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How to sell an open core?

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How to sell an open core? by Unknown on May 8, 2008			Not available!
I was wondering that with the LGPL license I am letting anybody make profit out of my cores as long as they leave my name in the author's field... would that permit the obscene situation in which an enterprise sells my core to other enterprise without even making any changes to it? Or am I wrong? I mean, acting as a devil's advocate, what if I take all the LGPL cores at OpenCores and sell them thru Xilinx's coregen program? I do know I can get them for free at opencores.org... but who else does? I'd like to know anybody's thoughts about this. Personally, I don't mind about other people making money by integrating my opencore in a bigger system (JPEG encoder core as a part of a digital camera, for instance), but I'd like to know who is using it, just for the sake of it. What license would make sense for that? Regards, VÃctor LÃ³pez I was wondering that with the LGPL license I am letting anybody make profit out of my cores as long as they leave my name in the author's field... would that permit the obscene situation in which an enterprise sells my core to other enterprise without even making any changes to it? Or am I wrong? I mean, acting as a devil's advocate, what if I take all the LGPL cores at OpenCores and sell them thru Xilinx's coregen program? I do know I can get them for free at opencores.org... but who else does? I'd like to know anybody's thoughts about this. Personally, I don't mind about other people making money by integrating my opencore in a bigger system (JPEG encoder core as a part of a digital camera, for instance), but I'd like to know who is using it, just for the sake of it. What license would make sense for that? Regards, VÃctor LÃ³pez

How to sell an open core? by marcus.erlandsson on May 9, 2008			marcus.erlandsson Posts: 38 Joined: Nov 22, 2007 Last seen: Mar 7, 2013
Providing OpenSource IP (OSIP) is necessary in order to take the next step up in design methodology, we canÂ’t re-invent the wheel for every design. Another beauty with OSIP is that if the core is frequently used, then this core is more verified then commercial cores, since its being tested by so many different engineers world-wide in different ways. The benefits from a developer standpoint are to get help with the extensive work in verifying the core. We all know that the design proportion of an IP is 10-20% and the rest is simulation/verification. Another benefit is the credit which is given to the developer by the header-text in all the design files. To have a track record working towards OpenCores is very good when looking for job opportunities for commercial companies. So, my comments to some of your questions are: Regardless who uses your OSIP, your header-text is always included, providing credit too the engineer, presenting the license form and that itÂ’s from OpenCores. To make commercial products in the end is vital for the OpenSource growth, basically there are allot of commercial companies that put allot of time/resources in verification which brings the OCIP up to another level. It also creates a bigger demand for commercial support which can benefit the developing engineer. Regards, Marcus Erlandsson ----- Original Message ----- From: VÃctor LÃ³pez<<A HREF="http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores">victor.lopez at o...</A>> To: Date: Thu May 8 20:40:55 CEST 2008 Subject: [oc] How to sell an open core? [q] I was wondering that with the LGPL license I am letting anybody make profit out of my cores as long as they leave my name in the author's field... would that permit the obscene situation in which an enterprise sells my core to other enterprise without even making any changes to it? Or am I wrong? I mean, acting as a devil's advocate, what if I take all the LGPL cores at OpenCores and sell them thru Xilinx's coregen program? I do know I can get them for free at opencores.org... but who else does? I'd like to know anybody's thoughts about this. Personally, I don't mind about other people making money by integrating my opencore in a bigger system (JPEG encoder core as a part of a digital camera, for instance), but I'd like to know who is using it, just for the sake of it. What license would make sense for that? Regards, VÃctor LÃ³pez [/q] Providing OpenSource IP (OSIP) is necessary in order to take the next step up in design methodology, we canÂ’t re-invent the wheel for every design. Another beauty with OSIP is that if the core is frequently used, then this core is more verified then commercial cores, since its being tested by so many different engineers world-wide in different ways. The benefits from a developer standpoint are to get help with the extensive work in verifying the core. We all know that the design proportion of an IP is 10-20% and the rest is simulation/verification. Another benefit is the credit which is given to the developer by the header-text in all the design files. To have a track record working towards OpenCores is very good when looking for job opportunities for commercial companies. So, my comments to some of your questions are: Regardless who uses your OSIP, your header-text is always included, providing credit too the engineer, presenting the license form and that itÂ’s from OpenCores. To make commercial products in the end is vital for the OpenSource growth, basically there are allot of commercial companies that put allot of time/resources in verification which brings the OCIP up to another level. It also creates a bigger demand for commercial support which can benefit the developing engineer. Regards, Marcus Erlandsson ----- Original Message ----- From: VÃctor LÃ³pezvictor.lopez at o...