[time-nuts] Controlling FEI 5680A

Magnus Danielson magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org
Mon Jan 16 23:48:52 UTC 2012


On 01/16/2012 11:31 AM, Attila Kinali wrote:
> On Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:45:56 +0100
> Magnus Danielson<magnus at rubidium.dyndns.org>  wrote:
>
>> A short notice on embedded CPU/MPUs into FPGAs. Using PIC or AVR might
>> be tempting, but I consider any clone "dirty" from a rights perspective,
>> MIPS for instance have been very protective on their side, so has ARM.
>> So far has the SPARC been the only big one being accepted in their
>> LEON-x variants that I know of. We be sad to see the cotton industry
>> level being smashed by the big firm lawyers.
>
> Erm... You trust too much in corporate mambojambo...
>
> 1) These clones implement an ISA (instruction set architecture)
> 2) You cannot copyright an ISA (the same as you cannot copyright a header file)
> 3) You can only copyright a specific implementation
> 4) You can patent certain ways how instructions work (see MIPS)
>
> These clones are thus not any more dirty then their originals.
> Only that the companies don't want you to use them. Which, from
> their point of view is understandable: It takes time and money
> to come up with a good ISA. It is something that you cannot easily
> protect (see above). But the companies want you to buy _their_ chips,
> not the ones from their competitor. Hence, if they cannot get rid
> of those clones, they try to get as much FUD out as possible to ensure
> that nobody is using those clones. If this clone is produced by a company,
> the company will challange that FUD and get rid of it legally. If the
> clone is done by a few guys in their free time and released as open source
> (resp open hardware), then they will not have the time and money to battle
> that FUD. and innocent people like you will fall for it.

While I essentially agrees with you, I don't want to be on the wrong end 
of their lawyers. That's all I'm saying.

Cheers,
Magnus




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