[oc] legality of cores?!

[Jim Poder <Jim.Poder@wireless-networks.com>]

Hello,

I've read 2 announcements in the past week or so regarding Arm
compatible cores, and was wondering if anyone has any idea as to the
legality of these.  I remember reading a couple of months ago about a
group of students from Malardalen University (Vasteras, Sweden) who
wrote an Arm7 compatible core called BlackARM, but could not release it
publicly due to fear of getting sued by Arm, Inc.  Arm, the company,
makes money solely by licensing their IP (cores), and I would think that
they might not appreciate people writing "clones", but I'm not sure if
it is against any laws.  I'm pretty sure that there aren't any lawyers
in this group (thank God!) but has anyone thought about these types of
issues?  I don't want to ruin anyone's fun by dragging lawyers into the
mix, but I would hate to see anyone spend a lot of time developing a
core only to get run over by Arm's legal team.


jim