Re: Funding
On Tue, Mar 16, 1999 at 01:09:33PM -0500, vic plichota wrote:
>> Something such as a fee-based
>> monthly eMail newsletter
> This sounds good, I also liked the T-shirt idea.
I much prefer the T-shirt idea.
I unhappily don't have proficiency or time to hack a test F21 board,
so I wouldn't waste everyone's money time and hardware at purchasing a board
I couldn't use, but if there are T-shirts on sale, I'll buy several of them!
On the other hand, I know a hardware collector who'd be happy to purchase
a MISC computer, if he has any software (preferably a game, even Tetris)
to demo on it.
The T-shirt idea reminds me of a speech by a guy from AdaCore Technology
(maker of the free software GNU ADA compiler, www.gnat.com) at the french
free software conference "Autour du Libre 1999" this january.
He told us that in the free software model, the value of a company
is not in its intellectual property (EVIL),
but in its *technological advance* and its *mindshare*,
that is, in its *human capital*, rather than in *priviledges*.
Looks like a much more human-friendly business model than
intellectual property, to me.
As an example of successful mindshare, the conferencer explained that
people developing Java at Sun didn't pay their lunches,
whose cost was covered by the sale of Java T-shirts!!!
I am convinced that the free information approach applies to hardware design
as well as to software development: ultimately, design labs would license
their designs under free information license (à la GPL), and which labs
gets the dough from the users (directly or indirectly, through integrators
and makers) are those who attract and keep mindshare by their continued
technological advance.
Perhaps the people to contact would be system integrators who *use*
embedded processors: *they* are the ones who would benefit from a
business model without intellectual property. It would provide them
with security against makers of proprietary chips.
You can't beat existing strongholds on their own battlefield,
for which they've adapted weapons: monopoly, patents, etc.
But you *can* beat them if you change the rules of the game.
PS: on a more technical matter, although I do appreciate
Chuck Moore's work on optimizing processes by challenging specs
and using parts beyond "safe", well-charted, linear digital behavior areas,
why not just publishing "slow" parts that share the same logical behavior,
but staying within specs, and taking advantage of standard
(and perhaps faster) processes?
Is it already what the DYOP offer gives you: a FORTH processor in FPGA?
Is it what Christophe Lavarenne is working on at INRIA:
a simple FORTH processor specified in a formal synchronous language,
and dumping standard circuit specs?
PPS: why does Chuck stick to 20/21-bit size? Wouldn't 32/33-bit simplify
a LOT of things for software/hardware interoperability (and hence,
marketability, too) ? Or is there _such_ a design (or fab cost) barrier
to expanding the word size? I dream about a F33-based handheld computer!
(F33: eventual 33 bit version of F21, with 32-bit data just like F21 has
20-bit data, so as to be compatible with standard sizes of everyone's data
and I/O devices).
PPPS: How hard would it be to make some kind of PalmPilot- or Psion-
like machine based on 32-bit FORTH processor technology?
Meanwhile, we're stuck with m68K- and ARM-, or worse, ia32- based machines :(
P^4S: I'm more of a software guy. Wouldn't you gain from MISC operating
software being free software? After all, it could only encourage people
to buy MISC hardware, and pay MISC hardware designers!
P^5S: back to lurking on the list. Keep up the good work.
If I can help without wasting money on hardware I wouldn't use, let me know.
[ "Faré" | VN: Уng-Vû Bân | Join the TUNES project! http://www.tunes.org/ ]
[ FR: François-René Rideau | TUNES is a Useful, Nevertheless Expedient System ]
[ Reflection&Cybernethics | Project for a Free Reflective Computing System ]
I do agree that I have to pay for the *opportunity* to read a book or to use
a program; I do not agree that I have to pay for the *right* to do so.
