-# Intro
-
Several things in this update: the OpenPower Foundation released their
EULA (which is really exciting); RISC-V Foundation opens access to
*some* mailing lists (but doesn't tackle the important stuff); we had
of nice people including someone from the EU Commission); we have new team
members helping out (and making really good progress).
-Before we begin, however, we still have a high-priority task of finding
-a c++ / compiler developer for the NLNet-funded 3D MESA Driver project.
-EUR 50,000 is available, tax-free:
-[this thread](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-January/003302.html)
+Before we begin, however, we still have a high-priority task of
+finding a C++/compiler developer for the NLNet-funded 3D MESA Driver
+project. EUR 50,000 is available, tax-free: [this
+thread](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-January/003302.html)
describes the scope, where you're pretty much at liberty to choose the
approach that you'd like to take.
-# OpenPOWER Foundation releases the Power ISA EULA
+### OpenPOWER Foundation Releases the Power ISA EULA
This is a big deal: the
[EULA](https://openpowerfoundation.org/final-draft-of-the-power-isa-eula-released/)
for anyone wishing to create a Power ISA compatible processor, it's been
-designed to be "libre-friendly". We will need to do a full review,
+designed to be "libre-friendly." We will need to do a full review,
and would appreciate feedback on it, via
-[this bugreport](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=179).
+[this bug report](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=179).
A very quick read (like, right now): the really interesting bit is the
combination of a royalty-free grant (as long as you are fully
compliant with Power ISA) in combination with "if you initiate
-patent litigation, you lose all rights immediately". This provides an
-extremely strong disincentive for patent trolls to "try it on". It also
+patent litigation, you lose all rights immediately." This provides an
+extremely strong disincentive for patent trolls to "try it on." It also
actively encourages contributors to make sure that their work becomes an
"official" part of Power, because that then gets them under the
"umbrella" of protection as part of this EULA.
My only concern - long-term - is the warning about Custom Extensions
potentially being incompatible. We remember the Altivec clash very
-well, citing it as a historic lesson "How Not To Manage An ISA",
+well, citing it as a historic lesson of "How Not to Manage an ISA,"
because both Altivec's vector extension and the one it clashed
-with became high-profile public wide-spread common-usage extensions,
+with became high-profile, public, commonly used extensions,
and it damaged Power ISA's entire reputation and viability as a result.
With our extensions being designed *knowingly* in advance to be
-high-profile, public, wide-spread and common-usage, we absolutely have
+high-profile, public, and commonly used, we absolutely have
to submit them as "official" extensions, or to work with the Open Power
Foundation to create an official "escape-sequence" namespace system
-(ISAMUX/ISANS). As mentioned previously: anyone familiar with c++,
-we need a hardware version of "using namespace", in its entirety.
+(ISAMUX/ISANS). As mentioned previously: anyone familiar with C++,
+we need a hardware version of "using namespace," in its entirety.
First preliminary reading however, as Hugh kindly said privately to me,
there's really nothing controversial, here, and it actually looks really
# RISC-V Mailing Lists
-By complete contrast to how OpenPower is being managed...
-
-Since the last update, some of the RISC-V Mailing lists have become "open".
-There was no announcement. You can't get access to the prior archives.
-Critically important lists - such as the UNIX Platform Working Group -
-remain closed and secretive. Four years of requests by dozens of people
-to not be "Fake Open Source". It's like pulling teeth without an anaesthetic.
-Still, they're finally making an effort.
-
-They still have not responded (as is legally required under their Trademark
-obligations) to any of the twenty to thirty very deliberately public,
-prominent, and reasonable in-good-faith
-requests for inclusion in the *innovation* of RISC-V (not just its
-"use", its **innovation**) by Libre Businesses with "full transparency"
-as part of their core business objectives.
-
-Failing to allow public participation in the UNIX WG is particularly
-damaging to RISC-V's reputation. Telling u-boot and linux kernel developers
-"oh if you want to contribute to RISC-V kernel or u-boot you have to sign
-a secret agreement and sign up to a secretive mailing list", how well do you
-think that's going to go down?
+In contrast to how OpenPower is being managed, since the last update,
+some of the RISC-V mailing lists have become open, though there was no
+announcement of this move and you can't get access to the prior
+archives. Still, I applaud the fact that they're finally making an
+effort.
+
+Unfortunately, critically important lists, such as the UNIX Platform
+Working Group, remain closed and secretive. This is actually quite
+damaging to RISC-V's reputation - it is incongruous with Libre ideals
+to tell u-boot and Linux kernel developers to sign a secret agreement
+and then join a closed mailing list, just for the privelege of
+contributing.
