FEL's commitment lineup

[Chitlesh GOORAH]

Hello there
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 12:04 AM, Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Fedora is not a content distribution. It's a software distribution. We only
> ship content which is directly related to software we ship:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines#Code_Vs_Content
>
> Fedora is not a content library, we cannot ship all the content in
> existence, there's just too much of it.
>
> OVM cannot be used with any software in Fedora, so it also does not belong
> into Fedora. What's the point of shipping content which cannot be used?
>
> The same rationale is also being applied to MP3 files, which are also not
> permitted in Fedora.

Fedora (the distribution) is the product of the Fedora Project. We all
know this. FESCo looks after the welfare of the contributing members
and the fedora packages.

I am one of the contributing members and at the same time I look after
the welfare of the opensource EDA community(not only packages) which
are outside Fedora. The number of FEL users is directly proportional
to the health of this opensource EDA community. The health of this
opensource EDA community depends on the following items:
- user base - worldwide
- EDA developer base with hardware knowledge - more than 20 different
upstream projects
- Providers, Methodologies and design flows maintainers - FEL

At this point we are outside the packaging environment and more EDA
community development. However both are inter-related and under the
name of Fedora Electronic Lab I'm trying to keep the balance.

FEL users will develop hardware. One of Fedora's ground rules is about
opensource and spreading the word. So with FEL, I'm trying to promote
open hardware by spreading the word. However it would be nice to
develop openhardware with opensource EDA software.

It is my/FEL task to provide such tools that can make it possible and
needs the technical demands.

I would appreciate that steering committee should have the above notes
in mind. I have closed the OVM package review request and if we have
OVM support in the future, I'll reopen the bug. I'm sorry to say that
the "doesn't provide OS user experience" is lame as an argument for
FEL applications as it downgrades "hardware design user experience" on
Fedora. Something FEL is fighting since more than 3 years now.

My first email on the thread "Fedora Project, give me 20 Million Euros
or Free Software" was to sync the Fedora Project with information
about what is being done with respect to EDA and decisions/arguments
should be taken wisely as most of the time it is like a domino effect
on the work done in the past. Thereby hardware designers for
openhardware will not have the tools to make the easy switch.

Though, many will say FEL's user base is minority. I would rather
point to what can be achieved. Have a brief look at this document and
pictures.
http://www-vlsi.stanford.edu/~jsolomon/dac_2001/chipmap.pdf (first
doc, I found on google)

High end hardware design is possible. Our ambassadors around the world
will be proud to say: you can execute the whole design flow under
fedora.

Kind regards,
Chitlesh