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Thread: The State Of Open-Source Radeon Driver Features

  1. #191
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    Can you please stop disagreeing with things I didn't say ?

    Quote Originally Posted by duby229 View Post
    I didnt say that AMD customers were stupid. I said it would be stupid for AMD to drop out of OSS driver development right now. It sounds like what you were saying is thats where things are headed. That AMD will drop out of OSS driver development.
    No, I never said anything of the sort. What I said is that when we tried to use current unhappiness of users as justification to help secure the release of new programming information it doesn't work very well and tended to raise questions about whether the open source project was worth the risk. I didn't actually say "so we don't do it any more" but I guess I thought that would be obvious.

    Quote Originally Posted by duby229 View Post
    EDIT: If you guys want to develop fglrx then thats fine... I just don't like how you use the fact that fglrx exists as an excuse for why its taking so long to bring up support for features in the oss drivers.
    Don't think I have ever said anything like that. Citation needed.

    Quote Originally Posted by duby229 View Post
    Whenever video decode (or any other feature the oss drivers don't have) is mentioned it always come to "well fglrx exists use that, it was designed for cases that the oss drivers dont work in"... Thats all fine and good except that it doesnt work.... And then to make things worse you say that it should be up to "thousands" of community developers to do it for free with no documentation.
    Again, you're re-arranging my words to give them different meaning. Only Q is allowed to do that

    I have said that we targetted the open source drivers at areas where fglrx was weak, but not the other way round. I never said that it should be up to "thousands of developers" other than summarizing what others were saying around the start of the project 5 years ago. My expectations were basically what we worked out with Dave and Alex in mid-2007 and so far things have worked out as planned, maybe a bit better if anything.
    Last edited by bridgman; 01-18-2013 at 08:47 AM.

  2. #192
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    Quote Originally Posted by Drago View Post
    Please tell us Bridgman, what are these 3D workstation customer demands, that Radeon driver can't satisfy, besides superior performance. Is it GL 4.x? Is it OpenCL? Is it some secret sauce that is used to differentiate Radeon chips from FireGL ones.
    Mostly superior performance, particularly on specific workloads AFAIK. The requirement used to be maximum performance on vertex-intensive workloads eg wireframe models while consumer apps cared more about pixel shading performance. GL levels are more of a "checkbox" requirement, ie if you don't have them then your cards don't get bought even if current apps mostly use GL 2.1 and lower.

    There are some other requirements like GL overlays (for floating a UI over a full screen model) but I think it's the first two that require a big development effort.

    Quote Originally Posted by Drago View Post
    Isn't possible for FOSS driver one day in the future to be 3D Workstation compatible?
    Sure. It's just not there yet, and the amount of work required is too big to "just borrow a few develoeprs and get there. I've also mentioned the possibility of making relatively more of the linux-specific bits open source to get the best of both worlds, but again that's a non-trivial task.

    The key point here is that a code-shared proprietary driver allows us to write the 3D code once and use it across multiple OSes, while providing the same functionality and performance on an open source driver requires doing all the same work again on a separate implementation, and it's a *lot* of work.

    Quote Originally Posted by Drago View Post
    Tell us, what you think it could be done with currently available information for PM. You said something of AtomBios table interpolation. Explain. This are super honest questions. I am not trying to argue with you, by no means.
    Pretty simple. Right now some users can get by with current power management and others can not, and the difference often seems to depend on whether those users have working "low" and "mid" entries in the power tables.

    Everyone would benefit from full dynamic power management and that's what we're working on, but we knew that would take time. I felt that in the meantime it would be possible to make some reasonable guesses for "mid" values on cards which didn't have those entries, so at least everyone would be at the same level rather than the current state.

    The trap everyone falls into is thinking that it's an either-or choice, ie working on a short term solution delays a better long term solution. It would if the work was being done by the same people (and that's why I didn't ask our devs to work on improved static PM, or at least didn't push very hard), but community work on static PM would not slow down AMD work on dynamic PM.

    Dave's main point (which was correct) was that community work on static PM *would* slow down work on other areas where the work would not be throwaway; he weighted the "throwaway" aspect a bit more highly than I did which is totally fair.
    Last edited by bridgman; 01-18-2013 at 09:20 AM.

  3. #193
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    Quote Originally Posted by crazycheese View Post
    You will have a LOT OF problems, because you forgot that money is only an instrument to motivate people. Nothing more. They are worthless outside of the scope.
    If you remove money from people, they get angry.
    And you also forgot weapons.
    Angry people with weapons vs you with their money - its not going to end up good for you.


