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alexh wrote:If you're interested we have a program here at work which converts Verilog/VHDL into non-human readable code which remains formally identical to the original and synthesises to the same code. We use it from time to time when giving examples to EDA companies.
ijor wrote:I am ready to release the sources of my 68000 cycle accurate core.
ijor wrote:But I'm not so sure about the hypothetical case that a corporation would use it as an essential part of a commercial product.
troed wrote:I think the closest you can come is to use Creative Commons NC (non-commercial) SA (share-alike). After that you indicate on your website that hobbyists can contact you for a commercial license (you write to them that it's ok in an email).
Sorgelig wrote:Big companies can easily buy many different IPs including MC68000 which is available to purchase quite some time. It's not big money for big company.
Even those companies who release their minis don't look at FPGA or ASIC anymore. ARM SoC can do this on much cheaper level.
BlankVector wrote:Usually, it is considered that people will not buy GPL software as it can be obtained for free elsewhere.
alexh wrote:I thought that LGPL was the licence to use if you were considering future commercial licensing?
ijor wrote:Btw, it seems that HDL code is not as protected by copyright as software is. Say, if some company wants to put my core on an ASIC and start selling 68K derivatives, I have no way to prevent it. That is not governed by copyright.
Sorgelig wrote:And where you've got that HDL is not protected as software? Strictly speaking HDL is the same source code compiled to binary the same way as traditional software for barebone MCU. Will this binary used as microcode for CPU or connect the logic in configurable array - it's already doesn't matter. Opencores website has a lot of cores licensed as GPL and other software licenses. So, it's protected the same way as any source code.
Software licenses (free or otherwise) are based almost entirely on copyright law. Almost any conceivable use of an electronic file is considered copying, at least under U.S. law, meaning that a would-be user needs to (a) have a license and (b) comply with its terms in order to be legal. While this is still true for the HDL files describing a design, the acts of manufacturing a device based on the design, or using such a device, are not subject to copyright.
ijor wrote:While this is still true for the HDL files describing a design, the acts of manufacturing a device based on the design, or using such a device, are not subject to copyright.
Sorgelig wrote:So i don't see much contradict here. It's like endless patents war between Apple and Samsung. They don't have rights to devices of each other while they still sue each other for infringements of specific rights. You don't have right for produced device based on your HDL, but still (in theory) can sue the company if it is used your HDL.
Sorgelig wrote:ijor wrote:While this is still true for the HDL files describing a design, the acts of manufacturing a device based on the design, or using such a device, are not subject to copyright.
So i don't see much contradict here. It's like endless patents war between Apple and Samsung. They don't have rights to devices of each other while they still sue each other for infringements of specific rights.
You don't have right for produced device based on your HDL, but still (in theory) can sue the company if it is used your HDL.
jotego wrote:As for me, I think the purpose of an open source license about retro stuff should be to promote more work done in the scene. So a license that requires publishing the core source is a must.
Locutus73 wrote:It’s my understanding that, if you’re the original author of a whole project, I mean not using other works with a viral license such as GPL3 which binds you, then you are free to release the same project many times with different licenses.
AnthonyJ wrote:However the GPL3 licence (by design) doesn't prevent a company for example building a replica ST, putting ijor's core in it (for which the source would be available), and then selling thousands of them without giving ijor any money or even acknowledgement that it is fundamental to their product (other than having to distribute the copyright statements in the legal text that nobody reads).
With building it into an ASIC rather than using an FPGA, it's even worse - as they're simply using it as instructions of how how to build a chip (which they're entitled to do)...
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