Yehowshua is a student at Georgia Tech currently pursuing a Masters in
Computer Engineering - to graduate this summer. He had started working
-on LibreSOC in December and wanted to to get LibreSOC more funding so
+on Libre-SOC in December and wanted to to get Libre-SOC more funding so
I could work on it full time.
He originally asked if the ECE Chair at Georgia Tech would be willing
to fund an in-department effort to deliver an SOC in collaboration
-with LibreSOC(an idea to which he was quite receptive). Through Luke,
+with Libre-SOC(an idea to which he was quite receptive). Through Luke,
Yehowshua got in contact with Chistopher Klaus who suggested Yehowshua
should look into Klaus's startup accelerator program Create-X and perhaps
-consider taking LibreSOC down the startup route. Robert Rhinehart, who
-had funded LibreSOC a little in the past (*note from Luke: he donated
+consider taking Libre-SOC down the startup route. Robert Rhinehart, who
+had funded Libre-SOC a little in the past (*note from Luke: he donated
the ZC706 and also funded modernisation of Richard Herveille's excellent
[vga_lcd](https://github.com/RoaLogic/vga_lcd) Library*)
also suggested that Yehowshua
-incorporate LibreSOC with help from Create-X and said he would be willing
+incorporate Libre-SOC with help from Create-X and said he would be willing
to be a seed investor. All this happened by February.
As of March, Yehowshua has been talking with Robert about what type of
-customers would be interested in LibreSOC. Robert is largely interested in
+customers would be interested in Libre-SOC. Robert is largely interested in
biological applications. Yehowshua also had a couple meetings with Rahul
-from Create-X. Yehowshua has started the incorporation of LibreSOC. The
-parent company will probably be called Systèmes-Libres with LibreSOC
+from Create-X. Yehowshua has started the incorporation of Libre-SOC. The
+parent company will probably be called Systèmes-Libres with Libre-SOC
simply being one of the products we will offer. Yehowshua also attended
-HPCA in late February and had mentioned LIbreSOC during his talk. People
+HPCA in late February and had mentioned Libre-SOC during his talk. People
seemed to find the idea quite interesting
He will later be speaking with some well know startup lawyers that have
many - layers of NDAs and reducing NREs and unnecessary and artificial
barriers for ASIC development: I helped him put in the submission, and
he was really happy to do the Cell Libraries that we will be using for
-LibreSOC's 180nm test tape-out in October 2020.)
+Libre-SOC's 180nm test tape-out in October 2020.)
# Public-Inbox and Domain Migration
This leaves me wondering, as I mention on the HDL list, if we can do the same
thing with large sections of the POWER Spec.
-# Build Servers
-
-TODO
+# Build Servers, Process Automation, and Reducing Cognitive Load
+
+(*written kindly by Cole*)
+
+Over the past month, Jacob, and a new project member Cole, set up a new
+build server for the project. The build server is an old computer that
+Jacob wasn't using anymore, that he decided to make available to the
+project for running continuous integration (CI) testing for the many
+modules and submodules of the project. The build server is a gitlab test
+runner instance using a Docker backend. As Luke has taken pains to make
+clear
+[many times](https://libre-riscv.org/HDL_workflow/),
+very large and complex python projects are guaranteed
+to fail without proper, extensive test coverage. This new build server
+will allow us to
+[automate](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-April/005687.html)
+the running, monitoring, and reporting of these
+tests, giving us the ability to push a commit and have it automatically
+"verified" as cohesive with the existing codebase. Automating feedback,
+will help provide more confidence to the engineers that their code isn't
+breaking some other functionality in a codebase they are working on,
+and should also help improve the ease of long-term maintainability
+of the code. The more we can automate the menial tasks that have to
+be repeated frequently, and are important for success of the project
+but are not related to progressing the engineering of the Libre-SOC,
+the more productive project members can be.
+
+To help continue to ease such administrative burdens on the engineers,
+Cole is also working on a repository of setup automation scripts. The first
+script is one that will replicate the setup of Jacob's build server,
+so that others who want to contribute computational resources to the
+project may do so easily. Cole is also working on a collection of modular
+scripts to automate the setup of the development environment for the
+HDL workflow and the layout of the SOC, including the installation of
+development branches of a substainal number of very complex pieces of
+software. This should help ease the process of onboarding new members
+to the project, especially some interns that we have coming onboard in
+the next few months to do the layout of the chip. These scripts will be
+available via the git.libre-riscv.org repository dev-env-setup, at the
+[following link](http://git.libre-riscv.org/?p=dev-env-setup.git)
# Conclusion
projects / crowdsupply.git / blobdiff