AMD Has No Plans To Suspend Catalyst For Linux

[Jonimus]

I was the one that posed the question to AMD, and both Michael and I saw the answer to the question because it was on a closed list. The reason Michael is not talking more about this is because the entire closed list is under NDA and there are legal issues involved. I should also add that the context of the question was such that Jammy Zhou understood that his reply to this specific question would be shared.

The reason I'm here now is to provide confirmation on his behalf to refute accusations of this type.

But Michael, still should have been upfront about how he obtained the info in the first place there are proper ways to cite quotes and gain permission to bypass NDA's but instead he choose to leave his readers in the dark and hope they blindly accept his word. Sadly he has stretched the thruth enough time that many of them want more. If he cannot provide more info or background then he shouldn't have posted the article, its that simple. Its one thing to do this once in a while, but Michael does this in articles all the time, and all we have is his word and yours.

[its-techs]

But Michael, still should have been upfront

He was.

about how he obtained the info in the first place there are proper ways to cite quotes and gain permission to bypass NDA's

He has his own discretion, which I think was executed properly in this case? You can start your own news site anytime you like and then at that point you can utilize your own discretion.

but instead he choose to leave his readers in the dark and hope they blindly accept his word. Sadly he has stretched the thruth enough time that many of them want more

I don't know about any of that. What I do know is that this report is absolutely correct.

[CFWhitman]

thats it, to say we continue it, because whatever ok, but to say that gets more important so in the conterpart the open one becomes less important (logical) is the nail, I will not go for amd anymore, if the hardware is not extremly more expensive for the same feature I will buy Intel hardware in the future.

bb amd....

That does not follow logically. Jammy said only, "We will definitely continue the fglrx development, which is becoming more and more important for AMD," and you assumed the extension 'compared to open source development.' That does not follow. He could have just as easily meant, 'compared to development of drivers for Windows.' For all we know he could have meant, 'compared to daily donut runs.' You can't just assume that they are reducing development efforts toward the open source drivers by what he said, not logically anyway.

[blackiwid]

That does not follow logically. Jammy said only, "We will definitely continue the fglrx development, which is becoming more and more important for AMD," and you assumed the extension 'compared to open source development.' That does not follow. He could have just as easily meant, 'compared to development of drivers for Windows.' For all we know he could have meant, 'compared to daily donut runs.' You can't just assume that they are reducing development efforts toward the open source drivers by what he said, not logically anyway.

but that sounds like they will not kill it anytime not even in middle (far future) they have no plans to do so that sucks enough. and if they wanted to say, linux becomes more important why didnt say that, because this driver where amd puts more resources in than for the open one will be at least stay the main focus (more manpower) thats retarded, I cant understand that, when people want to use a binary blob they buy nvidia cards because the nvidia driver for linux is better than the amd one, so the only advantage amd has, is the open driver so I just cant understand this ignorance.

[its-techs]

(more manpower) thats retarded, I cant understand that, when people want to use a binary blob they buy nvidia cards because the nvidia driver for linux is better than the amd one, so the only advantage amd has, is the open driver so I just cant understand this ignorance

Both the ignorance and the arrogance is on the side that assumes there will be only one driver and one license. I don't really see how radeon advocates, who are supposed to be the openminded and accommodating crowd, take the view that their view is the only view that there is. What happens is that it undermines the entire radeon movement and has created a counterpush movement against radeon because of the fascist attitudes in the radeon advocacy crowd.

It's no skin off your back if another driver is pushed by AMD; it's not your money; it's not your work; you don't have groceries at home that were purchased with an AMD paycheck; so my advice is simply to mind your own business and quit worrying about what's happening on the other side of your fence. If other people choose other licenses to run on their machines and their os, then frankly that is none of your business; the fact that you think it is makes you look fascist. The fact that you feel compelled to deride other people's decisions and their intelligence based on their non-adoption of what has been made to look like a cult tends to cast doubt on your decisions and intelligence.

[blackiwid]

it's not your money;

of course is it my money, I bought amd hardware because of that and that others bought it amd has money. So of course I say what I think about that, I sit here with 3 amd machines 2 fusion and one bulldozer with a midrange grafics card, some people I buy hardware for and in 99% of the cases that is amd hardware too. So I just said that if they change that and it gets even a tiny bit worse than its already, I think I speak here for some other people (not all I am not cracy).

So yes I mind my stuff, I am customer, and like users of facebook, mind if facebook makes stupid stuff that hurts his users and they get a shitstorm or lets say blizzard for their policy they get here some negative comments.

