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Sun brings Niagara 2 chip to open source (eWeek)
eWeek reports that
Sun is releasing the specifications of the new UltraSPARC T2 processor.
"When Sun announced the release of the eight-core UltraSPARC T2 chip
in August 2007, company executives said it would move to bring the
specification to the open-source community through Sun's OpenSPARC
initiative. The goal of releasing Niagara 2 into the open-source community
through the General Public License is to create a larger community around
the chip and increase the number of operating systems and applications that
can use the processor, said Shrenik Mehta, senior director for Fronted
Technologies and the OpenSPARC Program at Sun."
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That's GPLv2 Posted Dec 11, 2007 21:31 UTC (Tue) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Although it's never stated explicitly, the link on the downoald page leads to GPL version 2. I think GPLv3 would be a better choice, because GPLv3 is explicit about granting patents to the recipients.
That's GPLv2 Posted Dec 11, 2007 21:42 UTC (Tue) by hawk (subscriber, #3195) [Link] Well, it's definitely not mentioned anywhere that it would be GPLv3, so I think the link to GPLv2 (with the filename GPLv2_License_OpenSPARCT2.txt) probably should be interpreted as "the explicit GPLv2-only statement".
Sun brings Niagara 2 chip to open source (eWeek) Posted Dec 12, 2007 5:16 UTC (Wed) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] "The one part of the source code that Sun can not release are the algorithms approved by the National Security Agency as part of the chip's cryptographic accelerations units." What the hell? Why can't Sun release that part? Here is some more information about these features in the UltraSPARC T2 http://sun.systemnews.com/articles/116/1/hw/18653
Sun brings Niagara 2 chip to open source (eWeek) Posted Dec 12, 2007 6:13 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] Perhaps the non-disclosure was a condition of the certification. I guess the intention is to deny potential adversaries access to the code that would allow them to clone the chip and use it for military purposes.
Sun brings Niagara 2 chip to open source (eWeek) Posted Dec 12, 2007 23:17 UTC (Wed) by RogerL (guest, #4046) [Link] Export regulations more likely
Sun brings Niagara 2 chip to open source (eWeek) Posted Dec 12, 2007 23:52 UTC (Wed) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] Does anyone have any information that isn't merely uninformed guesswork? Neither FIPS certification nor export regulations require concealing source/design, in the general case. In fact, where did eWeek even get this juicy tidbit? I've scoured the web and find no mention of this alleged exception anywhere other than this eWeek article. Did the GPL release of the T1 exclude the T1's crypto module? I've never heard mention of the possibility before. Apparently Shrenik Mehta, "senior director for Fronted Technologies and the OpenSPARC Program at Sun", said something to this effect to Scott Ferguson, journalist for eWeek. I'll attempt to e-mail them and ask. I'm downloading the OpenSPARC T2 Chip Design and Verification source code, but since I know next to nothing about chip design and verification, I don't know if I'll be able to determine whether the crypto module source is present therein.
Sun brings Niagara 2 chip to open source (eWeek) Posted Dec 13, 2007 0:47 UTC (Thu) by zooko (subscriber, #2589) [Link] Okay, I've sent queries to the OpenSPARC folks and to Scott Ferguson. I grepped around in the GPL'ed verilog stuff a bit, but I don't know how to read it. I found some corroborating evidence of this: http://blogs.sun.com/sprack/entry/detailed_t2_crypto_info Shows that details of the crypto module was removed from the docs at some point.
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