Reasons partially out of $COMPANY's control.

Reasons partially out of $COMPANY's control.

> The companies may not be able to release the documentation even if they they want to.

Their choices are what led them to be in possession of hardware which they are not allowed to describe.

> Obviously we had the right to document the portions of the chip that we designed. But we purchased licenses for a couple of large RTL blocks and licensed a couple of large hunks of C code from other companies. These companies exist solely to sell licenses to the RTL modules and code they develop which means they have no desire to publish their code under any of the open source licenses.

This just begs the question one further level. If companies find themselves in a position to obtain part of their hardware design from another party, we need to let them know -- with noise, and real repercussions when they ignore us -- that if they don't get it under conditions that allow them to describe it fully, they are *choosing* to lock themselves out.

> But getting fully open hardware requires changes to how chip IP vendors work, which will take time to achieve.

So, by encouraging vendors when they *can* release the documentation on their hardware, and -- more importantly -- making it plain that we *don't* accept hardware without this documentation, we enlist the hardware manufacturers in pressuring *their* suppliers.