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What you say is ridiculous. The only reason why the "Linux community" cannot create adequate FPGA design tools is that the vendors like AMD refuse to document

What you say is ridiculous. The only reason why the "Linux community" cannot create adequate FPGA design tools is that the vendors like AMD refuse to document the necessary details of their products. A few old AMD FPGAs have been reversed engineered, e.g. some ARTIX-7, so for them there is no need for the rather bad AMD tools, but for most AMD formerly Xilinx FPGAs it is impossible to create better tools for lack of documentation. As long as AMD refuses to provide the technical documentation required to use their products, it should have been a legal obligation to at least provide basic tools that allows the buyer of such products to actually use "FPGAs", i.e. to "field-program" them, as the name of the sold product claims. Like many other FPGA developers, I could write myself better FPGA development tools than what AMD provides, if I had access to the complete FPGA technical documentation to which only a few big companies have access, a restriction whose only possible purpose is to prevent competition in the FPGA market. If AMD had documented the exact format of the bit stream required to program each model of their FPGAs and the complete timing consequences of each synthesis choice, nobody would need any FPGA simulation or synthesis tool provided by AMD in Vivado.

charcircuit 5mo ago
[flagged]
- Dylan16807 5mo ago
  No, it's not "on the Linux community" to bribe a company out of releasing hardware in a broken state of usability.
  - charcircuit 5mo ago
    It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The reality is that companies pay each other for partnerships all of the time. There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret and there is value for having control over what design tools exist for them. It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do work for free which could undermine their business. The hardware is not in a broken state of usability since you can still buy usable design software.
    - Dylan16807 5mo ago
      > It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The C++ standard group didn't just sell me a piece of hardware that only runs C++, in a world where no free C++ compilers exist. That analogy isn't even close. > There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret It's a value that doesn't deserve respect. > It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do work for free which could undermine their business. Their business is selling the hardware. Their money should come from selling the hardware. I'm not demanding a free full-featured development environment. I think they should have to document the hardware and maybe provide a basic compiler. If they want to sell something beyond that, no problem. > The hardware is not in a broken state of usability since you can still buy usable design software. And if you don't? It's a fixable broken state with enough money, but it's still a broken state.
      - charcircuit 5mo ago
        >That analogy isn't even close. Then how about the instruction manuals for the processors themselves. It's really not that different. People spend a lot of time and resources building something and compiling information and you are demanding to get it for free. >It's a value that doesn't deserve respect. It does deserve respect as a lot of people put in work in creating it and creating a successful product. If you think it's not that much effort to do then find someone to make their own FPGA and documentation for it. >Their business is selling the hardware. Their money should come from selling the hardware. It is rare for a business to be so 1 dimensional. Businesses have many income streams. Even for the same product. Take for example the iPhone. Apple gets income from people buying the device. Income from companies for letting them sell things in the App Store. Income from Google for setting Google as the default search provider. >And if you don't? If you refuse to get a compatible computer for the free software to flash the chips then you can't flash the chips for free. The chips are still fully functional and if you sold them to someone else they could program them.
        Dylan16807 5mo ago
- imtringued 5mo ago
  What kind of logic is this? Linux developers are supposed to build their own software and to do so they have to pay AMD for documentation under an NDA that prevents them from developing an open source toolchain? What kind of logic is that? This is especially stupid since AMD benefits from every single FPGA sale so all they did was reduce the number of FPGAs they will sell, by locking out customers.
izacus 5mo ago
[flagged]
pocksuppet 5mo ago
[flagged]
- lukan 5mo ago
  Because most don't want to work on something big, with a high risk of being sued into oblivion once released?
  - pocksuppet 5mo ago
    It's a pretty low risk if you don't put your identity out there. I know there's at least one Git forge that's a Tor onion service. Even on GitHub 99% of the time this ends with a DMCA takedown of the repository. You should probably put it on a pseudonymous alt account but you don't actually need to use a Tor onion service. You could also get someone else to put their name on the web hosting and so on. Don't know who exactly, but there are a lot more people willing to take legal risk of having reverse-engineered an FPGA toolchain, than people who can reverse-engineer an FPGA toolchain. Doing the work is what's most important, and the rest can be figured out later. But you don't even see that. You don't see people being like "I reverse-engineered Vivado but I won't give you a copy because I could get sued."
    - lukan 5mo ago
      "Doing the work is what's most important, and the rest can be figured out later." I would say for most people his means they won't start the work if they don't know whether there is a way. Also most people like to get credit for their work. So the number of people capable AND willing to work without getting credit is low. And that is not surprising to me. It is not my skill set, but I certainly would not invest much into something like this.
    - rescbr 5mo ago
      > You don't see people being like "I reverse-engineered Vivado but I won't give you a copy because I could get sued." Eh, not Vivado, but back in my undergrad days I RE/cracked a tool used in a very specific niche and definitely kept my mouth shut as the developers could a) do some investigation and then sue me, a student without any legal budget to spare; b) improve copy protection on future releases; and/or c) prevent my access to future versions of the tool that I was using for my thesis. On other threads about Denuvo you always see somebody saying they've got the chops but the risk to their livelihoods is not worth it. I think there are a lot of (now) hobbyist reverse-engineers that learned the craft back in the day and kept the knowledge for themselves.