    They don't give it for free. They develop each series by accurately targeting market demands, starting from initial investment calculation via design, manufacturing up to selling where they get expenses covered and receive profit.
    I am buying their cards. They get money from me. Where is "free"? The driver software is in freedom form because its tremendously cheaper to adapt, its secure and it fuels the progress. But its not coming written for free.


    I will nothing from you, receiving without giving is a crime.


    Communism and capitalism are different approaches to same problematic, to commonwealth society. None of the approaches is flawless.
    Also, unfortunately communism has three major flaws that prevent it to apply efficiently on society level - that is - the authority must be equal to citizens(1), material equilibrium renders progress nearly impossible(2), everyone should be open on informational level (means no lying)(3). Capitalism has no less flaws, it forces overproduction, overconsuming, damaging concentration of material wealth, and... slavery by the means of private property. The civil american war between states is a prime example.

    If left without state control, both systems will unavoidably lead to power overconcentration and a totalitarian system.

    Fortunately, in most countries, regardless of the approach, the offsets are covered by laws. For example, in America, as per constitution, speech and information are discarded from term "capital".
    You can't own soul, you can't control speech, you can't own information.

    Also, information and information producer or carrier have completely different nature.
    Lets take word "apple" and real apple.
    If someone consumes word "apple" by mentioning it, the information will multiply. If someone leaves word "apple" alone, the information will vanish as less and less information carriers carry it.
    If someone consumes apple, it will be destroyed. If someone leaves apple alone, it will exist further.

    Hence capitalism is better applied to material nature (by means of private property and preservation) and communism to informational nature(by means of sharing and reuse).

    The problematic reappears again, as everything in IT is information and a process. So, workers, consume material goods to produce information, which in term can't be seen and sold as a capital.
    Stallman has already explained by means of GPL, that information must be free, yet production of information should not be(and is never) free.

    This is why - don't sell copies, but sell programmer time.


    I am nothing, I observe the nature of things and follow it. I don't carry pink or grey glasses, they deviate the observation.
    Simple does not apply to term "ideal", it depends on state of things.
    In this case, opensourcing the driver will produce vast platform advantage and compatibility of AMD solutions to all current and future systems.
    Basically, they have good hardware - if they make it easily supported everywhere, it will act like a glue.
    What the danger is, if they do it the wrong way, their investments in RnD will be lost by no one compensating it, but simply reusing - which is why the whole income model should be redone.
    Right now, people are purchasing their hardware solutions which compensate the costs for the driver development. Driver and feature customization can also be improved by software as service approach. I have mentioned it long ago, people will gladly pay for good opensource driver development if they see the results. For development outside of this scope they might deploy distributed cost locks - that is, the feature is unlocked once they get enough supporters/purchasers.

    Xorg is irrelevant, because it is underway to be aborted (and very probably rewritten). It is natural state of things, that at certain degree of complexity, when lessons are learned, it is better to abort everything and restart from scratch in order to eliminate underlying (architectural) problems. Xorg is no exception - thank you Xorg, bye Xorg, hello new Xorg.


    Where did you ask? In a pool of clueless people? To provide educated opinion, one should know BOTH ways equally good.
    You asked sheep. Recieved "Meee". Now you claim "Meee" to be the ultimate answer. Meee don't think so.

    Also, I repeat - Linux has proven the advantage of opensource. It advances things, where proprietary approach closes them down, separates them, drains their energy and lets them die irrevocably.
    Proprietary approach to information is like communism to society.


    If people switch to Linux just for the sake of switching, it must be their curiousity. Curiosity is a natural feeling which is HIGHLY DAMAGED by *habit*. And Windows is PREINSTALLED since MSDOS, it puts HEAVY meaning on *habit* - from being preinstalled, up to winapi. Result: windows people do not switch to Linux due to curiosity. Because they have lost it, thanks to microsoft!

    If people switch to Linux, because certain game is available there - they shouldn't, because games should be crossplatform and opensource demands that. Windows heavily uses *exclusivity* - a reverse meaning of *restriction*.
    Exclusivity is damaging factor, because its a straight way to slavery! However, inventor should be granted exclusivity for acceptable timeline, so he can compensate the costs, but NEVER if exclusivity results in freedom- or possibility reduction.
    For example, Siri was originally meant to be available on variety of platforms. Its developers would receive compensation for the work as exclusive inventors.
    However, once Siri was purchased by Apple, Apple restricted its usage only to own platform. This is damaging illegal method of "exclusivity".

