wiki, since they are almost certainly out > of date - I don't know when they were put there (I could find out by > trawling through the Wiki history, but I have better things to do). I can do that for you. It was Marcus Erlandsson, from ORSoC.se, the diff is here: http://opencores.org/wiki1/index.php?title=OR1K:Community_portal&diff=397&oldid=383 That was the only change, a blatant marketing/advertising makeover. 8-) > Well of course if you cross-post to two mailing lists, then it will be > very clear if your email is being filtered. This accusation gets hurled > around for time-to-time, but no one has ever provided evidence. If you > have the evidence post it. > > You want to be a little careful in who you accuse. A lot of the readers > of these mailing lists have put a great deal of very professional work > into developing this technology for many years. Presumably that is why > the likes of NASA, NXP, and Samsung use it in products. I have nothing against private company contributions or professional contributors. Advertising doesn't bother me either. I have not accused any of you of censuring anything either, you are just playing the emotional card in order to support your views and your paying customer. I'm simply saying that it's too risky to centralise all development and communications on a private company's web site, as they could succumb to that kind of temptation once all communications are under their control. We have no need to risk it and give any single private company that kind of power. The Linux model could work quite well here. The OpenCores site could provide a certified/supported/better experience for paying customers or enhanced/patched/whatever versions of the software/cores/etc, that's fine. Everybody gets their kernel from Red Hat/Ubuntu/whatever, but the kernel has its own independent Web site. We should not give up all control of the whole development and communications to OpenCores. Just imagine the company behind them gets bought up by Sun in the future, there could be a sudden, nasty change of direction. It also worries me that seemlingly most key decision makers and committers are financially tied to a single private company behind the project. A healthy open-source community does include such members, but certainly looks more varied. My take is that the current model and ways put many people off. Regards, Ruben _______________________________________________ OpenRISC mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openrisc.net/listinfo/openrisc
