Well, it turns out that they want us to sign an NDA to be able to use the chip. We asked if that was absolutely necessary, and they said 'yes'. We explained our situation, and they said they'd get back with us. They haven't.
It's possible that we may still be able to use their chip if we wrap their IP in some Verilog code. But then that becomes a problem when we release the Verilog, so we might have to rip that part out. It would be best if we could just disclose the specs. One would think they wouldn't turn their nose up at an order for 10,000 units, but that sort of thing is common when IP issues come into play.
There's an alternative, but it's more expensive, and that also is a problem.
To an extent, we have numbers on our side, because we have lots of people who can drive home the point, but I hate it when the free software community bullies companies, like what happened with TI not too long ago. Notice how TI still didn't concede to the request, and now TI is even less likely to want to support free software in the future.
We (Tech Source) are going to continue to try to negotiate with them unilaterally, but if that doesn't work, we (as a community with numbers) can make a single, one-time, polite attempt at trying to convince them that this would be very good for their business. If they don't listen, we'll just have to select an alternative.
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