Re: [oc] Inquiry

[Rudolf Usselmann <rudi@asics.ws>]

On Tue, 2003-05-06 at 20:29, Richard Herveille wrote:
> 
> That's correct. I just had a verbal fight for Design&ReUse about OpenCores 
> with somebody from SONICS Inc. SONICS made the following public statement:
> 
> "
> I can not believe that anyone in our (=SoC) industry will seriously use any of 
> the open-cores. The effort you might have with the integration of these cores 
> might be higher than designing new ones from scratch - at least you will not 
> see any cost saving compared to licensing 'real' cores.
> "

Can you give us a pointer where this statement was made ?

They are probably mad because they are losing customers to
OC. I can reassure that commercial customers DO USE cores
from OpenCores. I have provided support help to many commercial
clients integrating and testing cores from OC. I guess the
Voxi success story also speaks for it self. We should email
a copy of it to Sonics ...

> and a second quote:
> 
> "
> people do not get laid off for introducing products from market leaders like 
> IBM and HP (even if they fail) into an organization, but for using promising, 
> but cheap products, which -at the end- are not shown as technically and 
> economically useful.
> "

Thats absolute nonsense. People get layed off for not doing
their job. Before deciding to use a core it is always evaluated
first, commercial or free, and then tested very carefully,
regardless if it is commercial or free ...


> Of course these are quotes from somebody who is trying to keep people away 
> from open source products, as they are trying to sell their own (bus & micro 
> networks) solutions. Just like Linux is making a fist at Windows (albeit a 
> very small fist), open source IP cores are making a fist at professional IP 
> providers.

Exactly, they are loosing market share and are scared and
struggling to stay on top ...

> If OpenCores sees a role to play in this game, we need a license that is clear 
> and allows companies to use it. This does NOT mean that companies can do 
> whatever they want with the code, nor does it imply that companies do not 
> have to return improvements. That might be part of the license.
> 
> I feel that the GPL style licenses make this impossible, that's why I choose a 
> BSD style license. However I do not like the fact that it implies that 
> modifications do not have to be returned. If somebody comes up with a license 
> that features the above mentioned I will be happy to change.
> 
> Maybe this means we need to write our own 'Open Source Hardware License' 
> agreement; 
> OCPL: Open Cores Public License?
> OIPL: Opencores IP Publice License?
> 
> Richard

Regards,

rudi               
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