Be careful what you wish for!

Now that VMM is available under an Open Source license, how is it going to be supported?

First of all, any further bug fixes and enhancements we will be making to VMM (such as the newly announced VMM-for-Low-Power functionality) will be added to the Open Source distribution once the usage model and basic functionality will have been proven with one or two lead customers who work with us in specifying and developing the enhancements.

The Apache licensing means that you are free to modify the VMM code in any way you wish. But should you? If you make a modification, that modification exists only in your version of the VMM code.

For bug fixes, that is obviously not a problem (and I’d really like to know about those so I can have them fixed in our distribution (such as the recent non-compliance issues)).

But what about functional changes? If you add functionality that you rely on for implementing your verification IP, those will no longer be portable to other VMM environments.

If you require some new capability or have an idea for some cool new functionality, I suggest talking with Synopsys first about it. If we can implement that new functionality for you, it will automatically be included in the next VMM release and everyone else will get it, ensuring portability once more. It will also ensure that the new functionality is implemented while taking into account other developments concurrently happening or planned. And we will be responsible for its on-going support.

But should you decide to go ahead on your own (for whatever reason), I’m still OK with it.

If you want to share your modifications with the VMM community, you can publish your patch in the VMM MODS forums. Such user-contributed modifications will use the same support model as the one used by phpbb. As the MOD author, you are responsible for all support. The VMM MODS forums on VMM Central can be used as a support and distribution meeting point. Simply request that a MOD-specific forum be created in the VMM MODS forum group. You can then announce new versions and users can request support on that forum.

We only ask (but cannot require) that you publish your MOD under the same Apacahe 2.0 license that VMM is published under. MODs that prove to be popular and stable (and backward compatible!) will eventually be merged into the Synopsys VMM Open Source distribution (with proper credit given to the original author(s) of course).