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What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

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Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#21

Post by msgodel »

gregfjohnson wrote: post #10

On the topic of Microchip and secrecy: I downloaded and installed their IDE, MPLAB X IDE v6.20. It is for a pic3mx chip. The compiler looks like a completely generic gcc, built to cross-compile on a Windows host. However, they want a $1000.00 “licensing fee” in order to enable any optimization level above -O0. This seems wrong. Wouldn’t this be a violation of the copyleft license covering gcc? I’m guessing there’s so…

That's such a weird thing to do. MPLab used to be completely free to encourage people to use their chips.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#22

Post by Tuna-Fish »

gregfjohnson wrote: post #10

On the topic of Microchip and secrecy: I downloaded and installed their IDE, MPLAB X IDE v6.20. It is for a pic3mx chip. The compiler looks like a completely generic gcc, built to cross-compile on a Windows host. However, they want a $1000.00 “licensing fee” in order to enable any optimization level above -O0. This seems wrong. Wouldn’t this be a violation of the copyleft license covering gcc? I’m guessing there’s so…

The GPL in no way forbids that. However, if they are obeying GPL you can ask them for the source code and then remove that limit yourself. If you ask for the source and they don't give it to you, then alert GNU.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#23

Post by znpy »

fragmede wrote: post #13
gregfjohnson wrote: post #10

On the topic of Microchip and secrecy: I downloaded and installed their IDE, MPLAB X IDE v6.20. It is for a pic3mx chip. The compiler looks like a completely generic gcc, built to cross-compile on a Windows host. However, they want a $1000.00 “licensing fee” in order to enable any optimization level above -O0. This seems wrong. Wouldn’t this be a violation of the copyleft license covering gcc? I’m guessing there’s so…

The GPL doesn't say you can't charge money for things. Do they provide patches for their changes to the source?

I think that the issue here is the following:

    - you can charge money for things
    - anything that's not built with the "official compiler" is not "supported"
I've interviewed for a junior embedded software engineer when i was in university and when i started mentioning i had experience building cross-compilers i was immediately stopped by the guy interviewing me (he literally didn't even let me finish the sentence) and told me "Absolutely no. We don't want to maintain our own toolchain and we want everything to be coming from the BSP [Board support package] and integrated nicely with the vendor's IDE.

They used ARM chips, so not even anything strange...

The real issue would come if they did not provide the source code for the gcc build they sell you, though.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#25

Post by junon »

ACCount36 wrote: post #24

The thing I loathe the most about embedded work is dealing with silicon vendors and their boneheaded refusal to publish the fucking documentation and tooling.

Microchip in particular is very bad at developer experience and tooling. The only vendor I actually enjoy working with to any degree is ST, and only design boards using their uC's for that reason.

I've heard good things about Nordic, though. Might try them out at some point.

Microchip's own IDE and project generator spit out a hello world project that didn't even compile. NXP wouldn't even let me download their tooling even after their obfuscated sign up flow.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#26

Post by ACCount36 »

junon wrote: post #25
ACCount36 wrote: post #24

The thing I loathe the most about embedded work is dealing with silicon vendors and their boneheaded refusal to publish the fucking documentation and tooling.

Microchip in particular is very bad at developer experience and tooling. The only vendor I actually enjoy working with to any degree is ST, and only design boards using their uC's for that reason. I've heard good things about Nordic, though. Might try them out at some point. Microchip's own IDE and project generator spit out a hello world project that didn't even compile. NXP wouldn't even let me download their tooli…

True, and Microchip is still good when compared to the likes of Broadcom and Qualcomm.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#27

Post by zokier »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #18
wokkel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What i know from the past is for realtime guarantees ethernet does not cut it. So you might be right.

AFAIK Ethernet is used for realtime audio distribution, so that can't be completely correct.

AVB and TSN are relatively new addition to Ethernet, and specifically designed for realtime AV use. Traditional Ethernet is not really intended for tight real-time use.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#28

Post by junon »

ACCount36 wrote: post #26
junon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microchip in particular is very bad at developer experience and tooling. The only vendor I actually enjoy working with to any degree is ST, and only design boards using their uC's for that reason. I've heard good things about Nordic, though. Might try them out at some point. Microchip's own IDE and project generator spit out a hello world project that didn't even compile. NXP wouldn't even let me download their tooli…

True, and Microchip is still good when compared to the likes of Broadcom and Qualcomm.

Oh yeah definitely.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#29

Post by immibis »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #22
gregfjohnson wrote: post #10

On the topic of Microchip and secrecy: I downloaded and installed their IDE, MPLAB X IDE v6.20. It is for a pic3mx chip. The compiler looks like a completely generic gcc, built to cross-compile on a Windows host. However, they want a $1000.00 “licensing fee” in order to enable any optimization level above -O0. This seems wrong. Wouldn’t this be a violation of the copyleft license covering gcc? I’m guessing there’s so…

The GPL in no way forbids that. However, if they are obeying GPL you can ask them for the source code and then remove that limit yourself. If you ask for the source and they don't give it to you, then alert GNU.

In some jurisdictions you may even be able to sue them for the source code without bothering GNU.

Re: What Microchip doesn't (officially) tell you about the VSC8512

#30

Post by mycatisblack »

znpy wrote: post #23
fragmede wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL doesn't say you can't charge money for things. Do they provide patches for their changes to the source?

I think that the issue here is the following: - you can charge money for things - anything that's not built with the "official compiler" is not "supported" I've interviewed for a junior embedded software engineer when i was in university and when i started mentioning i had experience building cross-compilers i was immediately stopped by the guy interviewing me (he literally didn't even let me finish the sentence) and…

Offloading the liability for a compiler sounds like common sense to me. How many heads did this company pay? 100, 1000?

Related, compiler bugs aren’t uncommon in the arm-none-eabi family. Especially the cortex m0 seems to have a few that recur every few years.

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