fsf/chips

[graham@belegost.mit.edu]

> > > 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.
There are two possibilities: either there is a legal weakness in the
gpl that these people are using - and then everyone should be told what
this is, so the FSF can change it - or these people are breaking the
law, and the FSFs lawyers should be told.

> 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.

Did you read what rms said about hardware designs in the older archives? 
I strongly believe they won't do this unless you come up with a very 
worked out, detailed,
argument and a thoroughly worked over license draft. 
> 
> 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. 
I think its more fuzzy than that for several reasons:
1) I thought you/David Cary/Jamil were saying that the license should
be more general than just for F-CPU?
2) You have a requirement that a URL is put on each chip. I agree with
this. But this is 'dealing with chips' in a way. There's nothing
similar in software: no-one says 'each binary should include an
embedded url pointing to the source'.


"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.
Makes a lot of sense to me, though :-)

Do you think anyone else is going to join in this conversation?

Graham