Re: [oc] RE: [pci] PCI core ( LICENSING )

[Cyrano <cyrano@nerim.net>]

On Thu, 3 Apr 2003 14:32:33 +0100
Richard Herveille <richard@asics.ws> wrote:


> Do you still think that everything is for free??
> If you design a chip that's supposed to knock your competition out,
> you spend a few million dollars on it, than I would consider that at
> least confidential. So the next step to take is to provide the source
> code to everyone because you used a GPLed core from opencores? I don't
> think so.
> 

Who are going to build for free a system that was evaluated for
a billion dollars (yes billions !) ? Who are enought stupid to develop
for free a competitive OS that compete against multibillion dollars
compagny ? And most of all, who are enough crazy to use it in production
for it's own business ?

Yes, i speak about the Red Hat Linux distribution.

GPL never speak about money. Never.

With the GPL, the code must be disclosed only to the client of the
system, so some years after the start of the project. Much too late
for a competitive copy !

The main difference between GPL and BSD licence is the virtuous cycle
of the GPL. 

Look at what happens to BSD stuff. Microsoft had use "for
free" the ip stack (W2k) and the network tool (telnet, ftp,... WNT). The
fees for GPL stuff is to give back improvement. 

And beside that, Microsoft make a "war" against the open source/free
software movement... Nice thanks !

Wine had used a BSD style licence, then a compagny had created wineX
without giving back any improvement. Since the wine developpers feel
like someone stole them. So they change the licence...

Look at the great piece of code, Spice (a very fine electronical
simulator). It's under a BSD like licence. So every CAD tools use it,
but every CAD tool modify 1% of the code, so each version is
imcompatible with the others. That's many fork ! Exactly, what afraid
compagny about using free software. They don't want to see back the unix
flaws, and it's "theoritical" compatibility.

Imagnine the Opencors cpu work well : dozen of compagny use it, but
change 1% of the core to adapt it to there needs but without given back
the change. 

Who will maintain the dozen gcc port to use them ? What to say
to the first compagny who beleive in opencores :"Sorry, a bigger
compagny have change the cpu and then the new gcc port can't be
compatible with your core, because there core are more used than yours."

GPL avoid all of this flow. It force compagnies to play the fair game.
Free software had soon win. "Users" of IP cores are designers them-self.
The puclic is much narrower but the benefit are the same.

You can't count on enginer feed-back. There work is owned by there
compagny and they can't disclosed code without risk. GPL is very clear
on those point (the copyright holder is always the compagny, so
designer can't make it public without company consent, the disclosure
is mandatory to user only).

The fear of the GPL is only a fair, not a real danger for them. I know
that a lot of lawyers working in IP business protection will say the
opposite because they didn't want to lose there jobs in the future...

I spoke to a lawyer that make a thesis on the applicability of the GPL
to the french law. So she know a little about the subjet. She say that
every copyrighted material could be protected by GPL. Very few term
refered to software world ("prefered form of work" "derivative work").

http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/cardpics is a project under GPL.
It's card pictures ! This kind of card are very important for all
GPL game that need cards. The "prefered form of work" is the .png format
it-self. Derivated work will be the reused of the image, etc... FSF
members who managed the web site had accepted this.

"prefered form of work" could apply to any plan,
or code,...  "derivative work" could apply to product, etc... (don't
forget that layout aren't ship to the customers, only primary source
code must be disclosed)

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