[oc] RE: Free License

["Joe Zott" <jaz@itvc.com>]

Reference: Regarding the license you can also check the detailed suggestions
and comments also at OpenIPCore project at
http://www.openip.org/oc/license.html we had several suggestions about such
license for OpenHardware cores

This appears to be a good start on defining basic license terms, but

The problem with this page is:

1. It is not written as a license.

2. "No money can be earned by selling the designs them selves, ..." What is
the definition of a design in the context of this license?

3. It says that "Any update to the design should be documented and returned
to the design." Does that mean that all changes needed to support various
synthesis and simulation tools need to be shared? Even those that conflict
with other people or require a tool that is not freely available? I make
lots of changes to a design when testing it. Are these all updates?

4. The license needs to discuss synthesis and simulation scripts. I would
like to see them contributed with the design.

5. "Any derivative work based on the IP should be free under OpenIP Licnese.
Derivative work means any update, change or improvement on the deisgn." This
statement means that I can't modify a CPU to add a proprietary bus
interface.

6. "Any work based on the design can be either made free under OpenIP
licnese or protected by any other licnese." This only allows me to sell
OpenIP blocks that are unchanged. It is highly unlikely that any hardware
block can be used in a new design without some amount of change.

7. With 2-3 times as much money being spent on hardware verification as in
design we should provide mechanisms to encourage (and in some cases perhaps
demand) verified (and documented) designs.

I have looked at most of the designs available as open IP and I wouldn't use
any of them in a commercial project. Not that they are bad designs, but that
they lack documentation and verification. The sole exception to that is the
SDRAM interface on the opencores site has a very nice documentation package.

8. There is no discussion about making the designs freely available. Let say
that the site that hosted the design that I based my design on is no longer
available, do I have the responsibility of making it freely available? Can I
just make it available on my own and not return it to the site I took it
from? A design that is well documented, with test vectors, and log files,
represents a significant amount of data. Perhaps more data than a person
might want to download over the Internet. Do I have a responsibility
(similar to GPL) to make the design available in other formats?

The open IP hardware movement needs a geniune license. Until one is created
and agreed to any work being published remains owned by the authors.

Regards to all,

Joe