I have some general questions concerning using a proprietary
design constraint language and would like to understand a few things.
I have not been an active participant, but I have been observing.
1. An open standard provides opportunity and competition in
developing the best possible documentation. Where is the
incentive for making the best possible documentation.
For example:
I have several VHDL books, some of them good and some of them
not so good, regardless, I have a significant amount of choice
in books, media format etc.
2. A proprietary language may not lend itself to innovation.
If it becomes a standard, why would suppliers have to
respond to customer demand since customers will be locked
in?
3. Any synthesis, layout tool etc. should be able to
associate design information/constraints with as many
constructs in the source code as possible.
e.g. a tool should be able to uniquely assign constraints
to processes, statements, blocks etc. as defined by
configurations, generate statements and hierarchy.
However, if the constraint language does not support
some constructs, would the customers be able to get the constraint
language changed if they are already buying a tool that
covers the shortfall?
4. There are many different open standards that define
electronic systems (ethernet, MPGEG, JPEG, etc.), so
why does anyone think that a good and evolving standard
has to be proprietary?
5. Lastly, should consumers take this committee seriously
or are the members of this committee taking advantage
of complacent customers, and would like to thwart a
free-market standard?
David W. Potter