Future AMD GPUs To Be More 'Open-Source Friendly'

skaroo writes "Phoronix is reporting that future AMD GPUs will be more open-source friendly. After AMD started releasing their GPG specifications to the open-source community, questions arose whether there would be information covering the Unified Video Decoder (UVD) found on the Radeon HD 2000 graphics cards. The UVD information is needed in order for hardware-accelerated video playback, but it likely cannot be opened due to DRM. However, an AMD representative said that moving to a modular UVD design is a requirement for future GPUs and that they will be more open-source friendly. They will also be opening the video acceleration information for their earlier graphics cards."

Comments

I remember a time...

[mangu]

...when chip manufacturers gave away the full specifications. I even received by snail-mail thick books, 500 pages or so, with the specs from companies like Texas instruments and Motorola. Some manufacturers even sent free samples of the chips themselves.

Where have they gone wrong?

Re:I remember a time...

[Travoltus]

The big picture is that runaway Capitalism is where they have gone wrong.

Consumer freedom is now irrelevant. What good is the free market when you can't buy what you want - namely, to keep this on topic, where can we get a powerful video card with the full specs for making open source drivers? Good luck building your own fab. Apparently only a trillionaire can afford such simple freedoms.

This is clearly an example where capitalism fails miserably.

(Uh oh, here come the angry "Capitalism is God, how dare you infidels question the market!" right wing Republo-jihadists with mod points...)

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

(Uh oh, here come the angry "Capitalism is God, how dare you infidels question the market!" right wing Republo-jihadists with mod points...)

Ah, how typical. The preemptive ad hominem attack in an attempt to discredit anyone who disagrees with you.

You do realise that the market for OSS friendly GPU's is...vanishingly small, right? This isn't Capitalism run amok; this is Capitalism working. As demand grows, you'll see more vendors opening up specs. It's their right to do so or not, and your right to vote with your wallet.

The only place OSS is making a dent is server space. Why do you need an advanced GPU on your server?

Re:I remember a time...

[SargentDU]

Not an angry reply at all, but just the question, how could a socialist system give incentive for anyone to do much of anything, if you are paid your allowance regardless of performance? Won't you instead look to recreation somewhere else, or perhaps you would not have enough income and so would have to work in the black market to have enough to live on...

Re:I remember a time...

[sqrt(2)]

I don't have mod points but I'll agree with you here. With one caveat. The "free market" (can't exist btw, it's just a idealized concept) IS working how it's supposed to. There isn't really a demand for an open platform GPU and thus the market doesn't provide one. If there were enough people wanting one that a company could make money selling them then you could buy it. Capitalism does tend to screw the little guys who have niche or obscure needs, unless you can pay to get things custom designed and produced.

But it looks like AMD is finally going to start servicing that section of the market, I'm still skeptical but we'll see how things turn out.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

I think the problem is not too much capitalism, it is too little. Adam Smith's free markets have been replaced by an international neo-conservative monarchy and nobility.

Among certain industries, free markets have been replaced by cartels. These cartels then send out waves of lobbyists and campaign contributions to get governments to further weight the system against the consumer.

If you look at how the airplane developed, the market was hampered by cartels, patents and so on. However, in the two world wars, the war effort was considered more important than entrenched interests within the early aviation industry. All these cartels and patents were swept aside in favour of truly free markers, and they could finally build decent planes, and build them in quantity.

Society is slowly but surely going to realise that computers are more important for the development of the economy and society as a whole than for the narrow interests of the technology industry, and then radically free markets will be introduced once again.

Look at the Microsoft vs EU decision and the OLPC project, both of these in their different ways are interesting early signs.

Re:I remember a time...

