Gigabit Ethernet Interface (via Marvell 88E1111) with Cyclone IVE FPGA

Because people often want to use a NIOS along side the Ethernet, it sometimes makes sense to purchase the IPS-EMBEDDED bundle:

http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/nios2/ipsuite/ni2-ip-suite.html

As far as licensing terms go, every IP we have purchased has had perpetual use with 1 year of updates.

Regarding doing everything in HDL, see the UDP Offload example:

http://www.alterawiki.com/wiki/nios_ii_udp_offload_example

You can start with a scheme like that and then hardcode / trim down everything to get rid of the NIOS + software if you are working with a closed system (e.g. you just want a point-to-point link to broadcast/receive streaming data between two boards using Ethernet as the transport).