The Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation (FOSSi Foundation) is a non-profit foundation with the mission to promote and assist free and open digital hardware designs and their related ecosystems. It was set up by the core
OpenRISC development team in response to decreasing support from the commercial owners of the
opencores.org website. The main sponsor of the FOSSi Foundation is
Google
Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...
and past sponsors included
Cadence Design Systems
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence), headquartered in San Jose, California, is an American multinational corporation, multinational computational software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. The co ...
and Embecosm. The FOSSi Foundation should not be confused with the Free Silicon Foundation.
The FOSSi Foundation operates as an open, inclusive, vendor-independent group. It identifies its mission as the following activities:
* support and promote open standards development and their use;
* support community events and organize regular events;
* encourage industry participation in open source IP design;
* assist hobbyists and academic institutions with opening their work to the public; and
* support the development and maintenance of a web site, aimed at providing a platform for free and open source silicon.
The FOSSi Foundation is the legal entity, owner of th
librecores.orgwebsite, the primary portal for the user community. It holds an annual conference (ORConf) and organizes an annual student design contest.
To provide a harassment-free environment for minority contributors, all community members are required to abide by a code of conduct which prohibits offensive language and unwanted behavior in any of the community spaces.
History
During 2015, ORSoC AB, commercial owners of
opencores.org formed a joint venture with KNCMiner AB to develop bitcoin mining machines. As this became the primary focus of the business, they spent less time on the opencores.org project. In response to the growing lack of commitment, the core OpenRISC development team set up the Free and Open Source Silicon Foundation (FOSSi), and registered th
LibreCoreswebsite, as the basis for all future development, independent of commercial control.
In 2016, th
LibreCoresdevelopment is intensifying and the annual "LibreCores Student Design Contest" was announced The FOSSi Foundation is an umbrella organization in the
Google Summer of Code 2016–2020.
FOSSi in the Google Summer of Code
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See also
* Open content
* Free content
* OpenCores
OpenCores is a community developing digital open-source hardware through electronic design automation (EDA), with a similar ethos as the free software movement. OpenCores hopes to eliminate redundant design work and slash development costs. A nu ...
* Open-source hardware
Open-source hardware (OSH) consists of physical artifacts of technology designed and offered by the open-design movement. Both free and open-source software (FOSS) and open-source hardware are created by this open-source culture movement and a ...
References
External links
* {{Official website
* User portal
LibreCores
* Conference portal
ORConf
British companies established in 2015
Community interest companies
Open-source hardware