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   Ignas Kiela (ignaloidas@not.acu.lt)'s status on Friday, 21-Feb-2025 13:20:42 JST Ignas Kiela

   in reply to

   • Andrew Zonenberg

   @azonenberg@ioc.exchange from copyright perspective, it contains software, there was a case about Intel's microcode and whether it can be copyrighted as it is on silicon or not (since hardware is not copyrightable)

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Andrew Zonenberg (azonenberg@ioc.exchange)'s status on Friday, 21-Feb-2025 13:20:43 JST Andrew Zonenberg

     Tech epistemology question: Is a CPU running firmware out of ROM, with no patching capability, hardware or software?

     Does it matter if it's using a standard ISA like ARM or RISC-V, or if it's a custom ISA designed for the specific use case?

     Does it matter if the program is written in a high level language and compiled/assembled, or written directly in the processor's native machine code?

     Where do you draw the line between "obviously software" and a simple FSM ("obviously hardware") coded in a table-driven fashion?

     Does making the table field updateable change your answer?