updates/022_2020feb14_openpower_eula_released.mdwn

   1 Several things in this update: the OpenPower Foundation released their
   2 EULA (which is really exciting); we had
   3 a last-minute decision to go to FOSDEM to meet NLNet (and meet lots
   4 of nice people including someone from the EU Commission); we have new team
   5 members helping out (and making really good progress).
   6
   7 Before we begin, however, we still have a high-priority task of
   8 finding a C++/compiler developer for the NLNet-funded 3D MESA Driver
   9 project.  EUR 50,000 is available, tax-free: [this
  10 thread](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-January/003302.html)
  11 describes the scope, where you're pretty much at liberty to choose the
  12 approach that you'd like to take.
  13
  14 ### OpenPOWER Foundation Releases the Power ISA EULA
  15
  16 This is a big deal: the
  17 [EULA](https://openpowerfoundation.org/final-draft-of-the-power-isa-eula-released/)
  18 for anyone wishing to create a Power ISA compatible processor, it's been
  19 designed to be "libre-friendly."  We will need to do a full review,
  20 and would appreciate feedback on it, via
  21 [this bug report](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=179).
  22 A very quick read (like, right now): the really interesting bit is the
  23 combination of a royalty-free grant (as long as you are fully
  24 compliant with Power ISA) in combination with "if you initiate
  25 patent litigation, you lose all rights immediately."  This provides an
  26 extremely strong disincentive for patent trolls to "try it on."  It also
  27 actively encourages contributors to make sure that their work becomes an
  28 "official" part of Power, because that then gets them under the
  29 "umbrella" of protection as part of this EULA.
  30
  31 My only concern - long-term - is the warning about Custom Extensions
  32 potentially being incompatible.  We remember the Altivec clash very
  33 well, citing it as a historic lesson of "How Not to Manage an ISA,"
  34 because both Altivec's vector extension and the one it clashed
  35 with became high-profile, public, commonly used extensions,
  36 and it damaged Power ISA's entire reputation and viability as a result.
  37
  38 With our extensions being designed *knowingly* in advance to be
  39 high-profile, public, and commonly used, we absolutely have
  40 to submit them as "official" extensions, or to work with the Open Power
  41 Foundation to create an official "escape-sequence" namespace system
  42 (ISAMUX/ISANS).  As mentioned previously: anyone familiar with C++,
  43 we need a hardware version of "using namespace," in its entirety.
  44
  45 First preliminary reading however, as Hugh kindly said privately to me,
  46 there's really nothing controversial, here, and it actually looks really
  47 good and extremely well-designed.  More on this on
  48 [Phoronix](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OpenPOWER-ISA-EULA-Draft)
  49
  50 ### FOSDEM 2020
  51
  52 As mentioned
  53 [on the list](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-January/003660.html)
  54 we received a message from Michiel that they were financially backing over
  55 *25* projects that were attending and giving talks at FOSDEM!
  56 They also let everyone know that the nice people from Brussels were going
  57 to be attending.  At which point, I went, "ah" and scrambled like mad to
  58 make sure I was there, presenting a smiling face to ensure that the nice
  59 EU Commission people knew that their money was definitely being put to good
  60 use.
  61
  62 This actually turns out to be a serious problem for the EU.  My friend Phil
  63 decided a few years ago to go along to one of these "Independent Grant Review"
  64 processes.  He basically said that not only was the quality of the applications
  65 absolutely atrocious, but worse than that the people volunteering to do the
  66 review - ordinary people like solicitors, office managers, farmers - had
  67 precisely zero technical knowledge and couldn't tell the difference between
  68 a good application, a bad application, or a deceptive application.
  69
  70 These problems only increase as NLNet grants get larger and more
  71 numerous. Consequently, it's quite a challenge for NLNet to ensure the
  72 money they've been given responsibility for reaches people who release
  73 actual free software to improve real-world infrastructure for the
  74 benefit of EU Citizens (and incidentally the rest of the world).
  75
  76 I had a brief chat with the person from the EU Commission.  He was
  77 delighted to be able to see the sheer number of people involved and
  78 being sponsored by NLNet.  I had an opportunity to express some of my
  79 concerns about NLNet's relationship with the RISC-V Foundation.  He
  80 initially expressed puzzlement, because the EU is funding quite a lot
  81 of RISC-V projects, and none of them had any issues.  I asked him a
  82 very simple question: "how many of those projects are simply
  83 *implementing* existing RISC-V Standards?," and he replied, "all of
  84 them."  I then asked, "how many of those projects are *innovating*,
  85 developing alternative extensions to what is dictated by the RISC-V
  86 Foundation?" With the answer being "none," *that* was the point at
  87 which he understood the extent of the problem. I'll publish a more
  88 comprehensive update on this topic soon.
  89
  90 ### Meeting Other LibreSOC People
  91
  92 It was fantastic to meet Staf, and talk to him about the upcoming
  93 test chip he'll be doing.  He will be including an SR-Latch cell for
  94 us, because it saves such a vast number of gates in the dependency
  95 matrices if we use a D-flip-flop: 50,000 gates if we use an SR-Latch,
  96 and a *quarter of a million* if we use a DFF.
  97
  98 I met several other people, including one who can help us develop a
  99 [board support package (BSP)](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164).