charcircuit 5mo ago

[flagged]

Dylan16807 5mo ago
No, it's not "on the Linux community" to bribe a company out of releasing hardware in a broken state of usability.
- charcircuit 5mo ago
  It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The reality is that companies pay each other for partnerships all of the time. There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret and there is value for having control over what design tools exist for them. It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do work for free which could undermine their business. The hardware is not in a broken state of usability since you can still buy usable design software.
  - Dylan16807 5mo ago
    > It's no more a bribe than having to pay money to buy the latest C++ standard when implementing a C++ compiler. The C++ standard group didn't just sell me a piece of hardware that only runs C++, in a world where no free C++ compilers exist. That analogy isn't even close. > There is value to AMD for keeping this documentation secret It's a value that doesn't deserve respect. > It makes sense that AMD would want to be compensated in this case and would not want to do work for free which could undermine their business. Their business is selling the hardware. Their money should come from selling the hardware. I'm not demanding a free full-featured development environment. I think they should have to document the hardware and maybe provide a basic compiler. If they want to sell something beyond that, no problem. > The hardware is not in a broken state of usability since you can still buy usable design software. And if you don't? It's a fixable broken state with enough money, but it's still a broken state.
    - charcircuit 5mo ago
      >That analogy isn't even close. Then how about the instruction manuals for the processors themselves. It's really not that different. People spend a lot of time and resources building something and compiling information and you are demanding to get it for free. >It's a value that doesn't deserve respect. It does deserve respect as a lot of people put in work in creating it and creating a successful product. If you think it's not that much effort to do then find someone to make their own FPGA and documentation for it. >Their business is selling the hardware. Their money should come from selling the hardware. It is rare for a business to be so 1 dimensional. Businesses have many income streams. Even for the same product. Take for example the iPhone. Apple gets income from people buying the device. Income from companies for letting them sell things in the App Store. Income from Google for setting Google as the default search provider. >And if you don't? If you refuse to get a compatible computer for the free software to flash the chips then you can't flash the chips for free. The chips are still fully functional and if you sold them to someone else they could program them.
      - Dylan16807 5mo ago
imtringued 5mo ago
What kind of logic is this? Linux developers are supposed to build their own software and to do so they have to pay AMD for documentation under an NDA that prevents them from developing an open source toolchain? What kind of logic is that? This is especially stupid since AMD benefits from every single FPGA sale so all they did was reduce the number of FPGAs they will sell, by locking out customers.

izacus 5mo ago

[flagged]

pocksuppet 5mo ago

[flagged]

lukan 5mo ago
Because most don't want to work on something big, with a high risk of being sued into oblivion once released?
- pocksuppet 5mo ago
  It's a pretty low risk if you don't put your identity out there. I know there's at least one Git forge that's a Tor onion service. Even on GitHub 99% of the time this ends with a DMCA takedown of the repository. You should probably put it on a pseudonymous alt account but you don't actually need to use a Tor onion service. You could also get someone else to put their name on the web hosting and so on. Don't know who exactly, but there are a lot more people willing to take legal risk of having reverse-engineered an FPGA toolchain, than people who can reverse-engineer an FPGA toolchain. Doing the work is what's most important, and the rest can be figured out later. But you don't even see that. You don't see people being like "I reverse-engineered Vivado but I won't give you a copy because I could get sued."
  - lukan 5mo ago
    "Doing the work is what's most important, and the rest can be figured out later." I would say for most people his means they won't start the work if they don't know whether there is a way. Also most people like to get credit for their work. So the number of people capable AND willing to work without getting credit is low. And that is not surprising to me. It is not my skill set, but I certainly would not invest much into something like this.
  - rescbr 5mo ago
    > You don't see people being like "I reverse-engineered Vivado but I won't give you a copy because I could get sued." Eh, not Vivado, but back in my undergrad days I RE/cracked a tool used in a very specific niche and definitely kept my mouth shut as the developers could a) do some investigation and then sue me, a student without any legal budget to spare; b) improve copy protection on future releases; and/or c) prevent my access to future versions of the tool that I was using for my thesis. On other threads about Denuvo you always see somebody saying they've got the chops but the risk to their livelihoods is not worth it. I think there are a lot of (now) hobbyist reverse-engineers that learned the craft back in the day and kept the knowledge for themselves.