> To: Date: Thu May 8 20:40:55 CEST 2008 Subject: [oc] How to sell an open core? I was wondering that with the LGPL license I am letting anybody make profit out of my cores as long as they leave my name in the author's field... would that permit the obscene situation in which an enterprise sells my core to other enterprise without even making any changes to it? Or am I wrong? I mean, acting as a devil's advocate, what if I take all the LGPL cores at OpenCores and sell them thru Xilinx's coregen program? I do know I can get them for free at opencores.org... but who else does? I'd like to know anybody's thoughts about this. Personally, I don't mind about other people making money by integrating my opencore in a bigger system (JPEG encoder core as a part of a digital camera, for instance), but I'd like to know who is using it, just for the sake of it. What license would make sense for that? Regards, VÃctor LÃ³pez

How to sell an open core? by Unknown on May 9, 2008			Not available!
VÃctor LÃ³pez wrote: [q] I was wondering that with the LGPL license I am letting anybody make profit out of my cores as long as they leave my name in the author's field... would that permit the obscene situation in which an enterprise sells my core to other enterprise without even making any changes to it? Or am I wrong? I mean, acting as a devil's advocate, what if I take all the LGPL cores at OpenCores and sell them thru Xilinx's coregen program? I do know I can get them for free at opencores.org... but who else does? I'd like to know anybody's thoughts about this. Personally, I don't mind about other people making money by integrating my opencore in a bigger system (JPEG encoder core as a part of a digital camera, for instance), but I'd like to know who is using it, just for the sake of it. What license would make sense for that? Regards,[/q] I am not a lawyer, but the way I understand GPL is that there are two core requirements: - if you extend a design that is covered by GPL, you need to set the new design also under GPL. - if you pass a GPL-based design to someone else, you need to provide the source code as well. For LGPL there is a separation between libraries and application code, but I don't really know how that applies to HDL design, as here you cannot really create a library in the same sense as with software design. But maybe I am wrong here and e.g. a VHDL library can be seen that way? So to come back to those two core issues, they will allow you to sell a GPL design, but you need to provide the source code to the Customer as well. If I understand it right, that does not hinder you to make a special contract with that Customer, forbidding him to pass that source code on to any 3rd party. Cheers, Guenter VÃctor LÃ³pez wrote: I was wondering that with the LGPL license I am letting anybody make profit out of my cores as long as they leave my name in the author's field... would that permit the obscene situation in which an enterprise sells my core to other enterprise without even making any changes to it? Or am I wrong? I mean, acting as a devil's advocate, what if I take all the LGPL cores at OpenCores and sell them thru Xilinx's coregen program? I do know I can get them for free at opencores.org... but who else does? I'd like to know anybody's thoughts about this. Personally, I don't mind about other people making money by integrating my opencore in a bigger system (JPEG encoder core as a part of a digital camera, for instance), but I'd like to know who is using it, just for the sake of it. What license would make sense for that? Regards, I am not a lawyer, but the way I understand GPL is that there are two core requirements: - if you extend a design that is covered by GPL, you need to set the new design also under GPL. - if you pass a GPL-based design to someone else, you need to provide the source code as well. For LGPL there is a separation between libraries and application code, but I don't really know how that applies to HDL design, as here you cannot really create a library in the same sense as with software design. But maybe I am wrong here and e.g. a VHDL library can be seen that way? So to come back to those two core issues, they will allow you to sell a GPL design, but you need to provide the source code to the Customer as well. If I understand it right, that does not hinder you to make a special contract with that Customer, forbidding him to pass that source code on to any 3rd party. Cheers, Guenter

How to sell an open core? by Unknown on May 9, 2008			Not available!
