Browse FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions 2 Basics 2.1 Why do people contribute to opencores? Mainly for fun. Other reasons include: to learn, to teach, to improve your resume, to make the world a better place to live in. This list goes on forever, as everyone has their own reasons. 2.2 Who contributes to opencores? Students, professionals, companies, anyone who is interested. For all we know, the person who contributed that amazing core taught him/herself to design hardware by reading books in their spare time. 2.3 Where is opencores situated? The main server is physically located in Slovenia, Europe. Contributors are located right around the globe. A mirror of opencores' server is located in Indonesia. More mirrors are wanted. 2.4 Who owns opencores? No one owns opencores. Individual authors own their own work. By placing something on opencores, you do not relinquish ownership. Be sure to prominently place copyright messages on your work and include an appropriate license (preferable LGPL). 2.5 History of OpenCores Damjan Lampret founded OpenCores in October 1999, as an open source community for development and distribution of VHDL/Verilog IP cores – building blocks of semiconductor chips. OpenCores soon became world wide known by ASIC and FPGA engineers. Within the 2006 alone, more than 5000 different companies have downloaded IP from OpenCores. On an average month, 80,000 engineers and others visited OpenCores web site and generated 7.5 million web hits and 2.8 million page views. More than a million engineers from more than 10,000 organizations world wide have downloaded IP from OpenCores in the first 8 years of its existence. Damjan Lampret managed the OpenCores day to day activities for the first 8 years. 2.6 Can you help me with my school/college/university project? In general, no. If you start exploiting opencores to get a school project done, others will rapidly tire of your questions and ignore you. Having said this, many people contribute to opencores in order to teach and learn. You can learn a lot from opencores. This knowledge will make you a better designer and indirectly help with any student projects you may have to do. Valid ways to learn include contributing to an opencores project, or running your own opencores project. Any questions directly related to a school project should be directed towards your supervisor at school. 2.7 What language is spoken on the mailing lists? The official language for the opencores mailing lists and web site is English. 2.8 Is advertising or SPAM allowed on the mailing lists? No. OpenCores reserves the right to charge for advertising or SPAM sent to any mailing list.