https://groups.google.com/a/groups.riscv.org/forum/?nomobile=true#!topic/isa-dev/Wt7ts281qJ8To clearly illustrate the extent of the problem, the above discussion can be monitored as to whether there is any response.
Alex Bradbury raised the question last year after Samuel Falvo very reasonably pointed out the damage caused by ITU Style Standards development. Krste did indeed respond as you reiterated... except he then walked away from the conversation and failed to engage further. This is clearly extremely frustrating and has caused a lot of ongoing problems.
There are several solutions here: the Foundation needs to be prepared to actually listen to constructive advice ( instead of viewing it as "ad hominem attacks")
If the Khronos Group can get this balance right, then so can the RISCV Foundation.
In addition, developers obviously have to interact when it comes to LLVM, gcc, linux kernel and so on.
It is nonsense that there is anything "secretive" about the UNIX Platform WG for example, and excluding input from key people unrelated to RISCV *is* going to result in harm and mistakes.
Likewise people who would otherwise be happy to contribute to the CLIC WG have contacted me privately in total despair on discovering the overwhelming complexity of what is transpiring, there.
45 days to "respond", catching up on years of development, devoid of context, is completely unrealistic.
All of these things and more have been said many times and we have never received a response or an acknowledgement that someone is actually listening (until today).
So, thank you.
L.
Hi I have some additional time available.
> As Krste has said, this is why the development community requires participants to sign the membership agreement.
This argument was stated last year. When it was pointed out that this is a conflation (logic error) - not by me - there was no redponse.
> The Foundation has done everything it can to balance the needs of the organization and legal structure with the needs of the community. For example, while for-profit enterprises are required to join as a paying member, any individual person can join as a member at no cost as long as they are willing to sign the membership agreement and abide by the Foundation's bylaws.
This is where the bias against Libre Commercial projects comes in.
The assumption has been made that individuals are incapable of raising the substantial funds necessary to develop a processor outside of a profit maximising Corporate structure or a University setting.
Anyone claiming to be capable of doing so must therefore be a liar or deluded and thus a source of amusement at best, tolerated whilst the fun lasts, and, if they persist in their "mental delusion" and do not go away, they are to be attacked, ostracised and treated with further disrespect.
I have never found the condescending attitude towards the goals of the Libre RISCV Project to be in the least bit funny.
Rather than *ask* us "whoops we in no way anticipated this scenario, how can we work WITH you to ensure that your valued and valuable contributions and insights can be part of the innovation in RISCV" we have stone cold silence and thus have had to investigate and deploy a "Laches" strategy
which ultimately nullifies and even invalidates the RISCV Trademark in order to ensure unimpeded forward progress and commercial success of the project.
We currently have *nine* separate Extensions to RISCV under development in order to enter the 3D and Video markets, and that is expected to go up (including Texturisation, Z Buffering and so on).
In addition, several mistakes and omissions in official extensions have been pointed out over the past 18 months: without exception they gave been ignored, "justified away" or goal-post-moved, anything, absolutely anything done to ensure that under no circumstances is there a reason to include a member of our team in the Acknowledgements as a valued Contributor.
All it would take is to *ASK* us "what would you be happy to sign or agree to" and yet rather than do that, we receive condescending offers to pay the USD 100 Membership fee.
If someone actually bothered to ask us we would likely be able to come to a suitable agreement on the Extensions that we have developed and curated (with valuable input from many people in the community), yet we have condescending and highly embarrassing attacks by SiFive employees on the reputation of our project instead to deal with.
All of which is deeply unimpressive.
So no, the RISCV Foundation has *not* gone to adequate "trouble" to be inclusive of our highly unusual and unique business requirements, and thus, if this silence persists, is in danger of losing the Trademark.
The only reason I tolerate the condescension, public derision and silent treatment is because it strengthens a "Laches" Trademark defense.
Clearly this is in nobody's best interests to have this stone cold silent treatment continue, and definitely not the RISCV community on whose good will our commercial success critically depends as much as any other profit maximising Corporation does.
We are acting in good faith and it is absolutely ridiculous that *we* have to be the ones acting responsibly and yet teying to *reverse engineer* and derive best practices and procedures which have already been documented and to which we are *prohibited access* due to the Foundation failing in their duty and responsibility to ASK us what the issue is.
This is the repeated pattern of behaviour that the Founders engage in. As Academics they tell people "how it is" and completely fail to listen to outsiders. Academia has always been thus.
It conflicts extremely badly with the responsibilities and duties of a Trademark Holder and I am getting very fed up of having to point this out.
I would like to see RISCV be long term successful and inclusive of ALL innovative efforts regardless of origin.
L.