updates/022_2020feb14_openpower_eula_released.mdwn

   1 # Intro
   2
   3 Several things in this update: the OpenPower Foundation released their EULA;
   4 RISC-V Foundation opens access to *some* mailing lists;
   5 we had a last-minute decision to go to FOSDEM to meet NLNet; we have new
   6 team members helping out and making really good progress.
   7
   8 # OpenPOWER Foundation releases the Power ISA EULA
   9
  10 This is a big deal: the
  11 [EULA](https://openpowerfoundation.org/final-draft-of-the-power-isa-eula-released/)
  12 for anyone wishing to create a Power ISA compatible processor, it's been
  13 designed to be "libre-friendly".  We will need to do a full review,
  14 and would appreciate feedback on it, via
  15 [this bugreport](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=179).
  16 A very quick read (like, right now): the really interesting bit is the
  17 combination of a royalty-free grant in combination with "if you initiate
  18 patent litigation, you lose all rights immediately".  This provides an
  19 extremely strong disincentive for patent trolls to "try it on".  It also
  20 actively encourages contributors to make sure that their work becomes an
  21 "official" part of Power, because that then gets them under the
  22 "umbrella" of protection as part of this EULA.
  23
  24 My only concern - long-term - is the warning about Custom Extensions
  25 potentially being incompatible.  We remember the Altivec clash very
  26 well, citing it as a historic lesson "How Not To Manage An ISA",
  27 because both Altivec's vector extension and the one it clashed
  28 with became high-profile public wide-spread common-usage extensions,
  29 and it damaged Power ISA's entire reputation and viability as a result.
  30
  31 With our extensions being designed *knowingly* in advance to be
  32 high-profile, public, wide-spread and common-usage, we absolutely have
  33 to submit them as "official" extensions, or to work with the Open Power
  34 Foundation to create an official "escape-sequence" namespace system
  35 (ISAMUX/ISANS).  As mentioned previously: anyone familiar with c++,
  36 we need a hardware version of "using namespace", in its entirety.
  37
  38 First preliminary reading however, as Hugh kindly said privately to me,
  39 there's really nothing controversial, here, and it actually looks really
  40 good and extremely well-designed.
  41
  42 # RISC-V Mailing Lists
  43
  44 Since the last update, some of the RISC-V Mailing lists have become "open".
  45 There was no announcement.  You can't get access to the prior archives.
  46 Critically important lists - such as the UNIX Platform Working Group -
  47 remain closed and secretive.  Four years of requests by dozens of people
  48 to not be "Fake Open Source".  It's like pulling teeth without an anaesthetic.
  49 Still, they're finally making an effort.
  50
  51 They still have not responded (as is legally required under their Trademark
  52 obligations) to any of the twenty to thirty reasonable in-good-faith
  53 requests for inclusion of Libre Businesses with "full transparency"
  54 as part of their business objectives.
  55
  56 Failing to allow public participation in the UNIX WG is particularly
  57 damaging to RISC-V's reputation.  Telling u-boot and linux kernel developers
  58 "oh if you want to contribute to RISC-V kernel or u-boot you have to sign
  59 a secret agreement and sign up to a secretive mailing list", how well do you
  60 think that's going to go down?
  61
  62 I really don't want to be the only person informing people about how
  63 RISC-V is still "Fake Open Source" and how it's effectively cartelled
  64 (and is running afoul of anti-trust laws).  If someone else can take over
  65 responsibility for this, I'd much prefer to keep the LibreSOC a positive,
  66 welcoming and progressive community.
  67
  68 # FOSDEM 2020
  69
  70 As mentioned
  71 [on the list](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-January/003660.html)
  72 we received a message from Michiel that they were financially backing over
  73 *twenty five* projects that were attending and giving talks at FOSDEM!
  74 They also let everyone know that the nice people from Brussels were going
  75 to be attending.  At which point, I went, "ah." and scrambled like mad to
  76 make sure I was there, presenting a smiling face to ensure that the nice
  77 EU Commission people knew that their money was definitely being put to good
  78 use.
