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

[Michael Riepe <michael@stud.uni-hannover.de>]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2001 at 12:14:09AM -0400, nicO wrote:
[...]
> 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.

It does.  At least the documentation says so.

[...]
> 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.

No, I don't think "PC".  But I think "workstation" and "server" -- they
all have CPU sockets, usually, whether they use Intel CPUs or SPARCs,
MIPS or PA-RISC, Alpha or PPC...

> > 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.

Not really.  All the PCBs I've seen used 100% proprietary components.

> 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.

I absolutely don't mind if somebody builds an F-CPU based SoC.
As long as users can get the complete source code under GPL ;)

> Ps: This night, i think about the american people...

I painted the background of my homepage dark this afternoon...
I hope I won't have to paint it pitch black.

-- 
 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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