[ZeroData00]

I think they don't give stuff away because of too many fskin' hobests and college students ordering "Free Samples." When they had no need for more then one or two chips. Also the price war on I/Cs is insane, so it makes sense to save money on not giving away free stuff to people who will never even order 100 chips at a time. I'm sure if you worked at an electronics company that was known for making orders in the thousands. You could call up a sales rep and get a $150 dollar Dev kit for free; just say that your using it for the company's next project. If they play hard ball give'em some story about how hard it is to get a P/O filled at your company ;)

Electronics Digi key, Mouser, etc are the only real answer for low production electronics. What sucks though is when you release the magic smoke from a chip and realize that you forgot to order a few spare parts, and the S&H is going to cost you $15 dollars on a $2.25 part. I now always buy spares which has the added benefit of having extra parts availably for quick projects. Well, if you can find them after a few months.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

BTW, the last post is a reply to the post above it, I have no idea how it relates to graphics cards.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

The driver developers are the gatekeepers to the users of an entire OS and even they can't get the specs. Regarding samples, I think it's not good business sense to cut off the "cheap" hobbyists and students who order samples instead of buying quantities-of-1 at outrageous prices. Some of those will get jobs developing hardware and will remember the companies which treated them well, and be familiar with their design philosophy. They may not follow up with a big order now, but good will lasts and you're throwing a potential future business relationship away to save on shipping something which has a marginal cost of a few cents to you.

Re:I remember a time...

[Bloater]

We don't have free market capitalism in the western world. Most markets are tightly controlled and made mostly worthless - hence all our technological development hasn't made most of us rich. What happens to us these days doesn't happen in free markets thus the markets are not free.

Re:I remember a time...

[rdoger6424]

because free markets can't exist in real life.

Re:I remember a time...

[h4rm0ny]

Why not?

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

Markets start free, they just become non-free through layers of government intervention and large firms colluding. Certain agricultural products are more or less free markets, as well as light bulbs, screws, etc.

The resistances in the system are not physical properties of nature but man made structures. The problems are never that the speed of light is too slow or gravity is too strong. The problem is that those who think they are against government intervention, often are the first to argue for patents, trademarks, trade barriers, special protections, and so on.

Free markets are the optimal solution for the majority of the population, both as consumers and employees. Cartels only benefit the minority.

If governments became truly accountable to voters, such that the voters could clearly get actual representatives, rather than a choice of two identical people who will ignore the voters for the next four-five years, then I don't see why the interference cannot be removed in most industries if the will was there.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Socialism (communism, really) is based on the idea that people are not content with leisure but instead a) have an inner drive to create and b) understand that doing chores because they have to be done is better than doing chores because your boss tells you to. It's naive, but if you look at certain segments of the population, it is understandable how one could get that idea, particularly because in capitalism the people who exhibit these traits tend to miss out on the rewards compared to people who are in it for the personal gain.

Re:I remember a time...

[RAMMS EIN]

``If governments became truly accountable to voters, ...'' ...and voters actually had a clue, ...

I mean, seriously. You can't know everything about everything. And when it comes to economics, I'm willing to bet most voters believe things that are the absolute opposite of what experts believe. I think many of the barriers we have in our markets are there exactly because voters want them to be.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. There is more then enough demand. The problem is that those big companies don't care. The free market idea assumes that if there is enough need, someone will supply something to fill it. However, look what happens when there is a need for a alternative, no big companies like to supply alternatives. What people want are open access hardware, but because every hardware maker prefers closed access hardware, and the people still need hardware, they have no choice but to use closed hardware. Much like food, sure, people want good food, but if in the end, they have no choice but to settle for dog shit, or die, they will eat the dog shit.

Re:I remember a time...

[MMC Monster]

Capitalism is working, only slowly. Open APIs and open source drivers weren't a selling point, so they weren't available. Now with the slowly rising popularity of Linux, and the realization that Linux users are generally more influential in the purchase of hardware than the average buyer, the APIs and drivers will open up.

It's important that we, as a community, reward the good guys (with more purchases) and to let the sales people know why we choose them over their competitors.

