Hi
BTW: As we've already determined in our Mumble sessions (with more than one lawyer giving us the same answer): The GPL does not cover tape-outs.
that's... interesting.
It's just a legal fact. Many people make the mistake of considering the GPL to be infinite in reach... which is not correct. That's why we're still working out the LibreSilicon public license which will fix this by protecting the design files as well by registering the specifics of our logic cells and layout methodologies as "Gebrauchsmuster" [1].
The LibreSilicon foundation will hold the right on those, but generally grants it to everyone for free usage, until someone is not honoring the conditions stated within the license and become their worst legal nightmare.
Just about the drama back then with Allwinner: Luc Verhaegens threats of "suing Allwinner over GPL violations" were pointless, because his claims were legally invalid. You can basically go ahead and take any IP core from opencores.org, make chips from it and sell them and no one can do anything about it... It's not nice, granted, but not illegal. That's why there finally needs to be a license for silicon. Licensing your designs under GPL is pointless.
It has already been established in our team, that the LSPL will be in the same spirit as the LGPL, just that it allows to actually cover your design and the question what happens during and after the tapeout.
Cheers David