Re: [oc] non-profit organization

[Jamil Khatib <jamilkhatib75@yahoo.com>]

Hi,
I think since our projects are open hardware, we can
get fund for us even more than open software.
We can implement some boards or systems based on our
open source hardware and sell them.

the SPI concept is new for me also it is intersting,
Damjan can you let us know if you get any feedbacks
from them?

I also talked to RMS but he seems not interested to
the open hardware concept.

There are two other exampls of open source
organizations
-Red hat 
- the FMF (Free model Foundation) www.vhdl.org/fmf
the FMF writes free hardware models. 
I can contact them and try to get some feedbacks.
I think the only difference between OC and FMF that
they write models for simulation only but we produce
hardware. 

Regards,
Jamil Khatib




--- Damjan Lampret <lampret@opencores.org> wrote:
> 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
> > --
> > To unsubscribe from cores mailing list please
> visit
> http://www.opencores.org/mailinglists.shtml
> >
> 
> --
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