Some guy reports AMD strongly considuring opening ATI drivers...

[drag]

Lastly, and remember you heard it here, AMD is strongly considering open-sourcing at least a functional subset of ATI?s graphics drivers. It?s time for X Window System, OpenGL, and client virtualization for which ATI binary drivers aren?t available to escape the ghetto of the 1980s-era framebuffer. And what a boon for PR. If AMD?s graphics cards were the only ones with open device drivers, it might affect a buying decision or two.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/02/32OPcurve_1.html


He doesn't say how he heard it or anything, but it would make a huge difference for me and my purchasing considurations if it's true.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I'd switch in a heartbeat if they were under a decent license.

 

[drag]

Also just recently Intel has announced that they released drivers for their latest Intel chipset with integrated graphics..
http://lwn.net/Articles/194724/

And, of course, they are open source. Made by Tungsten Graphics Inc. (experts in high-end 3d accelerated displays, btw)

Things are looking more up for open source 3d graphics.

edit:

Get a load of Intel's new website URL..
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
I'd switch in a heartbeat if they were under a decent license.

Same.

 

[n0cmonkey]

And by switch I mean I'd go exclusive. I'm a healthy mix at the moment.

 

[magomago]

I would go to ATI as well. I use nVidia exclusively because they are the ones with REAL drivers atleast. And while it doesn't make a big difference to me (blob or not), if its an easy way to support the community, well why not!

By the way, lets say this happens TODAY. How long would it take for everything to be implemented...and not just implemented but integrated to the point that the average user can go: sudo apt-get, or run an install binary like nvidia does?

 

[drag]

By the way, lets say this happens TODAY. How long would it take for everything to be implemented...and not just implemented but integrated to the point that the average user can go: sudo apt-get, or run an install binary like nvidia does?

Depends on the video card, how much they release, and such.

If they released it today I would expect that by the next release of Ubuntu or Fedora Core (which is designed to coincide with X.org releases) they would have pretty functional drivers. Those releases of FC and Ubuntu would be proving grounds for the new drivers and they would get improved considurably during that time period.

If there is demand for them then you would have 3rd party repositories picking up the slack and releasing interm versions of the drivers for people to use that want to take advantage of newer features or improved capabilities in the drivers in CVS and such. With the modular nature of X this should be much easier then in previous times.

By the end of the year (by FC7 or whatever) you would have stable full featured drivers that should work out of the box for the majority of users.

So lets say 1-3 months for early adopters and people who can pull code out of cvs and compile it themselves. 6-8 months of 70-90% functionality as the drivers mature and then after that your mom should be able to use them.

At that point you wouldn't even have to apt-get them or anything. They'd be aviable by default and be self configured by the operating system installation scripts. Also by then you'd have GUIs to help you configure them (something in the works right now)

 

[doornail]

I've been buying Nvidia only because of the quality of their Linux drivers. I have six or seven GeForce cards of various generations installed or in the spare parts box. I would dump them for Radeons only if AMD/ATI did this.

 

[M00T]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: M00T
I'll believe it when I see it.

AMD has been one of the good companies, and quite supportive of FLOSS projects. I think they'll get something out, even if it isn't full open source drivers as they are currently implimented.

 

[M00T]

Today's management may not be tomorrow's management.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I've always wanted an ATi card, but they seem to be lacking something when it comes to Linux. If this goes through, I may finally be able to get one. =]

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: M00T
I'll believe it when I see it.

AMD has been one of the good companies, and quite supportive of FLOSS projects. I think they'll get something out, even if it isn't full open source drivers as they are currently implimented.

I am thinking that they would release code for 2D drivers and then possibly partially working 3d drivers.

Or they will take the route intel did and hirer a development company like Tunsgsten (which would make sense since I beleive they did the ATI 8500/r200 drivers) to write the opengl drivers for them, then release those.

There are certain aspects to OpenGL that are patent-encumbered. The most significant one that I know has to do with texture compression. DRI has support partial support for it, but for more featured version you have obtain a loadable library file, a sort of plugin that DRI supports, but it's something you have to find and install yourself. (just another example of how broken the software patent system is)

Also hopefully they will help the DRI folks get the R300 series of drivers more-feature complete. (using them in a r420 x800 card and they work pretty well). Get things like anti-aliasing enabled and get support for tricky memory-shared cards like the x200 that the dri folks can't figure out.

 

[drag]

Here is a couple articled (second one is a blog entry from zdnet so take them with a grain of salt).
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6103941.html

Talks about Intel using Open Source software to sell their hardware.

"Having open-source drivers gives us a big edge in this market," said Dirk Hohndel, chief technologist of Intel's Open Source Technology Center.

And then a short thing going along the same lines.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6103941.html

By having open source drivers it sells the entire hardware stack, basicly.