+
+*Editor's notes: Where is it documented that a secret agreement is
+required? Most people won't know what you're referring to. Is the
+agreement really not public at all? As for private mailing lists,
+please elaborate - do you mean none of the posts to the mailing list
+are public, or do you mean non-member posting is not allowed, or
+both?*
+
+They still have not responded (as is legally required under their
+trademark obligations) to any of the twenty to thirty very
+deliberately public, prominent, and reasonable in-good-faith requests
+for inclusion in the *innovation* (not just *use*) of RISC-V by Libre
+Businesses with "full transparency" as part of their core business
+objectives.
+
+*Editor's notes: Who is "they?" Please provide a link explaining
+trademark obligations and what is the trademark in question? Do you
+have links to some of the public requests being made? In what forum
+were the requests made and how do we know "they" received the
+requests? Is there a legal distinction between "innovation" and "use?"
+Overall, I think we need a lot more detail to make a compelling
+argument here.*
I really don't want to be the only person informing people about how
RISC-V is still "Fake Open Source" and how it's effectively cartelled
(and is running afoul of anti-trust laws). If someone else can take over
responsibility for this, I'd much prefer to keep the LibreSOC a positive,
-welcoming and progressive community.
-
-# FOSDEM 2020
+welcoming, and progressive community.
+
+*Editor's notes: I don't think it's worth having this paragraph unless
+there's a whole lot more backstory to support it. For example, what do
+you mean by cartel? Who is running the cartel and why? How is it
+running afoul of anti-trust laws and was that ever proven in a
+reputable legal jurisdiction? I'm not saying this story shouldn't be
+told, but only hinting at it does a disservice to everyone and will
+ultimately only serve to isolate you as a conspiracy theorist. PS: I
+see you do a better job at explaining all this a few paragraphs
+later. I think topic deserves its own update that you can point people
+to so they can easily grok the situation without having to wade
+through a bunch of other stuff. I also think it's worth engaging with
+some of the RISC-V folks directly before the update is posted to give
+them a chance to respond or offer corrections. This is an incredibly
+important topic and we need to make it airtight.*
+
+### FOSDEM 2020
As mentioned
[on the list](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2020-January/003660.html)
we received a message from Michiel that they were financially backing over
-*twenty five* projects that were attending and giving talks at FOSDEM!
+*25* projects that were attending and giving talks at FOSDEM!
They also let everyone know that the nice people from Brussels were going
-to be attending. At which point, I went, "ah." and scrambled like mad to
+to be attending. At which point, I went, "ah" and scrambled like mad to
make sure I was there, presenting a smiling face to ensure that the nice
EU Commission people knew that their money was definitely being put to good
use.
absolutely atrocious, but worse than that the people volunteering to do the
review - ordinary people like solicitors, office managers, farmers - had
precisely zero technical knowledge and couldn't tell the difference between
-a good application, a bad application or a deceptive application.
-
-Now expand that up to applications for EUR 1 million. 10 million.
+a good application, a bad application, or a deceptive application.
-Consequently, for NLNet to be actually making sure that the money they've
-been given responsibility for actually reaches actual programmers who
-actually release actual free software which actually improves actual
-real-world infrastructure for the benefit of EU Citizens (and incidentally
-the rest of the world) is a bit of an eye-opener.
+These problems only increase as NLNet grants get larger and more
+numerous. Consequently, it's quite a challenge for NLNet to ensure the
+money they've been given responsibility for reaches people who release
+actual free software to improve real-world infrastructure for the
+benefit of EU Citizens (and incidentally the rest of the world).
I had a brief chat with the person from the EU Commission. He was
delighted to be able to see the sheer number of people involved and being
He initially expressed puzzlement and some concern, because the EU is
funding quite a lot of RISC-V projects, and none of them had any issues.
I asked him a very simple question: "how many of those projects are
-simply *implementing* existing RISC-V Standards?", and he replied, "all
-of them". I then asked, "how many of those projects are *innovating*,
+simply *implementing* existing RISC-V Standards?," and he replied, "all
+of them." I then asked, "how many of those projects are *innovating*,
developing alternative extensions to what is dictated by the RISC-V
-Foundation?" With the answer being "none", *that* was the point at which
+Foundation?" With the answer being "none," *that* was the point at which
he understood the extent of the problem, and (with the systematic failure
to respond to in-good-faith requests to participate in innovation),
how the RISC-V Foundation - and its members, by way of them having
"voting power" and thus having direct influence over how the RISC-V Foundation
is run - are at risk of violating EU anti-trust legislation.