    People actually switch to Linux, because it either fits better for the job, or because they are reverse-forced to - they run from tyranny. It does not restrict their freedom.

    Ideally, you shouldn't switch environment, because you have tons of curiosity, was able to compare different systems and current system fits you well. This is valid way.

    I don't feel well when a system postulates monopoly, gathers all technologies, destroys companies, drives the market and its users in a totalitarian choiceless way.
    For example, google monopoly is based on openness, innovation, absence of limitation and service. That's a good way. You make your choice!

    Then come games, yes!


    You are one of them? Then I suggest you spend more time to understand the system deeply, just to understand why it has its current form, before you make any claims.

    Regarding opensource or not drivers - the formula is easy: More attention equals better driver.

    More attention may happen due to personal interest(direct or indirect) or financial interest(money, again direct or indirect). Ideally the code should get maximum attention without blocking the attention from flowing back.
    Hence proprietary companies reinvent same bicycles on constant basis instead of working on parts or unique variations.
    Recently they learned to lend bicycles though, although now they impose bicycle-lend-tax even on pedestrians, bar none.

    Every company wants more money, but forgets that money is only an instrument to provide innovation and commonwealth of the society.
    Because AMD agrees only with marketshare approach, but fails to seek ways to gain this marketshare we have a suboptimal drivers.

    And opensource driver performance is currently 50-80% of proprietary driver. That ONLY thanks to people not seeking "simple ways". So please suggest ways to improve it. We already have windows and know the damages.
    Money is not an instrument to provide innovation and commonwealth of the society. Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given socio-economic context or country. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment.[From Wikipedia]

    (1)A company's purpose is to maximize the shareholders' wealth. Right now AMD already has a driver called fglrx. Probably it's core is shared between linux and windows and only provides a wrapper for some generic functions that are implemented differently on windows and linux. For some people (maybe a lot I don't know I'm not one of them) the fglrx has problems. So AMD should focus on solving those problems. Not rewriting from scratch and open source driver. I understand that an open source driver would be better from Stallman's view but remember (1). Reimplementing that driver in open source is probably a gargantuan task. You may say that why don't they open source their current fglrx driver. Maybe because they have a lot of code that isn't theirs and can't open source it.

    New drivers for new devices should start as open source but right now some drivers are proprietary and we should accept that. They won't become open source. So, in order to attract a larger userbase, we must present compelling arguments for them to move to linux. One compelling argument is that you can have the same graphics performance on both windows and linux. The argument that open source is better but still 50-80% (you're very optimistic this is not what I see in practice) of the performance turns a lot of people off. In fact even though everybody agrees that open source is better in theory, right now they will have the fglrx driver thank you very much. So AMD should focus on providing value to the customer. And most customers don't care if it's open source or not, but care if it's fast or not. And for them it's easier (I think) to fix the fglrx than to rewrite it.

    However, once Siri was purchased by Apple, Apple restricted its usage only to own platform. This is damaging illegal method of "exclusivity".

    What about Apple's freedom to do what they want with their products? Who made you god to say on which platforms should Siri be available. Ever thought that they did it only for Apple because of limited resources allocated for that project? Why should they have made it available for other platforms if it didn't guarantee revenue? Remember (1). Always remember (1). And no I don't like Apple and never liked Steve Jobs, never owned something from Apple.

    In this case, opensourcing the driver will produce vast platform advantage and compatibility of AMD solutions to all current and future systems.

    Agreed. But only if open source programmers take it and improve it. There is no guarantee that people will work on it. Not everybody is a graphics driver programmer you know. AMD should make something of a survey to find out how many people are actually willing to work on their driver.


    Where did you ask? In a pool of clueless people? To provide educated opinion, one should know BOTH ways equally good.
    You asked sheep. Recieved "Meee". Now you claim "Meee" to be the ultimate answer. Meee don't think so.

    Yes clueless people. The kind of clueless people that use windows and don't care about linux but the linux community wants them to take on linux. That kind of people. The potential customers if you wish. They aren't sheep. Do you think Microsoft calls its customers sheep because they can't do kernel programming? And they don't care about open source. They first and foremost care if they can do in linux what they can do in windows equally easier or even easier. And right now, since they don't have the same performance with the radeon driver they will go with the proprietary ones. They may be sheep from your point of view, but I call them normal people for going with the performance. Again, after explaining open source they agree that it's a better development model, but they still choose performance and functionality first. That is why AMD should focus on making sure that fglrx works. And the X.org guys can help the AMD guys by not changing the interface so much so that people could use the end of life driver version indefinitely(talking about the 2000 3000 and 4000 lines that no longer work with the latest X.org).