For instance the new Intel onboard video stuff is nice for workstations, desktops, and notebook computers. If you want 3d acceleration then it's logical if your using Linux (or some Free/Open source other operating system) that you going to go with hardware that is well supported. So that means buying Intel. And when you buy intel motherboard, your buying intel CPUs. Also your probably also buying Intel wireless or a Intel branded centrino system.

When compared to this Nvidia and ATI based motherboards and AMD cpus on those systems are a relative PITA. You have to deal with propriatory drivers for Video and sometimes network and even audio. This means that it's a legal problem for OEMs to use those items. Also when you require support contracts from people like Redhat they will refuse to support or troubleshoot kernel issues if your using something like Nvidia drivers. There have been a couple times were nvidia video drivers interfered with file system stuff, for instance. As a administrator this also means that you can get your Intel system ready and deployed were with a nvidia-based system you may still be dinking around with incompatable binary drivers for your stuff.

That sort of thing.

 

[phisrow]

It would be excellent if AMD were to follow Intel's lead on this one. Particularly with how strong ATI is in the "better than integrated but won't set your lap on fire" laptop segment.

 

[timswim78]

Why don't companies release open source drivers? Does doing so release proprietary information about the hardware?

It seems like hardware companies would sell more products if they had drivers for OS X, Linux, BSD, and etc.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: timswim78
Why don't companies release open source drivers? Does doing so release proprietary information about the hardware?

It seems like hardware companies would sell more products if they had drivers for OS X, Linux, BSD, and etc.

One reason I can think of is that any optimizations made could be seen and used by the company's competition. Another is because certain parts could be patented by third parties that contributed certain code.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: timswim78
Why don't companies release open source drivers? Does doing so release proprietary information about the hardware?

It seems like hardware companies would sell more products if they had drivers for OS X, Linux, BSD, and etc.

One reason I can think of is that any optimizations made could be seen and used by the company's competition. Another is because certain parts could be patented by third parties that contributed certain code.

Ya, that's my understanding also.

ATI and Nvidia claim that they have a lot of 3d party IP that they incorporate into their cards. For isntance they both license texture compression technology from S3 graphics. There are numerious other companies that have patents and such on other things.

Also possibly parts of the GPU and definately parts of their video cards are bought from other companies that probably hold ATI and Nvidia under NDA agreements.

It's this situation when you deal with a lot of intellectual property stuff. You just dig yourself a hole were your going to be paying out lots of money to companies. As the years go along and you get more IP this and IP that and you may sell some of that back out you can get all sorts of weird stuff happenning.

It can be quite expensive to untangle yourself from that.

For instance you had a big deal between SCO and Microsoft years ago. You see SCO Unix and Microsoft NT were big competitors in some markets. They (besides novell, which I don't realy think counted in this case) were both the only realy major server operating systems that ran on commodity x86 hardware.

So a long time ago.. before that, before DOS...

Well Microsoft's first operating system was Xenix, which was a AT&T Unix derivative. Also they actually hired SCO to program on it, ironicly.

So Xenix went on for a while. It was popular in the sort of store front business thing. Blockbuster was a big user of it and that sort of thing.

Well AT&T wanted to buy back some of the Xenix stuff and Microsoft was willing as long as the code would provide a certain level of compatability with existing Xenix applications.

So fast forward a few years and...

Through a series of accusions and somewhat related some BSD-killing lawsuites SCO obtained rights to the code from AT&T. They also inherented a lot of the oddball contracts and weird obligations that came along with it from teh years and years of oddball 80's style licensing from code drops and such.

Of the the major restrictions they had to deal with was that clause that said that they had to be compatable with some Microsoft Xenix stuff. This was realy starting to hurt them development-wise because all that crap was so very obsolete that it was completely useless to anybody. It was like a albratross around their neck.

So now it was SCO vs Microsoft operating under the same or similar markets and SCO wanted to get out from underneath this obligation. Obviously Microsoft refused and there was a big deal about it and it was a mess and eventually SCO had to sue them in Europe in order to convince Microsoft to accept payment to lift the restrictions on their own code.

So that's just one thing.

Imagine all the sorts of potentially bizzare relationships ATI and Nvidia have built up over the years. Companies have come and gone. Nvidia bought out a big hunk of SGI. Microsoft bought some SGI IP probably. All sorts of odd cross-licensing this or that has gone on.

I don't know how much of this is true, but I wouldn't be suprised that Nvidia and ATI couldn't release their code even if they wanted to. Wanted very very much to. It may not be up to them.

You may end up seeing both companies go through a complete card redesign before they could realy support Linux properly.

It's stuff like that were I realy hold this guy's 'AMD is thinking very strongly about releasing open source blah-blah-blah' with a big suspicion.