<A HREF="http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores">marcus.erlandsson at opencores.org</A> wrote: [q] Providing OpenSource IP (OSIP) is necessary in order to take the next step up in design methodology, we canâ€™t re-invent the wheel for every design. Another beauty with OSIP is that if the core is frequently used, then this core is more verified then commercial cores, since its being tested by so many different engineers world-wide in different ways.[/q] I fully agree. But opencores.org lacks a feed back here. At the moment it is a one way street. There are developers that put up code on the web page. Then there are users that use the code. The first think I don't like is, that already the developer can not get any feed back from the download form. What I mean is, if someone wants to download the code, s/he has to fill out a form. The developer does not get any feed back from that. The next lack is that there is no encouragement for a user to provide feed back. It would be great if a user could provide feed back about how simple or complicated it was to implement a core. Then the developer could get some ranking about how good his/her cores are. In addition there could be a statistic how often a core got implemented in what technology. [q] The benefits from a developer standpoint are to get help with the extensive work in verifying the core. We all know that the design proportion of an IP is 10-20% and the rest is simulation/verification.[/q] Now, I think that opencores should also allow some more distinction here. You are saying that an implemented core improves the core through feed back by the user. But that feed back is not encouraged. Some people may even not give it, as they don't want to show that they are using that core. On the other side, a developer on opencores is considered a developer of a core. That is somewhat natural, as that is at the end all a user wants. But actually, what a user wants is a verified core. So why not also have the possibility to add a verification project? For example, Teal/Truss <A HREF="http://trusster.com">http://trusster.com</A> is a C++ based verification framework and the developers used the opencores UART in one of the examples. It would be great if they could have set up a new project for their code and add a link to the UART project. Then a user going to the UART project page, would see that someone else did some verification effort to that core, not related to the developer. I mean part of the verification problem is, that the developer tends to be blind for own development errors, so having someone else do the verification will increase quality. Just some thought and sorry for the long post. Cheers, Guenter marcus.erlandsson at opencores.org wrote: Providing OpenSource IP (OSIP) is necessary in order to take the next step up in design methodology, we canâ€™t re-invent the wheel for every design. Another beauty with OSIP is that if the core is frequently used, then this core is more verified then commercial cores, since its being tested by so many different engineers world-wide in different ways. I fully agree. But opencores.org lacks a feed back here. At the moment it is a one way street. There are developers that put up code on the web page. Then there are users that use the code. The first think I don't like is, that already the developer can not get any feed back from the download form. What I mean is, if someone wants to download the code, s/he has to fill out a form. The developer does not get any feed back from that. The next lack is that there is no encouragement for a user to provide feed back. It would be great if a user could provide feed back about how simple or complicated it was to implement a core. Then the developer could get some ranking about how good his/her cores are. In addition there could be a statistic how often a core got implemented in what technology. The benefits from a developer standpoint are to get help with the extensive work in verifying the core. We all know that the design proportion of an IP is 10-20% and the rest is simulation/verification. Now, I think that opencores should also allow some more distinction here. You are saying that an implemented core improves the core through feed back by the user. But that feed back is not encouraged. Some people may even not give it, as they don't want to show that they are using that core. On the other side, a developer on opencores is considered a developer of a core. That is somewhat natural, as that is at the end all a user wants. But actually, what a user wants is a verified core. So why not also have the possibility to add a verification project? For example, Teal/Truss http://trusster.com is a C++ based verification framework and the developers used the opencores UART in one of the examples. It would be great if they could have set up a new project for their code and add a link to the UART project. Then a user going to the UART project page, would see that someone else did some verification effort to that core, not related to the developer. I mean part of the verification problem is, that the developer tends to be blind for own development errors, so having someone else do the verification will increase quality. Just some thought and sorry for the long post. Cheers, Guenter

