OpenSPARC T2 GPL'd

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Yes, I have decided that GPL can be a verb.

The Business Wire carried a press release yesterday from Sun about their newest foray into openness

Sun logoSun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:JAVA) today delivered on the commitment it made in August by providing the OpenSPARC(TM) T2 RTL (register transfer level) processor design to the free and open source community via the GPL license. The OpenSPARC T2 processor is based on the UltraSPARC(R) T2 processor, the world’s fastest commodity processor with eight cores and eight threads per core running the Solaris(TM) 10 Operating System (OS).

The T1 was the first “major” processor design to be open sourced in 2005, and since the launch of the OpenSPARC T1 in 2006 over 6,500 copies of the spec have been downloaded for that chip.

“Open sourcing the UltraSPARC T1 processor design was such a new concept it created some angst and a fair amount of debate before we pulled the trigger,” said David Yen, executive vice president of Sun Microelectronics. “But there was no debate associated with T2; we’ve seen the success of open sourcing hardware, and the interest it has created in the developer, university and customer communities. The number of downloads have been impressive and confident we’re expanding the market for Sun technology.”

Sun also announced that five major universities are now official OpenSPARC Technology Centers of Excellence. Details in the release.