Re: changes made/thanks (re hardware designs)

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    I was unsure whether your guess about my reaction probably being
    shared was correct, so I mailed some people. On the basis of a grand
    total of 2(!) replies, yes, my reaction probably is a common one.

How sad, people are perceiving hostility where there was one.

    Given that the legal situation
    for software/hardware designs is not identical, it may well be that the
    gpl itself cannot be used, but another method has to be found.

This has nothing to do with the GPL in particular.  Changing the
details is not going to help.  Where copyright does not apply, no
copyright-based license can do the job.

    This is further confused by the sentence 'Copylefting HDL 
    definitions and printed circuit layouts may do some good nonetheless'. What
    good can it do if it has no legal basis?

Copyright DOES apply to HDL definitions and printed circuit layouts.
And I said so before.

You seem to have misunderstood something else that I wrote.  You seem
to think I said that copyright does not apply to HDL and printed
circuit layouts.  Would you please show me the precise words of mine
where you think I said that?

    -The European Space Agency has released its VHDL designs (not just simulations,
    but for synthesis) for a SPARC processor under the gpl. Presumably
    you consider this pointless?

No, I do not, and I have already said why not.  You are attributing to
me a view which is the opposite of what I actually said.

I work hard to write precise and careful statements; would you please
read them precisely and carefully?