    I feel that the linux community says that they want better market share but aren't actually willing to do what is necessary to get that market share. And when they don't get it they call everybody sheep and narrow minded for not bending to their way of doing things. If the purpose is to get as much market share as possible we should focus on what people want. Not on what Stallman wants.

  4. #194
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    Better power management should have absolute priority. The APUs, probably AMD's most important products right now, are nearly unusuable with the free drivers due to lack of power management. Not even the profiles work.

    It's not just that APUs need more energy than they should, they're also limited to a (low) fallback clock, that means practical performance is a fraction of the APU's potential.

  5. #195
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    ... aaaaand this gets back into the question of "what do you mean by better" ? Improved static PM (which is more of a challenge for APUs), or just keep pushing on advanced DPM and hope we can release that ?

    Right now we're focusing on advanced DPM as a priority but that just means it makes progress, doesn't guarantee it will happen or make it happen "real fast".

  6. #196
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    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    Money is not an instrument to provide innovation and commonwealth of the society. Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given socio-economic context or country. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment.[From Wikipedia]

    (1)A company's purpose is to maximize the shareholders' wealth. Right now AMD already has a driver called fglrx. Probably it's core is shared between linux and windows and only provides a wrapper for some generic functions that are implemented differently on windows and linux. For some people (maybe a lot I don't know I'm not one of them) the fglrx has problems. So AMD should focus on solving those problems. Not rewriting from scratch and open source driver. I understand that an open source driver would be better from Stallman's view but remember (1). Reimplementing that driver in open source is probably a gargantuan task. You may say that why don't they open source their current fglrx driver. Maybe because they have a lot of code that isn't theirs and can't open source it.

    New drivers for new devices should start as open source but right now some drivers are proprietary and we should accept that. They won't become open source. So, in order to attract a larger userbase, we must present compelling arguments for them to move to linux. One compelling argument is that you can have the same graphics performance on both windows and linux. The argument that open source is better but still 50-80% (you're very optimistic this is not what I see in practice) of the performance turns a lot of people off. In fact even though everybody agrees that open source is better in theory, right now they will have the fglrx driver thank you very much. So AMD should focus on providing value to the customer. And most customers don't care if it's open source or not, but care if it's fast or not. And for them it's easier (I think) to fix the fglrx than to rewrite it.

    However, once Siri was purchased by Apple, Apple restricted its usage only to own platform. This is damaging illegal method of "exclusivity".

    What about Apple's freedom to do what they want with their products? Who made you god to say on which platforms should Siri be available. Ever thought that they did it only for Apple because of limited resources allocated for that project? Why should they have made it available for other platforms if it didn't guarantee revenue? Remember (1). Always remember (1). And no I don't like Apple and never liked Steve Jobs, never owned something from Apple.

    In this case, opensourcing the driver will produce vast platform advantage and compatibility of AMD solutions to all current and future systems.

    Agreed. But only if open source programmers take it and improve it. There is no guarantee that people will work on it. Not everybody is a graphics driver programmer you know. AMD should make something of a survey to find out how many people are actually willing to work on their driver.


    Where did you ask? In a pool of clueless people? To provide educated opinion, one should know BOTH ways equally good.
    You asked sheep. Recieved "Meee". Now you claim "Meee" to be the ultimate answer. Meee don't think so.

    Yes clueless people. The kind of clueless people that use windows and don't care about linux but the linux community wants them to take on linux. That kind of people. The potential customers if you wish. They aren't sheep. Do you think Microsoft calls its customers sheep because they can't do kernel programming? And they don't care about open source. They first and foremost care if they can do in linux what they can do in windows equally easier or even easier. And right now, since they don't have the same performance with the radeon driver they will go with the proprietary ones. They may be sheep from your point of view, but I call them normal people for going with the performance. Again, after explaining open source they agree that it's a better development model, but they still choose performance and functionality first. That is why AMD should focus on making sure that fglrx works. And the X.org guys can help the AMD guys by not changing the interface so much so that people could use the end of life driver version indefinitely(talking about the 2000 3000 and 4000 lines that no longer work with the latest X.org).

    I feel that the linux community says that they want better market share but aren't actually willing to do what is necessary to get that market share. And when they don't get it they call everybody sheep and narrow minded for not bending to their way of doing things. If the purpose is to get as much market share as possible we should focus on what people want. Not on what Stallman wants.