  79
  80 This actually turns out to be a serious problem for the EU.  My friend Phil
  81 decided a few years ago to go along to one of these "Independent Grant Review"
  82 processes.  He basically said that not only was the quality of the applications
  83 absolutely atrocious, but worse than that the people volunteering to do the
  84 review - ordinary people like solicitors, office managers, farmers - had
  85 precisely zero technical knowledge and couldn't tell the difference between
  86 a good application, a bad application or a deceptive application.
  87
  88 Now expand that up to applications for EUR 1 million.  10 million.
  89
  90 Consequently, for NLNet to be actually making sure that the money they've
  91 been given responsibility for actually reaches actual programmers who
  92 actually release actual free software which actually improves actual
  93 real-world infrastructure for the benefit of EU Citizens (and incidentally
  94 the rest of the world) is a bit of an eye-opener.
  95
  96 Also it was fantastic to meet Staf, and talk to him about the upcoming
  97 test chip that he'll be doing.  He will be including an SR-Latch cell for
  98 us, because it saves such a vast number of gates.  There were several other
  99 people we met, including one who can help us to develop a
 100 [BSP](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164) (Board Support Package).
 101
 102 # New members
 103
 104 We have now four new people who are contributing: Cole, Veera, Yehowshua
 105 and Michael.  Veera is a sysadmin and I would be delighted to get some
 106 help managing the server.  In particular I want to install public-inbox
 107 but it requires exim4 and mailman to be converted to Maildir.
 108
 109 Cole just loves the idea of what we're doing and wants to learn, so what
 110 I've asked him to do is to simply follow instructions and tutorials, and
 111 give us feedback on whether they're clear.  If not, that's a problem that
 112 needs to be fixed, and his *lack* of experience is absolutely perfect for
 113 testing that.
 114
 115 Yehowshua - a friend of Michael - got in touch around the time of the
 116 last update, and he's been helping find funding.  As he is at Georgia Tech,
 117 he will be applying for the LAUNCH-X Programme, funded initially by my
 118 old boss, Chris Klaus.  Chris has been really helpful here, he's really
 119 delighted to be able to help other Georgia Tech Alumni.  Yehowshua has
 120 also been encouraging and helping with a redesign of the website CSS,
 121 and been instrumental in a major rewrite of the wording.
 122
 123 Michael has just jumped straight in to the processor design.  Yehowshua
 124 tells me he first met Michael as he was sitting in a cafe with an FPGA
 125 board attached to his laptop.  He's another of these extremely rare
 126 self-motivated, self-taught, "auto-learner" types who are worth their
 127 weight in gold.
 128
 129 One particularly fascinating common theme between all of us turns out
 130 to be music, maths, and high-coordination sports.  Yehowshua loves
 131 skate-boarding, and I love rollerblading, for example.
 132
 133 One very interesting thing came out of the contact with Georgia Tech's
 134 CREATE-X Programme: we are looking to create a Public Benefit Corporation.
 135 More on this later, however it became clear to us that we need good
 136 "communicators".  Not so much more "programmers", although we do still
 137 urgently need a c++ compiler type person for the
 138 [MESA 3D Driver](https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_2019_amdvlk_port/).
 139 We need entrepreneurs - especially undergraduates from Georgia Tech - willing
 140 to take on the responsibility for going out and finding, meeting and talking to
 141 clients and customers, coming up with ideas, and giving us, as "Engineers",
 142 the feedback we need to target the processor at an actual market.
 143
 144 # Other stuff
 145
 146 The extra NLNet budgets are helping, as is the continued sponsorship from
 147 Purism.  I am beginning to get slightly overloaded with the managerial and
 148 bureaucratic tasks, I still have to coordinate the NLNet tasks for each
 149 of the Memorandums of Understanding, at which point the tasks listed on
 150 them, people can then get paid for completing them.  I can't quite get
 151 over the fact that NLNet was happy to allocate such a huge amount of
 152 money to this project, it's amazing, humbling, and a huge responsibility.
 153
 154 Also, we got word that the