--- 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".
this is absolutely fine for say a proprietary secret company developing a proprietary secret product where the firmware will never, under any circumstances, see the light of day. examples include Trinamic's excellent new Stepper Motor Controller ICs, where the firmware is likely to be actually in ROM, on-chip.
where the RISC-V Foundation's half-cocked approach becomes seriously problematic is as follows:
* when a Commercial Project needs to release PUBLIC modifications (custom extensions) which *HAVE* to make their way into general wide-spread use
* when a Libre Commercial Project needs to DEVELOP public modifications (custom extensions) because the RISC-V Foundation forces all and any development of modifications to go through an official "ratification process".
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.
l.