--- /dev/null
+# NLNet Grants approved: Power ISA under consideration
+
+Across several projects, nearly EUR 400,000 worth of additional funding
+applications were put in, and around EUR 200,000 to 250,000 of those have
+been approved. The RISC-V Foundation's continued extreme unethical
+actions have led us to consider using Power ISA.
+
+# NLNet Grants
+
+[NLNet](http://nlnet.nl) were first approached eighteen months ago, with
+an initial application to develop the core of a privacy-respecting trustable
+processor. Whilst NLNet's primary focus of the past fifteen years has been
+software, they have funded reverse-engineering for
+[Osmocon BB](https://nlnet.nl/project/sdr-phy/) and for
+[OpenBSC](https://nlnet.nl/project/iuh-openbsc/) so are no strangers to
+hardware. The problem with software is: if the hardware cannot be trusted,
+then no amount of trustable, open and transparent software will help.
+
+The [additional proposals](https://libre-riscv.org/nlnet_proposals/)
+expand on the core, to cover:
+
+* Formal Mathematical correctness proofs for the entire processor, including
+ the FPU (no more Intel Pentium FPDIV bugs...)
+* a special Video Acceleration focus, adding video decode instructions
+* an additional 3D Driver based on AMDVLK or MESA
+* some funding to be able to properly develop and document ISA standards
+* a Wishbone Streaming enhancement to add A/V timecode stamps to Wishbone B4,
+ and to develop independent libre-licensed peripherals as examples.
+* two inter-related proposals to develop Libre Cell Libraries
+ ([Chips4Makers](http://chips4makers.be)), to be used
+ by a team at [LIP6.fr](http://lip6.fr)
+ using the Alliance / Coriolis2 ASIC layout tools.
+ Additional funding will go to the nmigen team for ASIC improvements and
+ special integration with Coriolis2.
+
+The goal here is to get to a working, commercially-saleable 180nm single-core
+ASIC at around 300 to 350mhz, suitable for use as a high-end Embedded
+Controller. Staf from Chips4Makers will act as the "NDA firebreak" between
+us and TSMC.
+
+All of these have been approved by NLNet, and, crucially, the external
+independent review process successfully completed for each. The exact
+amounts of each grant is to be confirmed, with each being possible to be
+up to the limit of EUR 50,000 for each sub-project.
+
+Part of the process was a little tricky, initially: the independent reviewers
+expressed surprise at the amounts being requested for *sub*-tasks when the
+initial application was so small. The reason was very simple: both Jacob
+and I have unique low-income circumstances that simply do not need European /
+Western style living expenses. Whereas, when we get to much more specialist
+tasks (such as formal mathematical proofs, Video assembly-level drivers,
+and so on), these fields are so specialist that finding people who are good
+*and* who are able to exist on student or S.E.Asia level funding is just not
+practical.
+
+We therefore made sure that the calculations were based around an approximate
+EUR 3,000 per month budget per person, bearing in mind that due to NLNet's
+International Tax Agreements, this being donations, that's equivalent to a
+"wage" of approximately nearly twice that amount (three times if, as a
+business, you have to take into consideration Corporation Tax / Employee
+Insurance as well).
+
+We therefore need to find people willing to help do the work, and what is
+really nice: NLNet will donate money to them for completion of that work!
+Therefore, if you've always wanted to work on a 3D processor, its drivers
+and its source code, do get in touch.
+
+# PowerPC.
+
+This is a
+[long story](http://lists.libre-riscv.org/pipermail/libre-riscv-dev/2019-October/003035.html)
+that was picked up by
+[Phoronix](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Libre-RISC-V-Eyeing-POWER)
+before we had a chance to make any kind of real "announcement". That said:
+we're always really grateful to Michael for his coverage of the Libre SoC,
+as it always sparks some insightful, useful and engaging discussions.
+
+The summary is this: Libre and Open contributors to RISC-V have been
+disregarded for several years. **Long** before I joined the RISC-V
+Mailing lists, it was *well-known* within that small and tightly-knit
+community that if you were not associated directly with UCB, you were
+basically not welcome. Caveat: if you signed the NDA-like agreement
+which conflicts directly with, for example, the Debian Charter and
+the whole purpose of Libre Licenses, then you got a "voice" and you
+got access to the closed and secretive RISC-V resources and mailing
+lists.
+
+Michael puts it extremely well: I have absolutely no problem with the
+ISA itself, it's the abuse of power and the flagrant ignoring and abuse
+of basic tenets of Trademark Law that are just completely untenable.
