OpenCores announces new ownership

Oliscience: took over the development and maintenance of the community portal

Amsterdam, 22 September

Today marks the official launch of a new ownership of the OpenCores (OC) website and community by a start-up project that goes by the name of Oliscience (Open Logic Interconnects science, www.oliscience.nl).

Members of Oliscience took over the challenging task of the “OC-team" for running, developing, and maintaining the website and its great community.

The Oliscience team, encompassing long time users and contributors of the site, firmly believes in the value of such place on the web:

“At first we have been promoting it by actively participating. However, the portal suffered an evident lack of stewardship by the previous owners, resulting in several repeated service disruptions, which endangered the proper functioning of such large community. Despite its unkempt state, the OC website proved its resilience, and the attachment to it by many enthusiasts, surviving all those years of bad maintenance… with a stiff upper lip! It also never really lost its aura of hackers’ space with a strong ‘hardware’ flavour… and all this is exactly why we decided to acquire it!

What we already did in the past months, is to port the platform to a safe and adequately performing server in the Netherlands (www.transip.nl) and revise the basic static content of the site.

We also did some basic clean-up of the projects hosted on the portal, and flagged a few as “ext” (external) because of their “historical” importance. We still firmly believe that the best way to ensure code quality and consistency is to host content on-site, so we keep encouraging users to contribute by creating projects on our platform.

We are already restlessly working on improvements in all aspects related to the portal: from the technical definitions of standards and methods for HDL design, with a stronger focus on FPGAs in mind; to all the technology that revolves around creating good, feature-reach, and tested IP Cores. To remain true to the site’s long-standing spirit of Free and Open Source collaboration, which in our view is patently fundamental especially for the research fields, we are active in the exploration of novel legal frameworks to ensure full transparency and credit to code creators and users. We are also well aware of new technology trends in web-hosting and community management, so we are carefully planning our next big leap forward. Last but not least, we have a business plan to make sure OpenCores will innovate to make sufficient revenue for the portal to thrive and ever improve and grow.”

Next to the relaunch of OpenCores, Oliscience aims to strengthen and promote the development of gateware IP Cores in the field of digital design engineering for FPGAs, with a careful eye on scientific applications (fundamental research). Once again, with the deep hope that its innovation will benefit the community and its contributors.

The initiative is backed by private investors as well as by Nikhef (the National Institute for Subatomic Physics, www.nikhef.nl). Jan Visser, Nikhef's Industrial Contacts Coordinator and Industrial Liaison Officer says: “The transfer of knowledge and technology to industry, civil society and the general public is an integral part of Nikhef’s mission. That is why Nikhef supports Oliscience as an initiative, as well as its attempt to empower the OpenCores portal and community."

We really hope you will continue to follow and contribute to this wonderful place on the web! And we promise we will do our best to push it to the next level!

Stay with us!

Best,
/:/ OC-team

OpenCores is the world's largest site/community focusing on Free and Open source gatware IP core development and dissemination.

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