ATI Committed To Fixing Its OSS Problems 205
Sits writes "Chris Blizzard blogged from the Red Hat summit that an ATI marketing spokesman said, from the stage, that ATI knows it has a problem with open source and is committed to fixing it. Does this mean ATI will finally resolve alleged agpgart misappropriation, and fast track the release of open source 2D drivers on its latest cards while releasing specifications for its mid-range cards? Or is ATI only concerned with fixes to its binary driver to maintain feature parity with competitors?"
Re:Likely binary drivers only. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll believe it when.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is *the* limiting factor which has prevented me from buying a new computer - any new machine would be an i386-64 with PCIe video, and right now the only real choice there would be Intel graphics.
Current State (Score:5, Interesting)
ATI needs to step up the quality of their coding and there is no *good* reason why ati does not support AIGLX and why their 8.35.5 is having problems with dual monitors. Because my laptop uses ati and i was so displeased with its state of drivers forced me to go with nvidia when i built my desktop a year ago. Im sure many people using Linux stay clear of ati when possible for the same reason. When and if they get their stuff together it will receive a warm welcome...if they do it right that is.
Also why is it people need programs like envy [albertomilone.com] to install their drivers. Hopefully ATI and nvidia will pick up the slack hear and make it easer to install the drivers.
Re:I'll believe it when.... (Score:3, Interesting)
First the nit: i386-64? Are you on crack? If you want to call it something cutesy, call it AMD64. The 486 was the last non-RISC CPU either AMD or intel made. Everything since has been internally [mostly] RISC with an x86 decoder glued onto it.
Now the meat: Why is nvidia not an option?
And actually, a better question: why all-in-wonder? For little more money you can get dramatically more quality.
Re:Does this mean hardware hacking is dead? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dell .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Likely binary drivers only. (Score:3, Interesting)
C'mon, we all know the likelihood of them doing that is slim to none. There's nothing pressuring them to do this. Last I checked, NVidia doesn't have open source drivers either.
As the poster above you indicated, the video card industry is pretty secretive. The chances of them opening the spec and revealing their "trade secrets" are extremely slim to none. Unless something else happens in the industry where they will have to follow suit they won't open the spec.
Even if they do open the spec, it sure wouldn't be for their most recent cards. It'll be for cards that were sold several years ago, so they can protect their designs.
Right now they can compete with binary drivers.
Re:Likely binary drivers only. (Score:5, Interesting)
Consumer point of view (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Open Source supporters within ATI (Score:5, Interesting)
* 2 were Matrox G400s, based on their being the first mainstream card to get 3D hardware support under Linux. I even ran Utah-GLX on one.
* 1 was an ATI Radeon 8500LE, based on price/performance and the existence of the open source R200 drivers.
* 3 are nVidia cards, since there's no competitive contemporary open source 3D any more, and the quality of nVidia's binary seems to be better. There are reverse-engineering efforts on both, but it's unclear who will be the clear winner on this.
So I *have* put my money where my mouth is, and will continue to do so.
I also recommend hardware for friends and co-workers, and this is a factor. Even for a friend who is only going to use Windows, if all else is equal I would advise that he "reward" the company for its Linux support. Notice that in this case I said, "all else is equal," and let the friend know why I gave the advice I did.
Re:Dell .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Consumer point of view (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks ATI (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:People tend to say OSS support ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Even the nVidia binary drivers have wider support than ATi, since they work on OpenSolaris and FreeBSD as well as Linux.
BS (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Two words (Score:1, Interesting)
So I just called their presales (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In other news (Score:2, Interesting)
ATI, NVIDIA: fuck you. Open source graphic drivers are possible, period.
It seems to me that ATI/Nvidia have very different markets than Intel. Intel benefits from open source drivers because they produce low performance integrated video chips. People who choose Intel do so because they are cheap and/or because they need low power consumption (think servers, cheep computers, and laptops). On the other hand, people choose ATI/Nvidia because they want better 3D performance. This means that good drivers that work better than their competition are more important for ATI/Nvidia. Furthermore, while I know that there are good games for Linux, they are a LOT more of them for Windows. So windows divers are far more important to ATI/Nvidia than *nix drivers. Intel only has to worry about stability and not having truly crappy drivers; open source works well for this.
Secondly, if ATI/Nvidia were to open up their drivers it could expose them to litigation from each other or from patent trolls that happen to have a patent on some miniscule technique used in their drivers.
As far as IP goes, I think that the biggest risk for ATI/Nvidia is not from them copying each other but from some other small company copying them and releasing only binary drivers so that they will never know that they were stolen from.
Heh... Guess you'll wait a while... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Likely binary drivers only. (Score:1, Interesting)
Maybe they're so secretive because looking at a full spec or at the code to the driver would show clearly that they are infringing on each other's patents. I'm sure that (former) ATI and nVidia are infringing on several of each other's patents (not to mention Intel's), and it would be disastrous for one to find out and not the other. Actually, they both already know they're infringing, and know the other knows. But once the investors knew, they'd have to admit their own wrongdoing, or sue, or both. It's a tough position to be in - patent portfolio arms races are crap. Both companies are trying to stay ahead in the number of patents issued and behind on the number of infringements, so when it does blow up, they are better positioned. Or if they get far enough ahead, they can pull the trigger. It never ends.
Patent infringement is that much harder to detect when sealed up in an ASIC, and all the code is closed (similar to software license infringement in closed-source software).
Re:Dell .... (Score:3, Interesting)
Commercial uses (Score:3, Interesting)
When they can't be bothered to get their drivers to pay attention to vblank properly, you know it's not their top priority.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
Yup. I bought a new machine recently for work that's Intel-based (essentially this [newegg.com], minus the monitor). I mainly use it for kernel development. My criteria were:
It turns out the gigabit ethernet and the video both needed kernels more recent than the first distro I tried (they're fine in the latest fc7 betas), but otherwise it's worked out well. So when the student interns came in this summer and needed machines, we ordered five more. I'm considering another to replace my again home machine, too, if I can get an idea how loud it is. (My office has too many noisy machines, so it's hard to tell.)
Re:Likely binary drivers only. (Score:5, Interesting)