+Not only that: one well-paid employee of SiFive has *repeatedly* engaged
+in defamation attacks for over eighteen months. Even raising a formal
+complaint through the newly-established relationship with the Linux
+Foundation failed to keep that individual under control. Also adversely
+impacted was the newly-established Open Graphics Alliance initiative,
+which was independently started by Pixilica back in October,
+proposed at SIGGRAPH 2019 and welcomed by world-leading 3D Industry
+experts.
+
+At some point you just have to appreciate that to continue to support
+an unethical organisation is itself unethical, and thus I made the
+decision to reach out to MIPS and Power. The MIPS website didn't even
+work, so I gave up there immediately. The Open Power Foundation on
+the other hand, I was both delighted and surprised to hear back from
+a former colleague when I was in Canberra, 20 years ago: Hugh Blemings.
+
+Hugh is extremely knowledgeable, highly intelligent, and completely
+understands Libre and Open principles. We had only 15 minutes to
+talk before he had to focus on preparing for the upcoming Open Power
+Conference: in that short time, we covered:
+
+* the need for ISANS / ISAMUX "breakout" system. Hugh even said,
+ without prompting, that the scheme I quickly described would
+ allow full software-level ISA emulation and that that was a really
+ good and necessary thing. With this **formally** in place as part
+ of an officially-approved Power ISA Standard, not only could our team
+ expand the Power ISA in a safe and controlled fashion, so could other
+ adopters.
+* that the core OpenPower members had *already been discussing* how to make
+ sure that new Libre Teams with a commercial focus could join and not
+ have any transparency / patent / NDA / royalty / licensing conflicts
+ of interest. The only major thing that the other members wanted was
+ a "P.R. blackout period", right around the time of announcement of
+ new Standards, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
+* that IBM will be providing a royalty-free unlimited license grant
+ for *all* of its patents, as long as firstly the licensees do not
+ make any effort to assert patents **against** IBM, and secondly,
+ as long as implementations are fully-compliant with the OpenPower
+ Standards.
+* that there is discussion underway as to the creation and maintenance
+ of Formal Compliance Test Suites, just as there is today with the
+ RISC-V ISA.
+* that the use of a Certification Mark - not a Service Mark or a Trade Mark -
+ is the most appropriate thing for ISA Standards. I mentioned this
+ only briefly however it takes a lot more than 15 minutes to properly
+ explain, so I am not going to push it: Hugh is doing so much already.
+
+It was a very busy and positive conversation, where it is clear that
+we caught them right at the beginning of the process. Consequently,
+my discussion with Hugh was just at the right time. Without that,
+the existing OpenPower Members might never have really truly believed
+that any Libre **Commercial** project would ever in fact come forward
+(that the steps that they were taking were purely hypothetical).
+Out of the blue (pun intended) I contact Hugh and highlight that no,
+it's not hypothetical.
+
+The next step, then, will be to wait until mid-january when people come
+back from holiday, and wait for the announcement of the Open Power
+License Agreement. Hugh reassures me that there's nothing spectacularly
+controversial in it, and given his long-standing experience of several
+decades with the Libre and Open Communities, I cannot think of a reason
+why it would not be possible to sign it. We just have to see.
+
+The timing here with NLNet is just on the edge: we have to create a
+full list of milestones and assign a fixed budget to each (then later
+subdivide them into sub-tasks under that milestone). This is a leeeetle
+bit challenging when we have not yet reviewed the Open Power Agreement,
+however given that the majority of the tasks are ISA-independent, it
+will actually work out fine.
+
+The only other major thing: what the heck do we do with the libre-riscv.org
+domain? As you can see on the mailing list decision, we decided to go
+with a *userspace* RV64GC dual-ISA front-end. **userspace** RISC-V POSIX
+(Linux / Android) applications will work perfectly well, as will **userspace**
+PowerISA POSIX applications, however the **kernel** (supervisor) space will
+be entirely PowerISA.
+
+The Video and 3D acceleration opcodes will be **entirely in the Power ISA**.
+We are sick and tired of the RISC-V Foundation's blatant mismanagement:
+therefore we will comply to the absolute minimal letter with RV64GC for
+the benefit of our users, backers and sponsors, however RISC-V and the
+RISC-V ISA itself
+will no longer receive the benefit of the advancements and innovation
+that we have received funding and support to develop.
+
+Therefore: the assembly-code being written by hand for the Video Acceleration
+side, as well as the 3D drivers for Kazan and MESA, will "flip" from RV64GC
+RISC-V over to the Power ISA, which will be fully 3D accelerated with advanced
+Simple-V Vector operations, then return back to userspace RISC-V RV64GC ISA
+to continue serving the user application.
+
+Next steps for us include setting up a Foundation under which the processor
+can be developed, and to look towards the next major funding step: USD 10m
+to 20m.
projects / crowdsupply.git / commitdiff