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ATI Committed To Fixing Its OSS Problems

Posted by kdawson on from the about-time dept.

Sits writes "Chris Blizzard blogged from the Red Hat summit that an ATI marketing spokesman said, from the stage, that ATI knows it has a problem with open source and is committed to fixing it. Does this mean ATI will finally resolve alleged agpgart misappropriation, and fast track the release of open source 2D drivers on its latest cards while releasing specifications for its mid-range cards? Or is ATI only concerned with fixes to its binary driver to maintain feature parity with competitors?"

6 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Likely binary drivers only. by danomac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd wager a guess they're going to fix the binary drivers only.

    Why would they open a spec when they can compete with the binary drivers?

    1. Re:Likely binary drivers only. by Shazow · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, it's more likely that the reason all their software is locked away and kept secret is because it's probably infringing on numerous software patents. When Joe Sixpack can go down to the patent office and register a doubly linked list as his own invention, lots of possibilities for lawsuits open up.

      I did some research into this for a course, but I don't have sources to cite off the top of my head. Definitely something worth looking into.

      - shazow

  2. Does this mean ....... by Timesprout · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why dont you ask ATI what it means. How is Slashdot supposed to be privy to ATI's roadmap?

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  3. People tend to say OSS support ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... when they only mean 'Linux support'. And personally, I don't consider closed source binaries OSS support at all. AMD has been good about making the information available for open-source programmers so their chips can be supported. Perhaps their purchase of ATI will force a shift in the corporate culture there too. Well, we can hope.

  4. Re:Does this mean hardware hacking is dead? by the_humeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Uh, people have been working hard to understand how the hardware works in order to write open source drivers. See here for example. The problem is that ATI doesn't open up the specs for their recent cards so there are very few and tedious avenues to having open source drivers (eg. reverse engineer the binary drivers, probing hardeware settings, etc). As far as I know, there's practically full opne source 3D drivers for R100-R200 based cards, somewhat full 3D drivers for R300 based cards, and no support for later models. So the OSS community is working on the driver issues, it takes time without documentation.

  5. IP by pedestrian+crossing · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They have already sold the card, so it doesn't matter as far as revenue who writes the best driver. Good open drivers might help sell cards. I would sure choose a good card with a good open driver.

    I think it's an IP issue. They've bought into some fundamental patented IP, the license forbids releasing driver source (or it's something they have patented and it is counted as an asset on their Balance Sheet), and the patent covers something so integral to their design that it isn't worth the R&D it would take to get around it.

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