# Intro
Several things in this update: the OpenPower Foundation released their EULA;
+RISC-V Foundation opens access to *some* mailing lists;
we had a last-minute decision to go to FOSDEM to meet NLNet; we have new
team members helping out and making really good progress.
there's really nothing controversial, here, and it actually looks really
good and extremely well-designed.
+# RISC-V Mailing Lists
+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 reasonable in-good-faith
+requests for inclusion of Libre Businesses with "full transparency"
+as part of their 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?
+
+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
+
+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!
+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
+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.
+
+This actually turns out to be a serious problem for the EU. My friend Phil
+decided a few years ago to go along to one of these "Independent Grant Review"
+processes. He basically said that not only was the quality of the applications
+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.
+
+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.
+
+Also 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. 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).
+
+# New members
+
+We have now 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 want to install public-inbox
+but it requires exim4 and mailman to be converted to Maildir.
+
+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 his *lack* of experience is absolutely perfect for
+testing that.
+
+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
+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.
+
+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
+board attached to his laptop. He's another of these extremely rare
+self-motivated, self-taught, "auto-learner" types who are worth their
+weight in gold.
+
+One particularly fascinating common theme between all of us turns out
+to be music, maths, and high-coordination sports. Yehowshua loves
+skate-boarding, and I love rollerblading, for example.
+
+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
+[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",
+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, 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
projects / crowdsupply.git / commitdiff