That being said, I'm a little ambivalent about the whole AMD/ATI video mess. They've been talking this up for the last year, but have the 3d specs for the hardware been released? Is there a stable opensource driver for Linux even close to the performance of the WinXP/Vista drivers (I don't know).

Re:I remember a time...

[marcansoft]

You still get full specs from many companies. Free samples are still around. Though it sadly doesn't seem to be popular with PC components.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Youngster. The original IBM XT had a technical reference which had an entire disassembly of the BIOS ROM (excluding BasicA which was owned by Microsoft)

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

> where can we get a powerful video card with the full specs for making open source drivers?

Buy an Intel chipset with builtin graphics and you get one with Free Software drivers provided by Intel themselves.
http://www.intellinuxgraphics.com/license.html

Re:I remember a time...

[RAMMS EIN]

I agree with the general message of your post, but I have to nitpick.

``As demand grows, you'll see more vendors opening up specs. It's their right to do so or not, and your right to vote with your wallet.''

Your right to vote with your wallet is only useful if you _can_ vote with your wallet. If nobody will sell you hardware with available specs for a price that you can afford, what will you do?

``The only place OSS is making a dent is server space. Why do you need an advanced GPU on your server?''

A number of points can be made here. First of all, open source is making inroads in other places than server space, too. I don't have exact figures (nobody does), but I see KDE, GNOME, and fvwm desktops often enough. Wal-Mart and Dell are selling PCs with Linux pre-installed. Many routers and like devices use Linux and Busybox. All development work I've been involved in used open source, usually exclusively or almost exclusively. Open source web browsers hold a sizable chunk of the market.

Another point is that there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. It doesn't make a lot of sense to open specs for the hardware if this will only benefit you a little. So you don't do that if only few people are asking. It doesn't help a lot to ask for specs if you aren't going to get them anyway. So few people ask. There also isn't a lot of software in th open source world that would see a great benefit from working 3D. And it doesn't make a lot of sense to start developing that software if 3D doesn't work anyway.

This is the pit the world's been in, but it's slowly changing. Nvidia has made available good 3D drivers, allowing 3D software to be developed. Now there are Neverwinter Nights, Compiz, Blender, etc. Apparently, Intel has seen value in supporting open source, and there are good open source drivers for Intel graphics cards. And the number of people using open source software appears to be growing. Certainly, awareness of open source is greater than it was, say, 10 years ago. Day by day, the landscape is changing.

Re:I remember a time...

[KDR_11k]

How do large firms colluding make a market less free? Isn't the point of a free market that they are free to do anything they want? Or are you in favour of antitrust legislation?

Re:I remember a time...

[gregorio]

...when chip manufacturers gave away the full specifications. I even received by snail-mail thick books, 500 pages or so, with the specs from companies like Texas instruments and Motorola. Some manufacturers even sent free samples of the chips themselves.

That still happens. All chip manufacturers still give away full specs for chips that are traded at the open market.

The thing is: your mind is also fooling you. While simple stuff like small CPUs and other cheap integrated circuits always had documentation, bigass OEM-exclusive stuff NEVER had public documentation. Not even years ago.

A GPU is not the kind of chip that you can find at Radio Shack. And that kind of bigass integrator-only stuff ALWAYS worked like that.

Re:I remember a time...

[X0563511]

Some people will just do it. I can't stand being idle, myself, and most of what I do I go unrewarded for. The only thing that rewards me is work, and incidentally, I hate it.

Re:I remember a time...

[Bloater]

If large firms colluding means I can do less than them except as provided by real economies of scale then it is not free because I am not equally free.

You can't have one person ruling the roost and everybody else subservient and then think they have freedom. Crikey, you must be pro slavery - a free country is one in which people are free to wholly own other people?

Re:I remember a time...

[eggnoglatte]

Ah, but in the world wars, the bill was footed by the taxpayers. Only the influx from government money was able to push forward the necessary research under these conditions.

