Reasoning for closed source

[Gizmot]

Maybe they would, and maybe they would not, but the last thing investors want is uncertainty.

thats the 10000$ question I'm asking.

Because on one side, you have uncertainty, and on the other you have the certitude to obtain the cooperation and loyalty of all the FOSS community (with also a much lower cost for drivers developpement...)

[deanjo]

I do agree,
except that I was refering to the R&D of manufacturing.

Well lets put it this way, I design boats as well as my computing life, manufacturing wise that is simple as it takes typically less then 4 hours to assemble a boat but to gain that extra 5 mph out of the hull it took 18 months of analysis, design and simulations to find that "sweet spot spec" that allowed that performance difference. Assembly wise it made no difference. I guess it all depends on the product being designed. Ask any farmer as well about what they would do about their combine if they had a chance to talk to the engineer.

[deanjo]

(with also a much lower cost for drivers developpement...)

Is it really though that much cheaper? If I have to sacrifice 5% performance which would result in potentially millions in dollars of revenue would I take the risk?

[Nille]

At the same time, you know that there is a bunch of very talented FOSS guys bashing their head on how to reverse engineer some hardware.

They don´t need to reverse engineer the driver because AMD give the specs to the Devs and if something undocumented you can ask the AMD ppl.

So then, in God's name, dont they just open their close source drivers, pay some developpers (and get a crap load of free work from FOSS developpers) and developp a generic multiplatform driver that would be easy to port on easy platform?

Some of the "radeon" driver devs are employed by AMD an some by Redhad an AMD partner.

[Gizmot]

Well lets put it this way, I design boats as well as my computing life, manufacturing wise that is simple as it takes typically less then 4 hours to assemble a boat but to gain that extra 5 mph out of the hull it took 18 months of analysis, design and simulations to find that "sweet spot spec" that allowed that performance difference. Assembly wise it made no difference. I guess it all depends on the product being designed. Ask any farmer as well about what they would do about their combine if they had a chance to talk to the engineer.

well, your exemple assume heavy R&D using actual production tooling. Could be wrong, but I was assuming that hardware was split in R&D between elementary science, new product engineering and manufacturing technology.

[deanjo]

They don´t need to reverse engineer the driver because AMD give the specs to the Devs and if something undocumented you can ask the AMD ppl.
.

Well again that is not entirely true, yes AMD has released specs to a majority of their IP but there is still a fair amount that will remain shut out due to licensing and the likes. UVD just as an example.

[Gizmot]

They don´t need to reverse engineer the driver because AMD give the specs to the Devs and if something undocumented you can ask the AMD ppl.



Some of the "radeon" driver devs are employed by AMD an some by Redhad an AMD partner.

are you saying that AMD finally released *ALL* the technical specs needed to create a ''perfect'' and ''complete'' driver for every card?

[deanjo]

well, your exemple assume heavy R&D using actual production tooling. Could be wrong, but I was assuming that hardware was split in R&D between elementary science, new product engineering and manufacturing technology.

Actually all the boats are assembled with about $300 worth of hand tools found at your local Home Depot. Assembly was never really a concern.

[Gizmot]

small changed of subject... what about BIOS? thats old tech. Hardly anything of value

[Gizmot]

Actually all the boats are assembled with about $300 worth of hand tools found at your local Home Depot. Assembly was never really a concern.

Oh, I tought you were talking about Cup of America style of boats. Because I do work as ''metrology'' engineer, and in every industry I have seen, about as much time is spent on ''how to build the dam thing'' than on the actual conception. if not more