How to sell an open core? by webmaster on May 12, 2008			webmaster Posts: 4 Joined: Sep 12, 2011 Last seen: Oct 31, 2026
Hi GÃ¼nter, We appreciate your input and we completely agree with your statements. ItÂ’s good that this topic has come up, so that we can start a discussion about improvements. We encourage more people to let us know what functions/improvements that you would like to see on OpenCores and try to prioritize them. We have many ideas/plans on how to make OpenCores better, both from a developer standpoint and also from an Â“IP-usersÂ” perspective. ItÂ’s important that there is a Â“win-winÂ” partnership between the developers and users. We also would like to invite OpenCores users with web-development expertise to help us improve OpenCores website. Send an email to <A HREF="http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores">webmaster at opencores.org</A> with a short description of your expertise if you want to contribute. Best regards, The OC-team ----- Original Message ----- From: GÃ¼nter Dannoritzer<<A HREF="http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores">dannoritzer at w...</A>> To: Date: Fri May 9 12:31:02 CEST 2008 Subject: [oc] How to sell an open core? [q] marcus.erlandsson at opencores.org wrote: [q]> Providing OpenSource IP (OSIP) is necessary in order to take [/q] the next [q]> step up in design methodology, we canÂ’t re-invent the [/q] wheel for every [q]> design. > Another beauty with OSIP is that if the core is frequently [/q] used, then [q]> this core is more verified then commercial cores, since its [/q] being [q]> tested by so many different engineers world-wide in different [/q] ways. I fully agree. But opencores.org lacks a feed back here. At the moment it is a one way street. There are developers that put up code on the web page. Then there are users that use the code. The first think I don't like is, that already the developer can not get any feed back from the download form. What I mean is, if someone wants to download the code, s/he has to fill out a form. The developer does not get any feed back from that. The next lack is that there is no encouragement for a user to provide feed back. It would be great if a user could provide feed back about how simple or complicated it was to implement a core. Then the developer could get some ranking about how good his/her cores are. In addition there could be a statistic how often a core got implemented in what technology. [q]> The benefits from a developer standpoint are to get help with [/q] the [q]> extensive work in verifying the core. We all know that the [/q] design [q]> proportion of an IP is 10-20% and the rest is [/q] simulation/verification. Now, I think that opencores should also allow some more distinction here. You are saying that an implemented core improves the core through feed back by the user. But that feed back is not encouraged. Some people may even not give it, as they don't want to show that they are using that core. On the other side, a developer on opencores is considered a developer of a core. That is somewhat natural, as that is at the end all a user wants. But actually, what a user wants is a verified core. So why not also have the possibility to add a verification project? For example, Teal/Truss <A HREF="http://trusster.com">http://trusster.com</A> is a C++ based verification framework and the developers used the opencores UART in one of the examples. It would be great if they could have set up a new project for their code and add a link to the UART project. Then a user going to the UART project page, would see that someone else did some verification effort to that core, not related to the developer. I mean part of the verification problem is, that the developer tends to be blind for own development errors, so having someone else do the verification will increase quality. Just some thought and sorry for the long post. Cheers, Guenter [/q] Hi GÃ¼nter, We appreciate your input and we completely agree with your statements. ItÂ’s good that this topic has come up, so that we can start a discussion about improvements. We encourage more people to let us know what functions/improvements that you would like to see on OpenCores and try to prioritize them. We have many ideas/plans on how to make OpenCores better, both from a developer standpoint and also from an Â“IP-usersÂ” perspective. ItÂ’s important that there is a Â“win-winÂ” partnership between the developers and users. We also would like to invite OpenCores users with web-development expertise to help us improve OpenCores website. Send an email to webmaster at opencores.org with a short description of your expertise if you want to contribute. Best regards, The OC-team ----- Original Message ----- From: GÃ¼nter Dannoritzerdannoritzer at w...