AMD To Open ATI Specs

Several readers tipped us the followup of yesterday's AMD/ATI news, the new development hinted at by Phoronix: AMD has announced they are releasing the specs for all new Radeon chipsets, and will be working with the open source community to develop a fully functional 2D and 3D graphics driver. An anonymous reader opines: "AMD appears to be following in Intel's footsteps with upcoming releases. If AMD is successful NVidia will have real competition in the GNU/Linux gaming arena. While past support by ATI was unsatisfactory the new AMD buyout appears to be having some effect."

Linux gaming arena?

[mattgreen]

That GNU/Linux gaming arena is *super* cut-throat, I'm not sure what NVidia is going to do after hearing about this! Those Tux Racer benchmarks are going to totally blow everyone out of the water! And I don't even want to mention how fast Life and KAsteroids...totally ridiculous!

Re:Linux gaming arena?

[Sneakernets]

You mean, I might be able to play Chromium?

Re:Linux gaming arena?

[EveryNickIsTaken]

But just imagine how awesome nethack will look!

Re:well let's start then

[pato101]

You are Mr. Wolf [imdb.com], aren't you?

Are my rants paying off?

[erroneus]

I have voiced several rants about ATI here on slashdot. Do you suppose they are reading them?

When pigs fly

[ArwynH]

"Hello? Is this the Daily Gazette? I'd like to report a story!"
"There were five of them! Pink! Well, one was kinda yellow. I think it was a pot-bellied one."
"What? No! Pigs! Outside my window!"
"Maybe in a farm it ain't, but I live on the 10th floor in the City."
"Yes, that's right! Flying pigs!"
"The wings? White."
"Yes, like an angels I guess."
"What? No, I haven't been drinking..."
"..or taking drugs."
"Look I'm not kidding! There were 5 flying pigs outside my window Oinking at me!"
"Hello? Hello? ... A**hole!"

Tomorrow on Slashdot ...

[Random BedHead Ed]

Wow, a hardware producer is opening up the specs of their graphics chips. There's a longtime gripe solved. Tomorrow on Slashdot ...

... same thing, but for NVidia.
... same thing, but for all wireless chipsets.
... the RIAA will give up on lawsuits and DRM, realizing that both are ultimately ineffective and bad for their business, and promote a prepaid, peer-to-peer approach to music distribution. They will also rename themselves the Recording Industry Cartel of America.
... President Bush will sign the Software Patent Invalidation Act, which will have cruised through the House, Senate, and Ways and Means Committee overnight, effectively ending patent protection for software ideas. A small town in Texas will immediately go bankrupt.
... Having signed the act and finding nothing else important to do, the president will resign.
... Microsoft will cave in and adopt ODF for Word. Features in OOXML that they want to keep will be carefully documented and formally submitted for inclusion in the ODF 2.0 standard.

Re:If this means stable, open source drivers...

[Anonymous Coward]

Paraphrased from a quote on bash...

What have London buses and ATI graphics cards both got in common?

They're huge, red, and have bad drivers.

Re:Linux gaming arena?

[Warbothong]

You'll be able to play Compiz! Gah, this enemy window is wobbling away from me... hang on... almost got it... YES! Burn you mothe- NO CARRIER

Re:Tomorrow on Slashdot ...

[navyjeff]

The President has been kidnapped by ninjas.

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President? [wikipedia.org]

Oh Really?

[r_jensen11]

To release documentation that anyone can use to build and support drivers for their chips.

Hacking the Radeon driver: So easy, even a Caveman can do it!