Re: hello

[Yann Guidon <whygee@f-cpu.org>]

hi,

graham@belegost.mit.edu wrote:
> I don't know what to replace it with. 'IP' is one of those nasty terms
> that is convenient because it avoids having to think about the quite
> different things it covers - but it smuggles in a belief that ideas
> can be 'property' - that once you've had an idea no-one else is
> allowed to have it, which I think is quite contradictory with your
> generally utopian approach (and the FSF's approach too). In any
> case, you cannot claim ownership of 'IP' in the sense it is used in EDA
> using only copyright law - if there is an original IDEA in your
> design, you could only protect that idea using patent law. The
> gpl and any other license you create are based on copyright, which
> only covers form.

so what do you propose ? (for the text) 

for the patent issue, the stategy in the f-cpu project is offensive and defensive :
- make as much prior art proofs as possible, through specialized magazines for example.
- have a very flexible design so one piece can be interchanged if there's a problem.

but when it comes to the denominations, i'm forced to use the "usual" vocabulary.

> <snip>
> >
> > For the F-CPU licence, i think that my goal is to have a new concept.
> > it's not a freeware, not public domain, it's more "hardcore" than the GPL.
> > it's a stronger licence than the GPL because of some of the additions
> > i want to include (including the obligation to divulgue the source at
> > no cost and no delay through the Web, anonymously for the retriever).
> IMO this is going to cause problems. With the gpl you only have to
> divulge the source when you distribute the software, not when you
> are still working on developing it. If you're anything like me, while
> you're working on any kind of design its a total mess of bits and pieces
> till near the end. So you're half way through developing the
> 'improved FCPU' and someone says to you 'I demand by my rights under
> the FCPU license that you stop what you are doing, tidy up all your
> files, tarball them for me, and please document what changes you have
> made'. Will you do it? No, you'd say 'go away till I have my design
> ready for distribution, when I will package it up for you'. Which
> is what the gpl does anyway.

i disagree in the last sentences : what you are forced to divulgue is
not necessary working or "nice", tidied. most CVS trees on the Net do
not have complete working and nice projects. as with the GPL, the licence
i want is mainly a "gentleman agreement". usually, the licence is enforced
in severe cases, not just for annoying your neighbour.
The GPL does not give you all the rights completely. there are cases where
i can't access GCC sources "because i'm not a customer". but for a CPU,
i would like to see what's inside it, what features are really implemented
and how, before i buy it or in order to compare it with others. for a CPU,
"compiling" is not simply going through GCC, it takes big ressources and budget.
so i don't see the problem with asking to release the sources.


> > But, more fundamentally, with the GPL the copyright belongs to the
> > author and (iirc) to the people who added/modified it. for the F-CPU,
> > it's a community, so the copyright belongs to this community.
> How is that different from the gpl?

"single" (traceable) author vs informal organisation. We have no
"fundation" or "Verein" or "association" yet to back the copyright up.

> When a big piece of software
> has been developed by many people, the fact that many people 'own'
> the copyright effectively means that no-one owns it - it is not
> possible for anyone to get all the people who have worked on Linux
> together to agree to change the license. The gpl is a practical
> way of achieving what you want to achieve in this case.

not completely. i want others to be able to enforce the f-cpu licence
even though they didn't participate as authors.

> > Of course, the "parallel market" of the money makers with CD distros is
> > valid, as long as this free alternative is provided. otherwise it wouldn't
> > be fair. As a parent, even if you're "only" a father (because the mother
> > has had all the pain of giving birth) you have one half of your genes in
> > your child's genes. When a nurse comes to care for them, it's a natural
> > right to check if your babies are ok. i did the same thing with the f-cpu's
> > "software" : the goal is to prevent anybody/companies to pollute the "freedom"
> > spirit. I have seen GPL infringements through "reinterpretation" of the GPL.
> Any reference to this?
personal communications with a developper at Mercury Computer Systems (mc or mcs.com).
i don't have it near to me, sorry, but it is archived somewhere.

> > with the disclosure paragraph, we can keep companies from hiding "features",
> > or including features that break the community's efforts. Intel's and M$'s
> > efforts in that domain (obscure data formats and hidden "features") are a threat
> > not only to the consumer's rights but also to our freedom and our society's
> > integrity (ever heard about the commercial use of the Neurotic Spook Agency ?)
> No, what do you mean?
i'm fed up of backdoors and CPU "bugs".

> HDL source code, whether behavioural or structural, can be protected
> by the gpl. The European Space Agency, who have good lawyers, do this;
> Richard Stallman and the FSF accept that this is fine. The Free Hardware
> Foundry do the same with non-synthesizable HDL; again, the FSF backs
> them.
ok, ok.
but this is not enough for me.
maybe we can ask the FSF to issue a SGPL (like the LGPL, but with "stronger"
instead of "light"). i repeat : going from the SW industry to the electronics
industry involves a big change of the mentalities. we need something appropriate.
same goes for the GFDL.

> The problem IMO comes from the fact that where software comes in
> only two forms - source and executable, where the executable can
> be created AUTOMATICALLY from the source, hardware designs have multiple
> 'layers' which may need human intervention at each stage. If Nicholas
> just takes his netlist and uses it as input to another stage, then
> no-one needs to have the netlist to recreate the hardware - only
> the source. But what if he needs to manually tweak the netlist?
> Then his netlist also needs to be covered by the license, because without
> his tweaks, the design cannot be implemented. The same goes with
> placement and routing files.
so what ?

> A second difference from the gpl comes with the method of distribution
> of the final product. OK, Yann's approach avoids this problem  (but IMO
> creates worse ones).
what do you think makes worse problems ?

> The problem is this: for software, if I distribute
> the executable, then under the gpl I must distribute the source, too.
> The obvious parallel for hardware would be: if you distribute the
> gerber files/FPGA bitstream/GDS files etc then you must distribute the
> HDL code/schematics too. If that is all you want then the gpl is
> pretty close too it. But a second case for hardware is when a
> manufacturer takes your design and uses it to make a chip, without
> ever distributing the design in any form. In this case I think
> the license should also say 'do this, and you must make the design
> available'. But its something that isn't in the gpl, and also has legal
> problems (remembering that manufacturers can fight with patents but
> we can  only use copyright law).

this is a problem similar to the GPL/LGPL problem.
here, there's an indirect answer : the OpenIP guys :-)
and if you use library component or a component
generator, you simply have to indicate the generation parameters.

i guess that you mix up things. The F-CPU licence deals with the F-CPU's IP.
it doesn't deal with a chip. "this is not a pipe, and doesn't smell like tobacco".
the licence deals with the modification made to the IP, not its use.
so i guess that if you make a system including a F-CPU core, you'll ave to publish
only the modifications made to the core. if you have an Ethernet controller,
used from an external library, it has nothing to do with the F-CPU itself, so
no worries. but if you add an F-CPU instruction or modify the Special Registers to
access configuration registers in the Ethernet controller, you have to publish the
mofications that alter the f-cpu core. this is a controversial subject,
and these are my first words, so this is not a definitive point of view.
But i don't think that RMS feels "that" obfuscated when Emacs runs on W95,
as long as the distribution terms for both are respected. see my point ?

> > last question : can i get a tarball (gziped please) of the whole mailing list archive ?
> Done that. It's in http://opencollector.org/Backend/hardlicense-discuss.tar.gz
thanks :-)

> Graham (who is now going to bed :-)
i got to, too :-)

WHYGEE
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