If you change the rules to treat all products as commodities, then only commodities will get built. If you abandon patents, companies will try to protect their knowledge keeping more trade secrets. Products will become less open. If you legislate that possiblity away(*), then research and advanced development will simply stall, because there would be no way to exctract a decent return on investment from such activities (**). As I said above, companies will start to focus on commodization (i.e. building the same stuff cheaper).

(*) As an aside, it is beyond me how some (note I say some) supposed libertarians can advocate mandatory opening of product specs. Apart from the irony of a "libertarian" requesting more regulation, this would reduce freedom, not improve it. One of the key aspects of freedom of speach is the freedom to shut the fuck up and not tell you what I don't want to.

(**) Note how already today the companies that are the real innovators are often not the ones who are commercially most successful and leading their market. Abandoning patents and similar measures would just bias the system more thoroughly towards replication rather than innovation.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

> Isn't the point of a free market that they are free to do anything they want?

No it is not. Being free does not mean you can remove the freedoms of others. Having free speech does not mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre if there is no fire. Freedom of speech also requires some enforcement to keep it free, speech is not free if you get sacked or killed for speaking,

So what do we mean by 'free'? Well markets are free when the prices, quantity and quality (i.e. features) of products are determined by customer demand alone. This means that anyone must be able to set up and compete in the market, without barriers to entry or unequal access to suppliers, property, capital or labour.

If one company can coerce competitors, suppliers or consumers then it is not a free market. Therefore some anti-trust regulation is required to keep markets free. Also government purchasing needs to reflect competition. So for example, if the government buys only Microsoft software then that creates a network effect leading to a non-free market.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

And when it comes to economics, I'm willing to bet most voters believe things that are the absolute opposite of what experts believe. I think many of the barriers we have in our markets are there exactly because voters want them to be.

I agree. But what are these symptoms of? They are symptoms of people believing what the advertising, the lobbyists, and the spin-doctors want them to believe. Yes the majority of people are programmable by the elite.

If power is unequally distributed, then the minority can make the majority believe that honey is manure and manure is honey. People can be made to believe what is best for others and worse for them, is what is right and best.

However, this programming does require a lot of control. It also requires the majority to not understand about how the control works. One of my favourite parts of the film Gandhi is the following:

Brigadier: You don't think we're just going to walk out of India!
Gandhi: Yes. In the end, you will walk out. Because 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate.

Re:I remember a time...

[AncientPC]

From the Read More section: AMD Release 900+ pages of GPU Specs.

There is a fairly stable closed source ATI driver from the AMD website that supports AIGLX (required for Compiz).

As for ATI open source drivers refer to this list. Copy and pasted for convenience:

Unsupported
X1300 / R515 based cards.
X1600 / R530 based cards.
X1800 / R520 based cards.
X1900 / R580 based cards.

2D acceleration only
Xpress 200M Northbridge integrated GPUs

Good 3D acceleration support
9500 / R300 based cards.
9600 / rv350 or rv360 based cards.
9700 / R300 based cards.
9800 / R350 or R360 based cards.
X300 / rv370 based cards.
X600 / rv380 based cards.
X700 / rv410 based cards.
X800 / R420 or R423 or R430 or R480 based cards.
X850 / R480 or R481 based cards.
X1050 / rv370 based cards.

Full 3D acceleration support
7000 / rv100 based cards.
7200 / R100 based cards.
7500 / rv200 based cards.
8X00 / R200 based cards.
9000 / rv250 based cards.
9100 / R200 based cards.
9200 / rv280 based cards.

Re:I remember a time...

[easyTree]

It's important that we, as a community, reward the good guys (with more purchases) and to let the sales people know why we choose them over their competitors.

What would better would be to let all sales people, via some centralised system, know why we chose a particular product. That way the market would be more responsive to our needs or at least there'd be the opportunity for such responsiveness.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

Ah, but in the world wars, the bill was footed by the taxpayers. Only the influx from government money was able to push forward the necessary research under these conditions.