-oops.
-
-# Meeting other LibreSOC people
+### Meeting Other LibreSOC People
It was fantastic to meet Staf, and talk to him about the upcoming
-test chip that he'll be doing. He will be including an SR-Latch cell for
-us, because it saves such a vast number of gates in the Dependency
-Matrices if we use a D-Flip-Flop: 50,000 gates if we use an SR-Latch,
+test chip he'll be doing. He will be including an SR-Latch cell for
+us, because it saves such a vast number of gates in the dependency
+matrices if we use a D-flip-flop: 50,000 gates if we use an SR-Latch,
and a *quarter of a million* if we use a DFF.
-There were several other
-people we met, including one who can help us to develop a
-[BSP](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164) (Board Support Package).
-Also we got a chance to talk to several other people with cross-over skillsets.
+I met several other people, including one who can help us develop a
+[board support package (BSP)](http://bugs.libre-riscv.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164).
+Also, we got a chance to talk to several people with cross-over skillsets.
-This alone was worth the time to go to FOSDEM, this year. Now what
-we have to do is make sure to plan properly in advance, to put in some
-papers at appropriate conferences. We really need to organise a proper
+This alone was worth the time to go to FOSDEM this year. Now we have
+to make sure to plan properly in advance, to put in some papers at
+appropriate conferences. We really need to organise a proper
conference where everyone meets up.
-# New members
+### New Members
-We created an [about us](http://libre-riscv.org/about_us)
-page for members (if you'd like to help do just sign up)
+We created an [about us](http://libre-riscv.org/about_us) page for
+members -- if you'd like to help, check out the [How can I
+help?](http://libre-riscv.org/) section of the website.
-We have now four new people who are contributing: Cole, Veera, Yehowshua
+We now hoave four new people who are contributing: Cole, Veera, Yehowshua,
and Michael. Veera is a sysadmin and I would be delighted to get some
-help managing the server. In particular I would like to install public-inbox
-but it requires exim4 and mailman to be converted to Maildir. This is
+help managing the server. In particular I would like to install `public-inbox`
+but it requires `exim4` and `mailman` to be converted to `Maildir`. This is
the kind of thing that would be great to hand over to another sysadmin.
-Cole just loves the idea of what we're doing and wants to learn, so what
-I've asked him to do is to simply follow instructions and tutorials, and
-give us feedback on whether they're clear. If not, that's a problem that
-needs to be fixed, and, contrary to expectations, it's precisely his
-*lack* of experience is absolutely perfect for testing that.
+Cole just loves the idea of what we're doing and wants to learn, so
+what I've asked him to do is simply to follow instructions and
+tutorials, and give us feedback on whether they're clear. If not,
+that's a problem that needs to be fixed -- it's precisely his *lack*
+of experience that is absolutely perfect for testing that.
-Yehowshua - a friend of Michael - got in touch around the time of the
+Yehowshua -- a friend of Michael -- got in touch around the time of the
last update, and he's been helping find funding. As he is at Georgia Tech,
he will be applying for the LAUNCH-X Programme, funded initially by my
-old boss, Chris Klaus. Chris has been really helpful here, he's really
+old boss, Chris Klaus. Chris has been really helpful here, and he's really
delighted to be able to help other Georgia Tech Alumni. Yehowshua has
also been encouraging and helping with a redesign of the website CSS,
-and been instrumental in a major rewrite of the wording.
+and has been instrumental in a major rewrite of the wording.
Michael has just jumped straight in to the processor design. Yehowshua
tells me he first met Michael as he was sitting in a cafe with an FPGA
One very interesting thing came out of the contact with Georgia Tech's
CREATE-X Programme: we are looking to create a Public Benefit Corporation.
More on this later, however it became clear to us that we need good
-"communicators". Not so much more "programmers", although we do still
-urgently need a c++ compiler type person for the
+"communicators" at least as much as need more "programmers," although we do still
+urgently need a C++ compiler type person for the
[MESA 3D Driver](https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_2019_amdvlk_port/).
-We need entrepreneurs - especially undergraduates from Georgia Tech - willing
-to take on the responsibility for going out and finding, meeting and talking to
-clients and customers, coming up with ideas, and giving us, as "Engineers",
+We need entrepreneurs -- especially undergraduates from Georgia Tech -- willing
+to take on the responsibility for going out and finding, meeting, and talking to
+clients and customers, coming up with ideas, and giving us, as "engineers,"
the feedback we need to target the processor at an actual market.
