Business decision
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From what I have read, the official line from AMD/ATI is that they make most of their money supporting linux only on workstations and, as a result, aren't that interested in the consumer linux side of things.
The workstations typically have much slower adoption rates for new features and versions. As far as stability is concerned my only guess is that older kernels and versions of X.org are more stable.
One would think a simple calculus of whether the {Number of Users} by the {Average Revenue per User Over Time} is greater than the {Cost of Developing the Driver the Community Wants} would suffice, but they must be doing {Profit} less {Cost} is greater than {Some Number with a Lot of Zeros}.
In time the open driver will mature, and one hopes that AMD will continue to support those efforts as long as they continue to operate. This is their alternative to the "driver the community wants" I mentioned above. It is a risk, but if it is successful it will be more valuable to them and to us.
The truth is, until the rest of consumer hardware catches up with the processor in terms of documentation it will continue be a mess, on all platforms and for all users.
It will happen eventually. For now you have your own math to do, which varies by your particular hardware/situation. For some it's whether to use the proprietary or free driver depending on the features and performance they offer right now. For others that math is whether the headaches of waiting for a workable driver for your AMD video is worth more than the cost of a comparable card by another vendor.
Originally Posted by FunkyRider
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