Today someone ordered a 16F877 with WLoader from me. I grabbed for an
empty 16F877 and found the (last) tube empty. But I have plenty of
16F877A's so I bit the bullet and adapted WLoader for the 16F87XA chips.
This has been requested by a lot of people so I thought I'd better let
it be known. The result be on my websiet in the next few days (It needs
an update of XWisp too), but if anyone wants a preliminary version I can
email it.

Note: I currently use GPL for this software. My intention is that it is
free for all, except that I don't ever want to pay for a derived
version. I still have not found the right license. After thinking again
I am not even sure of how some terms of the common software licenses
should be interpreted when applied to embedded stuff. The term
'combined' is critical.

- is a bootloader 'combined' with its application?
- is firmware combined with the chip it is programmed into?
- is firmware combined with the (design of) the surrounding electronics?
- is firmware in one chip combined with firmware in surrounding chips?

Stallman once said that he was not interested in freeing embedded
software or electronic designs because those things were not technically
cheap (free in the 'other' meaning) to copy. A pity.

Wouter van Ooijen

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Van Ooijen Technische Informatica: www.voti.nl
consultancy, development, PICmicro products

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