    You said alot here, and I don't want to address all of it. Instead I'll just state my opinion as an opposite.

    If AMD wants to waste their time developing it that is perfectly fine, they can choose to do so. The problem with it is that it is unstable. It crashes on just abou every computer it runs on. Release cycles are not coordinated with new x server and kernel releases. Commonly used hardware is only supported by old drivers that only work on old x servers. Shaders are not rendered properly. There is no possibility of kernel mode setting. It uses its own graphics stack so it doesnt contribute to the linux ecosystem..... And the list of problems goes on. I'm not saying that a proprietary driver can't be good because it can. But I am saying that fglrx is -not-...

    At least the OSS drivers have none of these problems. It may be incomplete, but at least it works on far more hardware than current fglrx and is stable with zero configuration requirements.
    Last edited by duby229; 01-18-2013 at 11:54 AM.

  7. #197
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    @BO$$
    You want Linux as other windows, but you want it to be same windows. Like your effort to duplicate already existing proprietary driver, it possess no uniqueness and will fail.
    Performance/features of software are based only upon amount of human/hours(effort) devoted to it, like I claimed it has nothing to do with wither its opensource or closed source.
    Given equilibrium in effort, opensource driver is many times more advanced to a proprietary driver, in value, adaptability and development efficiency. And you are not bound to ugly windows 8 squares.

    Ok, but we don't have that equilibrium above because the company in question distributes the effort differently, so you think its because opensource is inefficient. Thats not the case.
    The truth is that you can't drive maglevs on steam trains' railway. It won't work.

    And they also have this microsoft agreement, which means they would implement everything microsoft wants them to, than what customers want them to.
    So if customers run off microsoft (what they usually do), its their primary job to offer sub-class broken maglev in order to bullcrap them back. Because old railway is everywhere and microsoft holds its monopoly.
    Also they would rather replace the railway with that of microsoft, preferably patented and preferably again microsoft-only. If you don't believe me, check MS JPEG replacement format - JPEG XR. A "standard" that is windows-only and distributed under "open agreement" that prohibits copyleft.

    So, lets replace electromagnetic drive with that from the steam loc and call it a day!

    Picture gallery:

    FGLRX:


    AMD (Bridgeman's) viewpoint:


    Opensource as it should be:


    Opensource by AMD:


    PS.
    Why comparing opensource to maglev and proprietary to steam train?
    Easy, magnetic rail has no proprietary rut, its free floating. And its roll friction is nearly zero, because there is no license fees.

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    Were these people insane before coming here, or did phoronix do this to them???

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    Quote Originally Posted by crazycheese View Post
    Picture gallery:

    FGLRX:


    AMD (Bridgman's) viewpoint:


    Opensource as it should be:


    Opensource by AMD:

    Hilarious! Make this a sticky post!

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    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    Money is not an instrument to provide innovation and commonwealth of the society. Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given socio-economic context or country. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past, a standard of deferred payment.
    And how are the two arguments there really that distinct? Do you actually understand the quote you posted, or are you just doing the tried and true and yet still patently ridiculous "dictionary" argument?

    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    A company's purpose is to maximize the shareholders' wealth. Right now AMD already has a driver called fglrx. Probably it's core is shared between linux and windows and only provides a wrapper for some generic functions that are implemented differently on windows and linux. For some people (maybe a lot I don't know I'm not one of them) the fglrx has problems. So AMD should focus on solving those problems. Not rewriting from scratch and open source driver. I understand that an open source driver would be better from Stallman's view but remember (1). Reimplementing that driver in open source is probably a gargantuan task. You may say that why don't they open source their current fglrx driver. Maybe because they have a lot of code that isn't theirs and can't open source it.
    Again, you are under the belief that the two projects are taking resource from each other. Seriously, the cost of free drivers to AMD is about four guys and the occasional cost of a legal review. I think even our tiny fractured market share has more than made up for that input (something that is also indicated by the fact that they were forced to lay off some of the CPU driver teams, and yet the graphics team was untouched). Meanwhile Catalyst taps into the workloads of thousands - you can not really claim the problem is a lack of resources. Granted, I agree with you that Catalyst does not have as many problems as some claim, but the R600g drivers better suit my use case and yes, I do prefer having a free driver over proprietary. Does that really make me that dogmatic? That I prefer one over the other?