> To: Date: Fri May 9 12:31:02 CEST 2008 Subject: [oc] How to sell an open core? marcus.erlandsson at opencores.org wrote: > Providing OpenSource IP (OSIP) is necessary in order to take the next > step up in design methodology, we canÂ’t re-invent the wheel for every > design. > Another beauty with OSIP is that if the core is frequently used, then > this core is more verified then commercial cores, since its being > tested by so many different engineers world-wide in different ways. I fully agree. But opencores.org lacks a feed back here. At the moment it is a one way street. There are developers that put up code on the web page. Then there are users that use the code. The first think I don't like is, that already the developer can not get any feed back from the download form. What I mean is, if someone wants to download the code, s/he has to fill out a form. The developer does not get any feed back from that. The next lack is that there is no encouragement for a user to provide feed back. It would be great if a user could provide feed back about how simple or complicated it was to implement a core. Then the developer could get some ranking about how good his/her cores are. In addition there could be a statistic how often a core got implemented in what technology. > The benefits from a developer standpoint are to get help with the > extensive work in verifying the core. We all know that the design > proportion of an IP is 10-20% and the rest is simulation/verification. Now, I think that opencores should also allow some more distinction here. You are saying that an implemented core improves the core through feed back by the user. But that feed back is not encouraged. Some people may even not give it, as they don't want to show that they are using that core. On the other side, a developer on opencores is considered a developer of a core. That is somewhat natural, as that is at the end all a user wants. But actually, what a user wants is a verified core. So why not also have the possibility to add a verification project? For example, Teal/Truss http://trusster.com is a C++ based verification framework and the developers used the opencores UART in one of the examples. It would be great if they could have set up a new project for their code and add a link to the UART project. Then a user going to the UART project page, would see that someone else did some verification effort to that core, not related to the developer. I mean part of the verification problem is, that the developer tends to be blind for own development errors, so having someone else do the verification will increase quality. Just some thought and sorry for the long post. Cheers, Guenter

How to sell an open core? by Unknown on May 14, 2008			Not available!
<A HREF="http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores">webmaster at opencores.org</A> wrote: [...] [q] We also would like to invite OpenCores users with web-development expertise to help us improve OpenCores website. Send an email to <A HREF="http://www.opencores.org/mailman/listinfo/cores">webmaster at opencores.org</A> with a short description of your expertise if you want to contribute.[/q] Would it make sense to create actually a project on OC for that? One idea would be to implement some kind of formal improvement development cycle. First step would be to specify what new feature should be implemented. In the next step a specification is created that provides details about the interfaces to the current OC web page source code that is needed to implement the feature. The advantage would be that in the first stage nearly everybody could contribute. In the second stage people with insight to the current OC web source would need to provide input about interfaces. If that specification is published under an OC project, anyone can read it and determine whether they want to contribute to the task. Having done some development myself I know how complex such a task can become. Especially if it has not been specified thoroughly up front. By working out first a specification and publishing it, it may help to show the needed effort and also encourage some more developers to contribute. Cheers, Guenter webmaster at opencores.org wrote: [...] We also would like to invite OpenCores users with web-development expertise to help us improve OpenCores website. Send an email to webmaster at opencores.org with a short description of your expertise if you want to contribute. Would it make sense to create actually a project on OC for that? One idea would be to implement some kind of formal improvement development cycle. First step would be to specify what new feature should be implemented. In the next step a specification is created that provides details about the interfaces to the current OC web page source code that is needed to implement the feature. The advantage would be that in the first stage nearly everybody could contribute. In the second stage people with insight to the current OC web source would need to provide input about interfaces. If that specification is published under an OC project, anyone can read it and determine whether they want to contribute to the task. Having done some development myself I know how complex such a task can become. Especially if it has not been specified thoroughly up front. By working out first a specification and publishing it, it may help to show the needed effort and also encourage some more developers to contribute. Cheers, Guenter

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