AMD may not be able to even if they wanted to.

Personally I think the best we are likely to see would be whole new drivers made under NDA by some company like Tungsten graphics, like what Intel does.

But everything is changing. OS X is now using Intel + ATI. ATI is now owned by AMD. What is going on with that?

Notebooks outsell Desktops. This means that you buy a video card bundled deeply with your computer for it's lifetime. What sort of effect is this going to have?

PC gaming is moving away. Console gaming machines as capable as any PC are now coming on the market. What is going to happen with this?

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: drag

Personally I think the best we are likely to see would be whole new drivers made under NDA by some company like Tungsten graphics, like what Intel does.

This is a good idea. It shouldn't be too difficult to accomplish with the kind of backing AMD has and support they can give (like information about certain parts of the chipset).

 

[kobymu]

...AMD is strongly considering open-sourcing at least a functional subset of ATI?s graphics drivers. It?s time for X Window System, OpenGL, and client virtualization...

I kind of saw that one coming.

Once every blue moon I write a full blown article, and analyzing AMD and ATI merger seem like an interesting topic to write about. I do it because it makes me look at things and research staff from a different perspective and it?s a good exercise (my English writing skills needs a lot of work). I do it in my spare time so it is coming along at a rate of a few paragraphs a week, but here is a paragraphs I already wrote:

The only department where a merger such as this can have short term technological benefits is in the software area, where thing have a tendency to move fast (with the exception of true software behemoth like vista, which have literally millions lines of code). For example, if AMD can spare some resources, as in some of their software engineer manpower time, which they probably can, can result in an almost immediate better ATI (chipset and graphic) driver, codec, and so forth. (side note: in most hardware oriented companies, the usually small software team that need to write the drivers and any other software that support the product, has most of the time a project schedule which is a bit erratic since that with the exception of final product lunch, their time table is somewhat orthogonal to the hardware design and manufacturing schedule). And how knows, maybe ATI experience in working closely with game developers and Microsoft (in the context of directX, Xbox and MCE) can translate into a better compiler, compiling/software guideline or any other software that AMD need to create to support their existing line of product. However, these benefits, important as they are, are not why this merger is going to happen (if it's going to happen at all).

 

[n0cmonkey]

They shouldn't have to reveal any intellectual property, just the interfaces to the hardware.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
They shouldn't have to reveal any intellectual property, just the interfaces to the hardware.

They shouldn't, which is correct.

but what I am saying is it seems like they all cross-licensed themselves and may have to even do something like redesign their cards to be able to open them. They may have some stuff that is specificly targetting how software is able to interact with the hardware. Gotten them sucked into propriatory hell on both the hardware and software sides of things.

This sort of thing is fixable, but it would cost money. It depends on how much it is worth it to AMD to open up.

Idealy they would release software interface specs. That would be very cool. It would be like having a whole new proccessor in your machine.

Those GPU's are many times faster at doing certain types of calculations... I would expect that people would figure out great things to do with them that go far beyond just OpenGL.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

ATi says they like it closed, but who knows.. Maybe AMD will say otherwise.

 

[drag]

Yep. Apparently ATI is run by dicks.

We already have open source support for 2d and 3d drivers for all generations of ATI video cards up to r480.

ATI 8500, ATI 9200, ATI 9600, ATI X700, ATI X800 etc.

This guy does various tests and tries out games on the drivers currently in X.org/Mesa CVS.
http://megahurts.dk/rune/r300_status.html

The reason they lag behind is probably due mostly to the fact that the driver developers are forced to reverse engineer everything. If ATI helped out with specs and maybe even advice and patches, then they would be faster and would support the newer R500 series cards.

The r500 cards are easy to identify since they are the ones with a X followed by a number larger then a 1000. So like the X1600 is a r500 card. R500 are unsupported by either 2d or 3d rivers in X. Ther are very basic 2d drivers for r500 cards in that exist, but the developer is under NDA restrictions for the work he does for a living and ATI refuses to let him release them.

ATI can keep their crappy drivers to themselves. If somebody wants 'propriatory features' such as Macrovision copyright protection support they can have them. But for everybody else the ATI folks should support the X.org/DRI developers rather then going on about how their proprietory features in their drivers are selling points.

Bah. I hate bad news. Oh well.

 

[kobymu]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
ATi says they like it closed, but who knows.. Maybe AMD will say otherwise.

Proprietary, patented optimizations are part of the value we provide to our customers and we have no plans to release these drivers to open source,

A classical example of "we know what's good for our clients better then the clients themselves"

In addition, multimedia elements such as content protection must not, by their very nature, be allowed to go open source.

Has there been any software level 'content protection' that wasn?t hacked yet?
Is whoever said that is just ignorant or am I missing something?