Re: [oc] non-profit organization

["Damjan Lampret" <lampret@opencores.org>]

Hi John,

thanks for Debian suggestion. I didn't know about SPI. Looks something we
might want to "copy". I doubt it is good to go under their umbrella because
their focus is software and I doubt they would go to design conferences and
talk about open source HW. Anyway I'll send them an email to see what they
think and if they could provide some guidenace at least.

I did exchange two emails with RMS and it looks like he either thinks of
"hardware" as something that is manufactured in a factory, or maybe he is
just too busy with free software.

regards,
Damjan

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Dalton" <john.dalton@bigfoot.com>
To: <cores@opencores.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 12:55 AM
Subject: Re: [oc] non-profit organization


>
> I know this is my standard reply to everything
> to do with administration. :-) but check out
> Debian.
>
> They confronted this issue a few years ago.
> As a result, they set up a company called
> 'Software in the Public Interest' (SPI).  It is this
> entity which accepts donations to the Debian
> project and provides resources to the project.
> I'm not sure of the details of the structure,
> but I gather it allows Debian to accept donations,
> provide a tax refund to donors and limit their
> liability in these activities, without impacting
> on the activities of the developers.
>
> As far as I know, SPI is not an advocacy group like
> the FSF.
>
> Before embarking on the same path, perhaps it is worth
> talking to the FSF and Debian?
>
> In the past, Richard Stallman (RMS) has argued against free hardware
>
(http://features.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999-06-22-005-05-NW-LF
)
> At the time (June 1999), he argued that the cost
> of producing hardware reduced the need for freedom,
> and hardware itself could not be copylefted (or
> copyrighted).
>
> Since then hardware design has moved
> much closer software design.  Generic fpgas have
> reduced the cost of (and increased accessibility
> to) the non-copyrightable hardware component.  Nearly
> all of the cost, and effort, in todays hardware is in
> the copyrightable, and easily distributed, programming
> of the FPGA.  At the same time, accesibility to this
> programming has been decreasing (like a software
> binary).  I suspect in the current climate, RMS
> (adn the rest of GNU) would come to the conclusion
> that hardware is worthy of freedom.  I hear that RMS
> is open to reasoned argument, just keep in mind that
> he will not compromise on the freedom of software.
>
> Perhaps the FSF and SPI could be convinced to take
> opencores under their wing, maybe even creating a
> 'hardware division', saving us lots of administration
> work?  At the very least, they could probably guide opencores
> in setting up it's own structures.
>
> Best wishes
> John
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