Source: Sarah Vessels' Tumblr
“Many people are calling out "Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling for a series on anti-trans tweets on Saturday afternoon.“ via Pocket
Source: Hack a Day
Yesterday we reported that Lattice Semiconductor had inserted a clause that restricted the reverse engineering of bitstreams produced by their FPGA toolchains. Although not explicitly stated, it’s assumed that this was directed toward several projects over the past five years that have created fully open source toolchains by reverse engineering the bitstream protocols of the Lattice ICE40 and ECP5 FPGA architectures. Late yesterday Lattice made an announcement reversing course.
To the open source community, thank-you for pointing out a new bitstream usage restriction in the Lattice Propel license. We are excited about the community’s engagement with Lattice devices and our intent is to not hinder the creation of innovative open source FPGA tools.
It’s refreshing then to see this announcement from Lattice Semiconductor. Even more so is the unexpected turn of speed with which they have done so, within a couple of days of it being discovered by the open-source community. We report depressingly often on boneheaded legal moves from corporations intent on curbing open source uses of their products. This announcement from Lattice removes what was an admonition opposing open source toolchains, can we hope that the company will continue yesterday’s gesture and build a more lasting relationship with the open source community?
The underlying point to this story is that in the world of electronics there has long been an understanding that hardware hackers drive product innovation which will later lead to more sales. Texas Instruments would for years supply samples of exotic semiconductors to impecunious students for one example, and maybe you have a base-model Rigol oscilloscope with a tacitly-approved software hack that gives it an extra 50MHz of bandwidth for another.
We can only congratulate Lattice on their recognition that open source use of their products is beneficial for them, and wish that some of the other companies triggering similar stories would see the world in the same way. Try interacting more with your open source fans; they know and love your hardware more than the average user and embracing that could mean a windfall for you down the road.
Source: Kentucky.com -- Fayette County
An Independent Fundamental Baptist church in Jessamine County that resumed in-person services in mid-May, and whose pastor pressured the governor to reopen churches early, is now the site of a … Click to Continue »
Source: Engadget
Source: Kentucky.com -- Education
The University of Kentucky will begin the process of taking down the controversial Memorial Hall mural that depicts black workers — possibly slaves — planting tobacco, an email sent to … Click to Continue »
Source: Hacker News
Source: Hacker News
Source: The Register
IBM has given users of its IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC on Power 80 days to find a new home.…
Source: Kentucky.com -- Education
The University of Kentucky should have reduced and refunded mandatory fees and tuition when it switched to online-only classes because of the COVID-19 pandemic, a student’s lawsuit argues. The lawsuit … Click to Continue »
Source: Hacker News