    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    New drivers for new devices should start as open source but right now some drivers are proprietary and we should accept that. They won't become open source. So, in order to attract a larger userbase, we must present compelling arguments for them to move to linux. One compelling argument is that you can have the same graphics performance on both windows and linux. The argument that open source is better but still 50-80% (you're very optimistic this is not what I see in practice) of the performance turns a lot of people off. In fact even though everybody agrees that open source is better in theory, right now they will have the fglrx driver thank you very much. So AMD should focus on providing value to the customer. And most customers don't care if it's open source or not, but care if it's fast or not. And for them it's easier (I think) to fix the fglrx than to rewrite it.
    Yes, they have the Catalyst drivers if they want that for now. So why do you have this huge bee in your bonnet about the very existence of the free drivers? Why the hell do you have this view that people who prefer the free drivers have committed against you personally? As I said, it is not really taking resources away from Catalyst (and Catalyst is not really taking resources from the free drivers) so I really do not get why you are making this argument. It is like saying that I prefer this brand of cereal, but some others prefer this one by the same company, so that other one must be hurting my favourite cereal. And that the existence of that cereal is somehow preventing me from getting more house guests....

    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    What about Apple's freedom to do what they want with their products? Who made you god to say on which platforms should Siri be available. Ever thought that they did it only for Apple because of limited resources allocated for that project? Why should they have made it available for other platforms if it didn't guarantee revenue?
    And who exactly stopped Apple from doing that? Okay, people criticized them for it. Big deal. Their "freedom" was never infringed, people just complained, as was their right. Tell me why that should also be a problem?

    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    In this case, opensourcing the driver will produce vast platform advantage and compatibility of AMD solutions to all current and future systems. Agreed. But only if open source programmers take it and improve it. There is no guarantee that people will work on it. Not everybody is a graphics driver programmer you know. AMD should make something of a survey to find out how many people are actually willing to work on their driver.
    Well, the thing is that we already know that people are working on it. Red Hat has people hired exclusively to work on it. Then of course there is Marek, and other independent contributors. So there are outside non-AMD people working on it (as was already well explored earlier in this thread). So what is your point?

    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    Yes clueless people. The kind of clueless people that use windows and don't care about linux but the linux community wants them to take on linux. That kind of people. The potential customers if you wish. They aren't sheep. Do you think Microsoft calls its customers sheep because they can't do kernel programming? And they don't care about open source. They first and foremost care if they can do in linux what they can do in windows equally easier or even easier. And right now, since they don't have the same performance with the radeon driver they will go with the proprietary ones. They may be sheep from your point of view, but I call them normal people for going with the performance. Again, after explaining open source they agree that it's a better development model, but they still choose performance and functionality first. That is why AMD should focus on making sure that fglrx works. And the X.org guys can help the AMD guys by not changing the interface so much so that people could use the end of life driver version indefinitely(talking about the 2000 3000 and 4000 lines that no longer work with the latest X.org).
    Again, work on the one does not negate work on the other. As for the sheep comment, I think it is a bit presumptuous to call crazycheese the Linux community (and trust me, there are plenty of Microsoft fan boys that can be just as inflammatory, insulting, or hard to understand). I also think it is a bit presumptuous for you to be the one here to describe people as "normal" or not. Is this about your little survey again?

    As for X.org, I will admit that it is up for X.org to justify there decisions on those points and not who does not fully grasp the complexities of the situation, but the way I understand it your problem is the fact that the X.org server shipped with most distributions is one that can be considered to be stable branches of something that is under constant development. Well, if you do not like that, then do not use one of those distros - use one that offers long term support and upgrades like a Windows version would. Use something like Ubuntu LTS or CentOS or Debian Stable. That is what most of these binary blob drivers are targeting. Do that and you will still be able to use Catalyst with those cards for years. If the average Windows desktop was as much as a moving target as Fedora or non-LTS Ubuntu release they would hit the shame issues there with proprietary blobs.

    Quote Originally Posted by BO$$ View Post
    I feel that the linux community says that they want better market share but aren't actually willing to do what is necessary to get that market share. And when they don't get it they call everybody sheep and narrow minded for not bending to their way of doing things. If the purpose is to get as much market share as possible we should focus on what people want. Not on what Stallman wants.
    Well, that is the thing - should that really be the goal? To get more market share? I personally would much rather focus on building an operating system that works based on solid open foundations and free ideals. I do not really care if everyone uses it as long as it works and suits my use case. I am using your own criteria there BO$$. I will admit that for some people the goal is world domination, but I will take a working free system any day over a popular one that does not suit me needs. If we get more users that is perfectly fine, but it is not something I am personally striving for. I am just striving to make my system work even better. And for me it works best with free software drivers.

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