If they stop making a opensource driver for linux go for it, I buy amd also because I dont like market dominant companies, but if they want it, I can live with that. And yes here in germany if not people like me stand for amd, they would sell here zero cpus, because in tv and in the main markets there was only intel long time. that was illigal stuff they did, but the point is the same, if you loose the geeks you loose also the noobs (like a multiplicationer)

But I also dont want to argue all the time how important I could be for amd or not, or how many people think maybe the same but did not come to this site... I just want as customer my rights, to have free drivers, to be able to do with the hardware what I want, else you can call it console. AMD at least also earns much money with linux, so they should give here something back. I ask not for much, I dont ask that I want a perfekt driver in a year, I dont ask that they should release their fglrx, but I want to hear at some point that they agree to opensource/free software, they harm people, if you give closed source stuff out in the wild you have total control over it. you can install features that have negative features for the user, survalence etc. I just want to not have that.

I want to use my computer I bought like the features they sold, so I dont want rapidly smaller akku-time because they dont get the hardware-feature done or something like that, but stopp it here... I maybe cannot force them to do so, but as a customer I have one thing I can do, I can stopp buying hardware from them if I am absolutly unimportant as customer ok, but than I stopp supporting such stuff. And why you attack me when I am basicly saying that, is out of my understanding.

[crazycheese]

It goes like this:

Nvidia does not provide opensource drivers - Fuq Nvidia! Go AMD!
AMD opensource drivers are useless for mid-high GPUs and they commit way more manpower to own proprietary driver, which is worse than that of Nvidia - Fuq AMD! Go Intel!
Intel windows driver does OpenGL4 and is faster than that of Linux. - Fuq Intel! ...

Oh shi-!

[89c51]

AMD opensource drivers are useless for mid-high GPUs and they commit way more manpower to own proprietary driver, which is worse than that of Nvidia - Fuq AMD! Go Intel!

I know your post is a bit tongue in cheek but AMD never promised to write the driver themselves. They said they will provide documentation. You can say fuck AMD when catalyst doesn't work as advertised and nag a bit for not providing full documentation (i want to believe they are trying their best or at least hope they do). But for not writing the open driver themselves is plain wrong.

[blackiwid]

It goes like this:

Nvidia does not provide opensource drivers - Fuq Nvidia! Go AMD!
AMD opensource drivers are useless for mid-high GPUs and they commit way more manpower to own proprietary driver, which is worse than that of Nvidia - Fuq AMD! Go Intel!
Intel windows driver does OpenGL4 and is faster than that of Linux. - Fuq Intel! ...

Oh shi-!

I know I cant play with opensource drivers at all, its ok I accept that, thats not my point, I dont care about newer opengl levels because when I cant play anyway (have a windows pc for that, and maybe get a hacked console somedays ^^) it makes no sense...

so what I want are power features, and gpu video encoding, Yes I can play youtube videos in such big resolutions but on other stuff with bigger bit rates if there is some cpu load from other programms they just dont even can play gapfree a 720p video as example of some series. its nearly impossible to play a 720p movie/series on my htpc when bittorrent with 10% cpu load is running with a zacate system. And on the notebook site its also not that cool to have not much mobility when watching this videos.

and then there is generaly the problem that the gpus have no good power-saving modes and fan-control, that would be great, too. I would like more 3d speed too, but I can forget about that, but I want to see something happen, juust supporting newer gpus and more opengl functions I think is not important, good the newer gpus are important but that cannot be all there is. maybe something bigger is in the making since a few years, I just cant understand that it not only takes several years to get better but several decades so I would like to survife ( I am under 35 ^^) long enough to see some bigger movement, the linux kernel also makes each year big steps, why cant the opensource driver not make some steps (as example one another thing that would also be more important than more 3d speed would be some kind of cuda like feature) I mean there amd dont even gets something running I mean phyisix like with its closed source drivers. why does just nothing happen with the driver at all, only more games support more gpus... nothing else...

[blackiwid]

I know your post is a bit tongue in cheek but AMD never promised to write the driver themselves. They said they will provide documentation. You can say fuck AMD when catalyst doesn't work as advertised and nag a bit for not providing full documentation (i want to believe they are trying their best or at least hope they do). But for not writing the open driver themselves is plain wrong.

I think that was a ironic argument against my words ^^

but to go to your arguing, so why is nobody work on that grafics free driver other than amd emploees (mostly), why does the kernel have thousends of programmer and the xorg stack nearly non other than some grafics-driver employes. I meen would it be good for some companies to have a opensource radeon driver that, supports opencl and could they not make money with such a feature? or is it maybe because the closed source blob exists nobody makes something here because stability and freedom does not count much for such companies. so its maybe because this drivers exists, if they would be stopped the open ones would become better faster I think. So basicly thats the problem with that sector 1. that grafics drivers are very complex (but a btrfs file system or something like that should be complex too...) and 2. that this blobs exists and take the pressure out of the pot.

So I think when they would say in long term the free driver is our only driver, some more people would come to make the open driver better.