[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [f-cpu] License issues GPL/LGPL and Juergen Goeritz' SoC



On Sun, Sep 09, 2001 at 11:00:19PM -0400, nicO wrote:
[...]
> I don't know exactly where is the limit that Micheal want to put. but i
> know that he prefer design rather than thinking about licence issue.

Did I really say that?

> >From my point of view, i think that prorietary SoC should be possibly
> made with F-CPU code. Maybe we could use the IP sense of view from
> opencores.org. They have defined a "simple" Bus for SoC (Wishbones), so
> we could defined a fcpu component (IP?). So every thing inside this bloc
> is under GPL (or GPL like) the other part is what you want.

Adding a WISHBONE interface is a good idea (at least as a configurable
option).  The interface specification is in the Public Domain, which
means that we can use it and still release the F-CPU core under the
terms of the GPL (or any other License).

On the other hand, I want the License to be valid for the whole chip,
up to (and including) the socket it is plugged into.  Users *must*
be able to replace the F-CPU core with a modified version, and that's
impossible if there is any proprietary IP on the chip.

The only solution I can see is a 2-chip approach: make an external
WISHBONE interface and put the proprietary stuff into another chip.
That's no longer an SoC, of course.

-- 
 Michael "Tired" Riepe <Michael.Riepe@stud.uni-hannover.de>
 "All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die"
*************************************************************
To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to majordomo@seul.org with
unsubscribe f-cpu       in the body. http://f-cpu.seul.org/