 100 Also, we got a chance to talk to several people with cross-over skillsets.
 101
 102 This alone was worth the time to go to FOSDEM this year.  Now we have
 103 to make sure to plan properly in advance, to put in some papers at
 104 appropriate conferences.  We really need to organise a proper
 105 conference where everyone meets up.
 106
 107 ### New Members
 108
 109 We created an [about us](http://libre-riscv.org/about_us) page for
 110 members -- if you'd like to help, check out the [How can I
 111 help?](http://libre-riscv.org/) section of the website.
 112
 113 We now have four new people who are contributing: Cole, Veera, Yehowshua,
 114 and Michael.  Veera is a sysadmin and I would be delighted to get some
 115 help managing the server.  In particular I would like to install `public-inbox`
 116 but it requires `exim4` and `mailman` to be converted to `Maildir`.  This is
 117 the kind of thing that would be great to hand over to
 118 [another sysadmin](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=181).
 119
 120 Cole just loves the idea of what we're doing and wants to learn, so
 121 what I've asked him to do is simply to follow instructions and
 122 tutorials, and give us feedback on whether they're clear.  If not,
 123 that's a problem that needs to be fixed -- it's precisely his *lack*
 124 of experience that is absolutely perfect for testing that.
 125
 126 Yehowshua -- a friend of Michael -- got in touch around the time of the
 127 last update, and he's been helping find funding.  As he is at Georgia Tech,
 128 he will be applying for the LAUNCH-X Programme, funded initially by my
 129 old boss, Chris Klaus.  Chris has been really helpful here, and he's really
 130 delighted to be able to help other Georgia Tech Alumni.  Yehowshua has
 131 also been encouraging and helping with a redesign of the website CSS,
 132 and has been instrumental in a major rewrite of the wording.
 133
 134 Michael has just jumped straight in to the processor design.  Yehowshua
 135 tells me he first met Michael as he was sitting in a cafe with an FPGA
 136 board attached to his laptop.  He's another of these extremely rare
 137 self-motivated, self-taught, "auto-learner" types who are worth their
 138 weight in gold.  He's currently helping with the
 139 [Dynamic SIMD partitioner](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=132)
 140 which we will need to do a special update about, at some point.
 141
 142 One particularly fascinating common theme between all of us turns out
 143 to be music, maths, and high-coordination sports.  Yehowshua loves
 144 skate-boarding, and I love rollerblading, for example.
 145
 146 One very interesting thing came out of the contact with Georgia Tech's
 147 CREATE-X Programme: we are looking to create a Public Benefit Corporation.
 148 More on this later, however it became clear to us that we need good
 149 "communicators" at least as much as need more "programmers," although we do still
 150 urgently need a C++ compiler type person for the
 151 [MESA 3D Driver](https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_2019_amdvlk_port/).
 152 We need entrepreneurs -- especially undergraduates from Georgia Tech -- willing
 153 to take on the responsibility for going out and finding, meeting, and talking to
 154 clients and customers, coming up with ideas, and giving us, as "engineers,"
 155 the feedback we need to target the processor at an actual market.
 156
 157 ### Other Stuff
 158
 159 The extra NLNet budgets are helping, as is the continued sponsorship
 160 from Purism.  I am beginning to get slightly overloaded with the
 161 managerial and bureaucratic tasks, combined with the "Engineering"
 162 tasks that, as is always the case, require 100% sustained week-long
 163 focus. Making all these things compatible is a challenge.
 164
 165 I still have to coordinate the NLNet tasks for each of the Memoranda
 166 of Understanding, at which point people can then get paid for
 167 completing the associated tasks.  I can't quite get over the fact that
 168 NLNet was happy to allocate such a huge amount of money to this
 169 project, it's amazing, humbling, and a huge responsibility.
 170
 171 Also, we got word that the 180 nm tape-outs (one in March 2020, one in
 172 October 2020) are actually subsidised.  In addition, we have *verbal*
 173 informal confirmation that some proprietary cell libraries are about
 174 to be announced as being libre-licensed.  This is particularly
 175 fascinating.
 176
 177 Right now, when it comes to creating Libre ASICs, people basically
 178 give up and don't even bother because it's so ridiculously costly --
 179 no individual Libre ASIC developer could possibly imagine themselves
 180 contributing to, let alone raising the multi-million funds for, say, a
 181 4 GHz 10-stage 12-core SMP multi-issue processor, so they don't even
 182 bother to design or release anything that *could* be part of such a
 183 design. Yet, reading between the lines, we can hypothesise that
 184 various "noises" about how hardware is proprietary, and how difficult
 185 it is to do Libre ASICs, are starting to yield some results, as
 186 various large companies who shall remain nameless for now are quietly
 187 and subtly waving around very large amounts of cash in front of the
 188 noses of Foundries, tempting them to release things like cell
 189 libraries under Libre licenses. Given that the U.S. trade war has
 190 recently caused a whopping **12%** drop in [ASIC
 191 sales](https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/02/07/2157253/chip-industry-had-worst-sales-year-since-dot-com-bubble-burst),
 192 with U.S. ASIC sales dropping **24%**, foundries might be quite open
 193 to large up-front cash deals.
 194
 195 Anyway, as always, if you'd like to help out (and actually receive
 196 money for doing so), we have a nice shiny new section [on the
 197 website](https://libre-riscv.org/), "How can I help?" and there is a
 198 heck of a lot to do.  Feel free to get in touch, any time.