[rowanG077]

This is not a separate synthesis tool. This is just a yosys plugin and only works for their own FPGAs. Kind of leaves a bad taste in my mount that they choose to advertise this as their own synthesis tool when it isn't. I'm curious why they didn't work together with upstream.

Also looking to their full stack it seem they use VPR/VTR instead of nextpnr for routing. That seems like a backwards choice.

[elsjaako]

When you release something as open source, a third party grabbing it and releasing it is explicitly something that can be done.

I can't speak for them, so I'm not sure, but I feel like new FPGA suppliers coming around having open source tooling being the default is something that the authors of Yosys would like.

Zero ASIC even credited the original authors in the press release and released the source code, which they didn't need to do. If you release your code under a permissive license, like Yosys did, a company taking it and selling a closed source version of it is something you are allowing. If that's not something you want, choose a different license.

[rowanG077]

There is obviously a difference between legality and what I would consider good behavior. I didn't say what they are doing is illegal. I just said it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

In essence this is something like 99% yosys + 1% their own sauce. Yet they market it as 99% their own sauce + 1% yosys.

[elsjaako]

I think we're reading the same article differently.

They start out by describing all the work that has been done by other people to make open source synthesis possible.

Then they say they've added some well known, industry standard optimizations to the existing open source tools. In addition, they made use of the abc tool in a way that maybe wasn't being done much before.

My view is that if you think someone taking your software, changing some parts, and releasing it under a different name (while still giving you credit in an about section) leaves a bad taste in your mouth, don't release your software with a permissive license. You are explicitly giving permission for someone to do this.

I don't like companies doing this, so I tend to release under GPL. Even then, I'm happy for someone to rebrand and sell it, as long as the source is still shared. I gave them permission to do that.

Don't give someone permission to do something, and then say it's in bad taste when they do that thing.

[Dylan16807]

> My view is that if you think someone taking your software, changing some parts, and releasing it under a different name (while still giving you credit in an about section) leaves a bad taste in your mouth, don't release your software with a permissive license. You are explicitly giving permission for someone to do this.

I don't agree that that kind of permission means you're not allowed to have a bad taste in your mouth. But even if I did agree, that argument only applies to the developer. You are not talking to the developer. We as third parties are fully allowed to complain.

[rowanG077]

I'm not a yosys developer to be clear, so I have no say what they license their software as. But indeed someone taken an open source software with a good community and re-branding it as their own while adding a thinly veiled lick of paint without even attempting to work together with upstream indeed leaves a bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand licensing software as GPL also leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[drob518]

Exactly. “You did what? You complied with my license terms?!?! How dare you!”

[adapteva]

I am sorry you that's how it looks...can't argue with feelings, We did everything we could to give credit. Open source SW should be a stack and every project needs a proper name as a reference. I do find the statement a bit ironic though, b/c 99% of Yosys users don't know that 99% of the logic synthesis sauce in Yosys is done by ABC.

https://github.com/zeroasiccorp/wildebeest

[rowanG077]

I think most people who seriously use Yosys already know that ABC is the foundation it’s built on. But let’s be real, this plugin is just twelve C++ source files. Calling that a “synthesis suite” just isn’t accurate. What it actually does is build on the synthesis suite provided by Yosys (and indirectly ABC), adding some extra algorithms and support for your FPGA family.

That said, this work is important, you do need it to get your FPGA running. And from the table, the reported optimizations look good (though I haven’t dug into them in detail). Still, describing it as “a synthesis suite” when it’s really “a plugin that adds FPGA support and a few optimizations to Yosys” does indeed leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Of course, you don’t have to agree with me. It’s clear from other comments that not everyone does, and that’s totally fine.

[nerpderp82]

FWIW, I was not confused and don't believe you need to clarify.

[rowanG077]

It was never about being confused.