[proto_lambda]

> Open source tooling is very primitive and not usable

Maybe you're working off old information, but the FOSS tooling (ghdl, yosys, nextpnr) is completely sufficient for hobbyists. If you're doing huge, high-speed designs on expensive FPGAs, sure, use the vendor tools, but for your average iCE40/ECP5-scale design, FOSS is the way to go.

[IshKebab]

Sufficient, sure. But in terms of usability it's like giving someone sed and grep and saying "this is sufficient for writing a novel".

Maybe in time they'll move on from the "here's a bunch of random poorly documented tools, you only have to do all of the integration work!" stage, but they aren't there yet.