On Thu, Feb 21, 2019 at 12:49 AM David Niklas doark@mail.com wrote:
On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 23:59:36 +0000 Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton lkcl@lkcl.net wrote:
crowd-funded eco-conscious hardware: https://www.crowdsupply.com/eoma68
On Wed, Feb 20, 2019 at 7:54 PM David Niklas doark@mail.com wrote:
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Or at least it looks like that: https://sifivetechsymposium.com/
Might be interesting to attend (I can't). Especially to ask what to do about the companies that are already breaking the license of RISC-V.
that's easy to answer: whilst companies *should* obtain an "official" JEDEC designation which should go into the mvendor id field of the hardware, as long as they do not claim it is "RISC-V" they are ok (Trademark Law).
in addition, if they make *modifications* to the instruction set, that's ok too, as long as, again, they do not claim it is "RISC-V".
But, but, it is RISC-V HW... If I don't call the Linux kernel a "Linux kernel" does that mean I don't have to offer the sources plus my proprietary extensions to anyone who buys it?
the majority of libre hardware is BSD / MIT licensed because the GPL is completely inappropriate when it comes to hardware.
Trademark Law is a branch of Copyright Law. the RISC-V Foundation has been issued with an exclusive license to sub-license "RISC-V" by the Copyright Holder (krste asanovic).
nobody may claim "compliance" with RISC-V without the RISC-V Foundation's expressed approval.
*non*-compliance is perfectly fine... as long as "RISC-V" is not mentioned in association with any such products.
we're basically back to the exact same fuckwittery that brought us etnaviv, "arcfour compatibility" and so on.
there *is* no room for Libre *COMMERCIAL* products to interact with RISC-V Foundation members because all RISC-V Foundation members are forced to sign an agreement (for cross-licensing and patent protection purposes).
this is clearly violating FRAND terms of Trademark Law, by being "Discriminatory" against Libre Commercial products.
it is quite clear that the RISC-V Founders never envisaged a scenario where Libre *COMMERCIAL* products would ever be successful.
What? Why no interaction?
because whilst most libre hardware engineers have entirely given up hope of being a welcome part of the RISC-V Community, i've been persistently reminding them that ITU-style secretive closed-doors development practices are effectively a cartel.
this pissed them off, despite the fact that people have been talking *privately* about the exact things which i made public, for many years, long before i started.
Does that mean you're currently developing the GPU in the RSIC-V core without any contact with the RISC-V Foundation?
that's correct. or, more to the point: the majority of communications meet with stone cold silence.
the reason why i continue to make announcements is to provide an audit trail in case they try "Trademark violation" (Trademark Law *requires* that the licensor engage in FRAND communication with its licensees), to provide evidence of "prior art" such that patents on the same material may be invalidated, and to invite those people who haven't completely given up hope to get in touch.
That's double talk, "We'll open source the core but no one can talk to the OSS community about it."
oh they can talk all right... just as long as it's about "official" (approved) RISC-V standards. they just can't talk about any innovations or anything that has not been ratified or released without prior approval of the RISC-V Foundation.
so, for example, development of standards which require constructive feedback and input from the u-boot and linux kernel developers as well as Debian developers and Fedora developers is completely useless, because the Libre developers are hardly going to sign the RISC-V Membership Agreement, are they??
and without that agreement, the members are prevented and prohibited from engaging fully with the Libre engineers, because they could be in violation of their RISC-V Membership Agreement to do so, for discussing material that has not yet been approved and ratified as a "Standard" by the RISC-V Foundation.
I sincerely hope I'm misreading this,
you're not.
it's basically the same game that google played with project ara.
"we're open as long as you join our secret club, and once you're part of our secret club you get to enjoy the privilege of forcing our joint democratically-approved will onto the rest of the word and to call that an 'Open Standard' ".
l.