[asterisk-dev] Asterisk Appliance?

[Jason Parker]

----- Kevin P. Fleming <kpfleming at digium.com> wrote:
> ----- Denis Smirnov <ds at seiros.ru> wrote:
> > Sun T1 (Niagara) GPL'ed
> 
> Not quite. First, according to the Sun OpenSPARC web site, nothing has
> yet been released, and when it is, it will be under 'an OSI-approved
> license'. There is no mention of the GPL.
> 
> Second, what they are open sourcing is the Verilog design of the CPU
> and the associated tools. The actual implementations they manufacture
> (the chip masks, etc) are most definitely not open source. That means
> if you want to produce the same CPU, you can use their Verilog as a
> starting point, but you will have a LOT of work to do to make an
> actual functioning and manufacturable processor that meets the design
> specifications.
> 
> In other words, yes, it is (or will be) an open source design, but the
> chips that Sun produces and sells are _NOT_ open source.
> 

I don't do hardware, so I don't have any idea what this really means, but this is a direct quote from Jonathan Schwartz, from when I asked him to elaborate on what he meant by "[...] Sun's UltraSPARC platform, the world's only GPL microprocessor [...]" (ref: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/ubuntu_on_niagara_and_platinum).

"The RTL for SPARC is under GPL - check out OpenSPARC.org"

Obviously, he may have misstated, but that was the answer I received from him directly.

-- 
Jason Parker
Digium