Hello there, below is my very own opinion: What is free software ? (don't answer me, I know it) GNU people talk about free software ! However in most of their presentations, they specified: "free software" is not "free and open source software". Confusing that maybe, "free software" like systemc, tlm and others are left aside by the opensource communities. Before giving me any revelants lectures on the licenses, please do take some time to think : Think about who developed those tools ? Actually what are those companies that developed systemc, tlm ... ? They are Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, ... Three enemies. But they work together on something. Weird, uh? something that can be downloaded by everyone for free. All ASIC design centres have at least a systemc installation. Just imagine industry-approved design tools developed by leading EDA companies for Free and easy download with yum ! What I want you to see here is :-> Leading communities are developing opensource applications. They have made their first step already. Have a look at : Example : http://www.opensourceliberty.org/ Pay attention to Synopsys contributions in respect to CCS. Why hasn't this format being used with GNU-compatible OpenSource EDA tools ? (Aanjhaan, this is a question you can ask during your presentation for people to think). Now, another case : why and why do opensource communities talk about open source software and NOT opensource HARDWARE ? Aside openmoko and friends. Ah yes, there is opensparc.[1] You have most certainly heard that last august. Hardware related materials are free, but only useful for proprietary software from Cadence and Synopsys. Do you know that Canonical/Ubuntu also contribute for opensparc [2]? Here what I want to show you is: People use "opensource" wordings for commercial marketing, but opensparc is a good initiave. However, no one cares about the "open hardware designed with opensource EDA tools". Pay attention to "no one cares" in the above sentence. This is a problem for me. A problem ! We have so many good EDA developers (I'm referring to upstream) who are doing a fantastic job. There are a lot opensource data (hardware related) scattered on the web. Most of the time upstream doesn't have time, resources or even not aware of these materials. This is what FEL was meant to be (when I first introduced FEL to my sponsor, Hans de Goede), bring down the gap that bridge these 2 worlds. We are met to do more than just packaging. Those who attended the KDE akademy in Belgium this year, will remember good presentations about projects involving hardware development. None used opensource EDA tool !! None !! During FOSS.in there will be a beagleboard presentation. A nice thing from Texas Instrument (Thibault will remember we went to talk to them) . But doesn't support opensource EDA tools. My point is that opensource software isn't only about OOo,kernel,KDE,gnome, but also opensource EDA tools. I won't talk much but products from gEDA, toped and opencircuitdesign have reached their maturity. People need to spread the word. [1]:http://www.opensparc.net/ [2]:http://www.opensparc.net/faqs/opensparc-t2/ Kind regards, Chitlesh _______________________________________________ Fedora-electronic-lab-list mailing list Fedora-electronic-lab-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-electronic-lab-list
