"I'm still optimistic that FPGAs will gradually gather more software engineers into the fold." I'm really hopeful that Open Source software will one day be the

"I'm still optimistic that FPGAs will gradually gather more software engineers into the fold." I'm really hopeful that Open Source software will one day be the norm for EDA tools as it is for software development tools. How do we get there? One thought is that you need more software engineers to start designing hardware and then they will scratch their own itch for better tools and the rest will be history (similar to how we got Open Source compilers, OS's, etc.). I don't see that happening. More likely the software developers who are already in the field will see the light and start sharing code. Who are these software developers in the field? Well, the Big 3 EDA companies employ quite a few, but really everyone who writes Verilog or VHDL is already a software developer. Sure, they probably need to learn a new language before they go hack on a logic simulator (vhdl isn't the write language for that job), and maybe a new technique or two, but it's not as huge a stretch as everyone makes it out to be. They design microprocessors, networking chipsets, caches, PCIe root complexes for crying out loud, they have a better foundation in computer programming than the vast majority of "programmers" do. They can do learn how their tools work and how to hack on them.