Intel Open Sources Graphics Drivers

PeterBrett writes "Intel's Keith Packard announced earlier today that Intel was open sourcing graphics drivers for their new 965 Express Chipset family graphics controllers. From the announcement: 'Designed to support advanced rendering features in modern graphics APIs, this chipset family includes support for programmable vertex, geometry, and fragment shaders. By open sourcing the drivers for this new technology, Intel enables the open source community to experiment, develop, and contribute to the continuing advancement of open source 3D graphics.' The new drivers, available from the Linux Graphics Drivers from Intel website, are licensed under the GPL for Linux kernel drivers, and MIT license for XOrg 2D & 3D rendering subsystems."

Comments

Competition from AMD/ATI?

[thre5her]

Hopefully AMD/ATI will compete by open-sourcing the drivers for their integrated chipsets. Some healthy competition would definitely help the Linux desktop.

Re:Competition from AMD/ATI?

[Mr. Jaggers]

That's a stupid excuse, though. They could always isolate the SGI-laden parts, LGPL the rest, and let the community at least have a fighting chance at replacing what's behind the proprietary API's. I'm not claiming that our homebrew routines would *ever* be better, but I suppose it is within the realm of possibility. Oh, and when I say "always", I do really mean *always*... at any point, even right this minute, they could do so.

The non-licensed parts of the code don't have to compile to be released. Besides, when bugs are traced back into the dark proprietary code, that would also make ATI the good guys and SGI the bad guys. ATI could claim that the licensed part is really fast and awesome and sweet, but proprietary, and that the community is welcome to try and replace it with something fast and awesome and
sweet, but open. Or even something slow and crappy, but rock-solid stable, that plays nice with Xorg and the kernel.

I suppose they might have licensed other companies code and signed away their right to ever release any code they ever write that uses the licensed bits. That would be a collosal blunder, but would partially account for silence on the subject.

I'm fairly certain that the real reason lies not the code ATI has licensed, but the code/tech they've worked hard on and feel they need to keep secret or else lose their edge against nVidia. Of course, it seems that same statement could be made, swapping the names of the two companies, and still be true. In fact, the "trade secret" and "intellectual property" argument is almost certainly the biggest reason for closed-source driver code. Besides, how can a company who is losing money afford to give anything away for free? At least it always seems like the investors and board of directors of tech companies seem to believe that they are perpetually bleeding cash, even when they file record profits with the SEC.

Anyway, that's quite enough ranting and unsubstantiated libel for one post.

Re:Competition from AMD/ATI?

[Cyno]

I agree, and most people don't need anything faster than an Intel 955, even the 855 is good enough for 90% of desktop use minus modern 3D gaming. They play quake just fine. What more does one NEED, honestly? ATI and nVidia better wake up or they may soon find a new real competitor on the block.

I bought Intel graphics with my laptop. At first I wasn't pleased with the performance, but then I got to testing it directly. I can easily get 30 fps in OpenGL for simple geometries. Its really not that bad. They doubled the performance since, and I'm sure their latest stuff is most useable. Can you imagine what they'll come out with next?

I didn't like Intel, but lately they've been attracting my pocketbook more than any other anti-FOSS businesses. As far as I'm concerned if they aren't pro-FOSS by now, they're anti-FOSS. They know just as well as I do what its all about. Microsoft, no matter how much they say they support it, is obviously fighting it tooth and nail behind closed doors.

first reaction:

[mihalis]

Fantastic. Great work Intel. This puts your products in a different, more positive light for me personally. This could be really good for X11. I worked with it for about 10 years and have been very despondent about its chance in a world of proprietary drivers from ATI and NVIDIA being the only way to use modern graphics hardware. Maybe there's a chance for open source desktop after all.

Linux Laptops!

[db32]

Ok here is the thing...ATI and nvidia can be a bit of a pain...but on a desktop you buy one or the other and you plug it in and go. Laptops on the other hand your selection is FAR more limited and you have to juggle hardware, and more often than not, something just won't work right or well. This makes the Intel integrated laptops even more attractive now instead of the ATI/nvidia ones. I really hope they go backwards with this to and open their recent chipsets up completely as well.

Re:Maybe we'll start seeing Intel graphics clones.

[Tumbleweed]

I'd be willing to bet the REAL reason they don't open their drivers is because they're using stuff they know is the intellectual property of others. Just a guess, though; I have no real information on this, but I'd be very surprised if they can't dig into each other's hardware under a microscope to figure out what the other guy is doing, and reverse engineer each other's drivers. These are some very smart folks we're talking about here.

I think we're missing the point here.

[Ruff_ilb]

Many, MANY home users out in the field use on-board video for everything. Now, I'm not saying this'll have them all converting to an Open Source OS, but this is yet another advance that would make sending the average noob user over to Linux without any sort of performance hit.

Taking a 180 degree turn and looking right back at your interpretation of the story, I find it very likely that Intel will be teaming up with nVidia sometime soon. Now that AMD owns ATI, Intel should be wide open to purchase nVidia if they want, and (although I'm not saying they'll need it), pairing Intel's massive resources with nVidia's enthusiast motherboard chipsets and universal video options, things could improve rapidly for the both of them. However, if Intel is going to enter the market as a third video force, that seems unlikely, although we could see Intel graphics cards interfacing well only with intel boards and intel CPUS, and the customer could likely lose if such a situation becomes possible.

Anyway, I think I've speculated enough. The bottom line is that open-sourcing these drivers is a very interesting and likely harmless move for intel to make, and it should make the jobs of many OS coders easier in the open source OS circles.