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

[nicO <nicolas.boulay@ifrance.com>]

Michael Riepe a écrit :
> 
> 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?

Whygee maybe, but it's only a shortcut.

> 
> > >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).

And it will be more simple to add it into a SoC. Whishbone is great but
we need read-modify-write cycle, and i don't know if Wishbone do it.

> 
> 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.
>

You think only "pc" and it's socket. In which other product could you
change the main processor ? "Pc" is an old fation to do a system. Think
of embedded market (cars(30%-50% of the electronics industrie market in
the futur !), train, plane,...), think of PDA, handel PC. That's the
future, not PC or workstation ! Pc industrie are declined and devoted to
wintel god and it won't change. X86 word make a course of Mips, ARM word
the course of Mips/Watt, i propose the courses of the Mips/euros.
 
> 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.
>

And you lose all the benefit of it ! All future product must be very
compact, with reduiced power consumption and cheap. So SoC are
obligatory to reach that goal. For me, f-cpu should be include in
proprietary chip. You want to change the physical chip. So nowdays,
physical chip are remplaced by IP. So you could replace IP by another
one (or the same but with different parameters, or an other cpu if you
use C code). When you create a SoC it's the same that build a PCB in
80's but now it's on silicon die instead of epoxy.

A SoC is so specialised ! So there isn't any interrest to change the
chip. It's a complete system so you could always create a compatible
chip with a complete different SoC. Imagine a mp3 producer, there is so
many manner to make it. You could do it with dedicated HW or with a DSP
or a powerfull RISC cpu, or with many little cpu.

I hope a convince you.

nicO

Ps: This night, i think about the american people...
> --
>  Michael "Tired" Riepe <Michael.Riepe@stud.uni-hannover.de>
>  "All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die"
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