[Discuss] Open source Propeller microcontroller

[David Carrier]

     At the first Open Hardware Summit, in a Q&A session after one of the panels, someone asked if we would release the design files to the Propeller microcontroller.  Well, we did: http://www.parallax.com/microcontrollers/propeller-1-open-source. This was a long time in the making, and it is a major commitment, so it was a difficult business choice, but in the end we decided that it does not significantly increase the chances of knock-off microcontrollers, but it has a very real benefit to our customers.
     The only other in-production open-source microcontroller we are aware of is the Sun/Oracle SPARC series, but despite some high-level architecture similarities, the two are in completely different classes.  If anyone knows of any other production open-source microcontrollers, please let me know.  We released the Verilog code under the GPL v3, so any derivative works, based off of the code we are releasing, will also be open source.  I had spoken earlier at the open-hardware summit about open-source hardware being a spectrum; we are going full open.  Now you can buy an open-source hardware product and not only download the design files for the circuit board, but also for the microcontroller it supports.

— David Carrier
Parallax Inc.