[oc] Legal projects that can be worked on.

["Sam Gladstone" <samg@t-and-t.com>]

I thought it interesting that the PCI spec was so heavily protected by
lawyers from PCI-SIG.
Is there anything that is not so heavily protected and
might be of interest for the Opencores group?

I am just looking for a "fair game" list of things that could be looked into
that
won't land me in jail because of the DCMA or some other ridiculous corporate
protectionist
based law here in the U.S.

If we know what areas are legally OK to implement then it could be put into
spec.
Because working on something just to spite lawyers and then have it taken
off the
Opencores website is not going to get us anywhere.

Here is what I have seen
DSP and mixed signal circuits seem pretty safe.

Just about any recent IBM-PC interface seems to be guarded with lawyers.
(PCI, USB and so on.)

What about specs in the IEEE? How safe are they? Or does inclusion
into IEEE numbering system make them the property of the IEEE and
its band of lawyers?

I think this stuff needs to be roughly documented and placed as a FAQ on
the site. Sure would save a lot of grief for people new to the Opencores and
keep Opencores in a little more safe position.

Regards,
 Sam Gladstone



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