-# Other stuff
-
-The extra NLNet budgets are helping, as is the continued sponsorship from
-Purism. I am beginning to get slightly overloaded with the managerial and
-bureaucratic tasks, combined with the "Engineering" tasks that, as is always
-the case, require 100% sustained week-long focus.
-
-These two (three? four? five?) things are clearly incompatible. whoops.
-
-I still have to coordinate the NLNet tasks for each of the Memorandums
-of Understanding, at which point the tasks listed on them, people can
-then get paid for completing them. I can't quite get over the fact that
-NLNet was happy to allocate such a huge amount of money to this project,
-it's amazing, humbling, and a huge responsibility.
-
-Also, we got word that the 180nm tape-outs (one in March 2020, one in October
-2020) are actually subsidised. In addition, we have *verbal* informal
-confirmation that some proprietary cell libraries are about to be
-announced as being libre-licensed. This is particularly fascinating.
-
-Reading between the lines, we can surmise / hypothesise that various
-"noises" about how hardware is proprietary and how difficult it is to
-do Libre / Open ASICs (people basically give up and don't even bother
-because it's so ridiculously costly, no one individual Libre / Open
-ASIC developer could possibly imagine themselves contributing to,
-let alone raising the multi-million funds for, say, a
-4 GHz 10-stage 12-core SMP multi-issue processor, so they don't
-even bother to design or release anything that *could* be part of
-such a design), and consequently it looks like various large companies
-who shall remain nameless for now are quietly and subtly waving around
-very large amounts of cash in front of the noses of Foundries, tempting
-them to release things like Cell Libraries under Libre Licenses.
-
-Given that the U.S. Trade War has recently caused a whopping
-**twelve percent** drop in
-[ASIC sales](https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/02/07/2157253/chip-industry-had-worst-sales-year-since-dot-com-bubble-burst),
-with USA ASIC sales dropping **twenty four percent**,
-they're probably "quite open" shall we say to large up-front cash deals.
-
-Anyway, as always, if you'd like to help out (and actually receive money
-for doing so), we have a nice shiny new section
-[on the website](https://libre-riscv.org/), "How can i help?" and there
-is a heck of a lot to do. Feel free to get in touch, any time.
-
+### Other Stuff
+
+The extra NLNet budgets are helping, as is the continued sponsorship
+from Purism. I am beginning to get slightly overloaded with the
+managerial and bureaucratic tasks, combined with the "Engineering"
+tasks that, as is always the case, require 100% sustained week-long
+focus. Making all these things compatible is a challenge.
+
+I still have to coordinate the NLNet tasks for each of the Memoranda
+of Understanding, at which point people can then get paid for
+completing the associated tasks. I can't quite get over the fact that
+NLNet was happy to allocate such a huge amount of money to this
+project, it's amazing, humbling, and a huge responsibility.
+
+Also, we got word that the 180 nm tape-outs (one in March 2020, one in
+October 2020) are actually subsidised. In addition, we have *verbal*
+informal confirmation that some proprietary cell libraries are about
+to be announced as being libre-licensed. This is particularly
+fascinating.
+
+Right now, when it comes to creating Libre ASICs, people basically
+give up and don't even bother because it's so ridiculously costly --
+no individual Libre ASIC developer could possibly imagine themselves
+contributing to, let alone raising the multi-million funds for, say, a
+4 GHz 10-stage 12-core SMP multi-issue processor, so they don't even
+bother to design or release anything that *could* be part of such a
+design. Yet, reading between the lines, we can hypothesise that
+various "noises" about how hardware is proprietary, and how difficult
+it is to do Libre ASICs, are starting to yield some results, as
+various large companies who shall remain nameless for now are quietly
+and subtly waving around very large amounts of cash in front of the
+noses of Foundries, tempting them to release things like cell
+libraries under Libre licenses. Given that the U.S. trade war has
+recently caused a whopping **12%** drop in [ASIC
+sales](https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/20/02/07/2157253/chip-industry-had-worst-sales-year-since-dot-com-bubble-burst),
+with U.S. ASIC sales dropping **24%**, foundries might be quite open
+to large up-front cash deals.
+
+Anyway, as always, if you'd like to help out (and actually receive
+money for doing so), we have a nice shiny new section [on the
+website](https://libre-riscv.org/), "How can I help?" and there is a
+heck of a lot to do. Feel free to get in touch, any time.
projects / crowdsupply.git / commitdiff