By Junko Yoshida, EETimes, Feb. 14, 2019 – When Wave Computing acquired MIPS, "going open source" was the plan Wave's CEO Derek Meyer had in mind. But Meyer, a long-time MIPS veteran, couldn't casually mention his plan then. Wave was hardly ready with the solid infrastructure it needed to support a legion of hardware developers interested in coming to the MIPS open-source community.
To say "go open source" is easy. Pulling it off has meant a huge shift from MIPS, long accustomed to the traditional IP licensing business.
Wave's first step was hiring Art Swift as president of its MIPS licensing business. Swift fit the bill as someone who knows the best of both worlds – old (traditional IP for licensing) and new (open source). Swift had served as vice-chair of the RISC-V Foundation's Marketing Committee and was vice president of marketing and business development at MIPS Technologies from 2008 to 2011.