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It is an open system that includes a closed component (FTDI FT2232HL chip).

Open Source (software) equivalent would be something like a Linux distribution that is generally fully open source but relies on a binary blob driver for the videocard... Is it still "open source"? Yes, mostly, but not 100% fully.

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That's pretty cool if the only closed source part is a USB-UART IC. Not much secret sauce there; I bet if you wanted to be pure you could implement that function on a second FE310 with software bit-banging.

So whack it off the board and add a MAX232 driver and a DB9 connector?

I think they're using the FT2232H for JTAG as well as serial, so you'd have to do a bit more than replacing the serial port.

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