AMD's Bridgman Talks Open-Source

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMD's Bridgman Talks Open-Source

While if you're a loyal Phoronix reader you should already know most of the information discussed in this interview, Beyond3D recently chatted with AMD's John Bridgman about the RadeonHD driver and their new open-source position. The interview talks about why AMD is suddenly interested in open-source support, why the fglrx driver will not be opened up, how the two drivers will coexist with one another, no UVD programming information will be released, and more.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=NjIzMg

[Redeeman]

lol so they are not gunna release specs for video decoding? well thats a deal breaker for me. its really seriously lame that they arent opening specs for it all, as if they are trying to proove that their drivers are superior, that they are superior, and it leaves a great taste of vendor lockin.. what do i do when they discontinue drivers for my card and i still want to decode video with it?

well, this is only slightly better than nvidia.

[Thetargos]

The only vendor I know of that has opened their video decoding engine is VIA for their Unichrome and S3 products of their MPEG-2 engine. Who knows? Maybe AMD will down the road open UVD, or not...

[bridgman]

For clarity, we *are* planning to release specs for video decoding on the the pre-UVD parts, and I *think* that should include IDCT on the current R6xx parts as well. Right now we don't have a way to expose the decoding capabilities of UVD without putting some of the DRM stuff at risk. If we find a way to safely expose the decoding functions, you'll be the first to know

[Redeeman]

while thats atleast something, forgive me for saying, but how does this help me? i dont want to use any DRM stuff, but im still paying full price for your hardware, so why should i not be able to upgrade/modify my kernel as i please and still be able to use the hardware i pay for, such as the UVD? now im no graphics card specialized, but i would say, as a developer, that it shouldnt be too hard to support both hardware video decoding, and keep bowing down for hollywood drm. either way, i dont see what possible reason you give me, that i should pay for people on closed platforms to be able to decode video and display it via drm shit, when i cannot even use it myself. So unless you have some sort of discount for people not being allowe certain features?

another question.. this DRM stuff, we all know that drm is doomed, and that it will easily be broken (like it already has on hddvd and bluray), does this mean that if i were to reverse engineer the drm stuff of fglrx, publis complete details, in practicallity voiding the entire thing, would you then publish specs?

[Svartalf]

another question.. this DRM stuff, we all know that drm is doomed, and that it will easily be broken (like it already has on hddvd and bluray), does this mean that if i were to reverse engineer the drm stuff of fglrx, publis complete details, in practicallity voiding the entire thing, would you then publish specs?

I'm not John, but I think I would rather you didn't.

The answer from John and AMD would very probably be NO.

In another discussion thread I summed up nicely per John- we're walking a fine line, AMD and the Community as a whole. If you do something like this, they're going to be disinclined to do something like the Open Info without NDA like we're slowly getting- ever again.

I would rather that we found a way to make it a moot point in some other fashion- I would rather we found a way for them to gracefully tell the media companies to just go stuff it without the OEMs having problems with them doing so and them not losing cash in the process.

[Thetargos]

Indeed, it is a fine line, but a HUGE problem at the same time. It is evil genius at work, consumers (whether they use or not the technology) end up paying for it, regardless. Who knows, and maybe we'll get a "Linux version" of the hardware stripped from all the junk that we don't want/use in Open Source environments.

[Redeeman]

come on, dont kid yourself, you have seen DRM been beaten in EVERY other field, it has not once survived anyone, and this is regardless of opensource people of not, lots of windows hackers are reverse engineering too, and if they think for one second that not giving specs is gonna stop it, they are just plain kidding themselves.

besides, the drm these cards have are USELESS, its there to seemingly "protect"(how pityful) bluray and hddvd content, but that shit is already broken, anyone with just a little bit of knowledge can go on a ton of p2p systems and download decrypted content, directly to play on any output, so what good does it do?

so it basically boils down to this: If i buy ati cards, i will be paying for AMD to bown down for useless hollywood stupidity, rather than using some of the features of my new hardware. This to me, is no different than what nvidia does, so why again should i choose ati? that sure-to-hit-me reason of it having a fully functional free driver, and actually being able to use my hardware, has vanished.

Now this is NOT an attack of Bridgman, this is just the reality of things. as i see it, what AMD is doing, is pleasing clueless hollywood people by implementing completely and utter useless drm shit, while preventing customers from actually using what they pay for, and it isnt right.

[Pseus]

This is too premature. There are many things to sort out first. This is a big company we're talking about and it's very much treading on unknown territory. I think we've got to be grateful for the small steps in the right direction that AMD is taking, and just hope everything goes well and all the promised documentation gets released. After that, and after it gets put to good use, I think it'd be wise to go back and ask for stuff that's probably encumbered by tons of red tape, deals, and other legal stuff that could become a potential liability in the future. I mean, this is like asking a drug-addict quit cold-turkey. You're gonna kill'im! Small steps.

[Svartalf]

so it basically boils down to this: If i buy ati cards, i will be paying for AMD to bown down for useless hollywood stupidity, rather than using some of the features of my new hardware. This to me, is no different than what nvidia does, so why again should i choose ati? that sure-to-hit-me reason of it having a fully functional free driver, and actually being able to use my hardware, has vanished.

The reality of it is, unlike how you describe it, is that until you have the Open 3D hardware projects where they compare favorably to ATI/NVidia/Intel, you will be paying any industry player "to bow down for useless Hollywood stupidity". THEY ARE ALL DOING IT.

So, if you want to find a way to for them to NOT be doing it, you'd better quit tilting at windmills and do like I have been doing which is to find ways for them to NOT have to do that in our case.

But hey, your choice. Just don't be surprised if there's quite a few people that end up being very, very pissed off at you for going that other way.