Xilinx Legal
in [FPGA]
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From: Austin Lesea on 30 Jan 2006 12:50 All: From our legal group- "Xilinx invests a significant amount in research and development, and vigorously protects and enforces its intellectual property rights resulting from its research and development efforts. It is also correct that when Xilinx licenses its software and tools, Xilinx prohibits its customers from reverse engineering and decompiling its software products. Also, the bitstream created by using Xilinx software is owned by Xilinx can only be used on Xilinx programmable products, for example, FPGAs. Xilinx licensing terms and conditions are similar to other companies that provide similar products and services. Therefore, Xilinx sees no basis for amending or modifying the terms and conditions of its software licenses and the rights to use the bitstream created with the use of Xilinx software." For Xilinx sponsored University projects, there may be separate agreements (I know because I am sponsoring a project, and I had to review the new agreement). So, for anyone using our software, read the agreement, and be sure you are in compliance. If you desire to do anything outside of the agreement, please contact our legal department, or the Xilinx University Program. Austin
From: fpga_toys on 30 Jan 2006 13:25 Austin Lesea wrote: > So, for anyone using our software, read the agreement, and be sure you > are in compliance. If you desire to do anything outside of the > agreement, please contact our legal department, or the Xilinx University > Program. Austin, Thanks for being direct and bringing this info directly to this forum. The broad assumption is that XDL and the interfaces/libraries that it exposes are a public interface. Combined with the fact that is it openly disclosed outside NDA on a very large number of projects, what is the specific Xilinx statement about XDL and related info being a public use interface to ISE outside of NDA restrictions? John
From: Jan Panteltje on 30 Jan 2006 13:35 On a sunny day (Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:50:46 -0800) it happened Austin Lesea <austin(a)xilinx.com> wrote in <drljlm$3ls1(a)xco-news.xilinx.com>: >All: > > From our legal group- > Also, the bitstream created by using Xilinx software is owned >by Xilinx can only be used on Xilinx programmable products, for example, >FPGAs. This looks like arather dangerous typo, I presume you wanted to write: "the bitstream format as generated by Xilinx software " You do not claim rights to the content of my bitstream I hope? ?
From: Jim Granville on 30 Jan 2006 15:01 Jan Panteltje wrote: > On a sunny day (Mon, 30 Jan 2006 09:50:46 -0800) it happened Austin Lesea > <austin(a)xilinx.com> wrote in <drljlm$3ls1(a)xco-news.xilinx.com>: > > >>All: >> >>From our legal group- > > >>Also, the bitstream created by using Xilinx software is owned >>by Xilinx can only be used on Xilinx programmable products, for example, >>FPGAs. Hmm, yes, not everyone will agree to that claim... > > This looks like a rather dangerous typo, I presume you wanted to write: > > "the bitstream format as generated by Xilinx software " > You do not claim rights to the content of my bitstream I hope? Of course they do! These are lawyers, they claim all rights possible, until someone pushes back. That's how they work. I _can_ sense an opening here, for the (A) company that claims to be "the fastest growing major programmable logic company in 2005" -jg
From: Austin Lesea on 30 Jan 2006 14:58
John, "XDL and related info being a public use interface to ISE outside of NDA restrictions" is clearly prohibited. But, if XDL is used inside of the agreement, then that is OK. For example, if you created a XDL file with our tools, and then processed it with your tool, and then wanted to use in in silicon other than Xilinx, that is prohibited. If you created your own XDL file, without use of our tools, sent it through your own tools, to do something with it (for reasons unknown) then I suppose (but we can research further) we don't care what you do with it. But if you then used our tools again (to do anything) to the XDL (you created), then again, its use is restricted to Xilinx silicon. So, if our software is part of the chain, then the agreement applies. Austin |