I think it is important to separate the supply side from the demand side. Ditching all the patents and agreements and so on was a supply-side change. The government needing lots of planes for the war is on the demand side.

So yes the money is part of it, but I think the longer lasting effect was on liberating the supply, it did need the war to really start plane production, but when the wars finished, they carried on building the planes and the commercial air industry was born.

Far more people are employed by the airlines, airports and so on, than the plane manufacturers; then you have to mention all the jobs created through international trade that results from the ability to jump on a plane in London and arrive in wherever-the-hell you want.

So the net-benefit to society in having a thriving airline industry, is far more than the net-loss faced by the people who owned the invalidated patents to the airline technology. While airplanes only got more advanced, not less advanced.

This external net-benefit also, I would argue, now applies to computing technology. The potential net benefits of computing technology to wider society and the wider economy, out weigh any loss faced by certain technology companies if we liberate the supply.

If you change the rules to treat all products as commodities, then only commodities will get built.

Is that true? Airplanes are a lot more advanced now than before the second world war, so the situation is a lot more complicated than the "patents-foster-innovation" doctrine would suggest.

If you abandon patents, companies will try to protect their knowledge keeping more trade secrets.

I don't think that is necessarily true for a lot of modern technology, it hasn't been true for a long time. How many computer technologies can you replicate from the patents? Patents are increasingly obfuscated legal boilderplate that do not really help you in engineering. Even if they could, by the time the patent expires the knowledge you gain is obsolete anyhow.

Microsoft has many many patents, but the patents did not help Samba replicate CIFS and so on. Samba had to go to the EU to force Microsoft to produce protocol documentation.

So patents don't help when they are secrets. However, for many computer technologies, there are no secrets. When you have the thing you know how it works.

research and advanced development will simply stall, because there would be no way to extract a decent return on investment from such activities

That is the rhetoric, but again on a practical level, that is not really how R&D works in the 2007 technology industries. In countries or industries where there are no patents, people still innovate.

One of the key aspects of freedom of speech is the freedom to shut the fuck up and not tell you what I don't want to.

Well in America you have the right to remain silent. In Britain you don't:

You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

Microsoft did not have the right to keep it's networking protocols secret.

Note how already today the companies that are the real innovators are often not the ones who are commercially most successful and leading their market.

I agree 100%. However, I would say that in some high-technology area, patents and so on are not really helping but making things worse.

The problem in technology is that you hundreds of ideas to make a high-tech product, and so large companies like Microsoft or IBM cross-licence, canceling each other's patents out. So they can replicate all they want. Microsoft or IBM have huge piles of patent lawyers, so every that moves is pat

Re:I remember a time...

[canuck57]

But it looks like AMD is finally going to start servicing that section of the market, I'm still skeptical but we'll see how things turn out.

I too will join your skepticism and it was the very reason I stopped buying ATI some years ago. At first, ATI support seemed good, then it faltered miserably. Myself and others asked ATI for some information to fix this and didn't even get the time of day. Now that their is talk of coming around I will sit back and wait to see if AMD/ATI can walk the talk. But forgive me for not running out and buying ATI until it happens.

-----------
Linux is cute.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you change the rules to treat all products as commodities, then only commodities will get built. If you abandon patents, companies will try to protect their knowledge keeping more trade secrets. Products will become less open. ...
(**) Note how already today the companies that are the real innovators are often not the ones who are commercially most successful and leading their market. Abandoning patents and similar measures would just bias the system more thoroughly towards replication rather than innovation. No way. Patents nowadays are useless to the general public.
The idea of patents is that "inventors" share their knowledge in exchange for a temporary monopoly on the product. Nowadays, the full lifecycle of a product (for example hardware) can last a little as five or ten years, so there is no use for that knowledge for the general public.
Companies need to sell products, so they need to innovate in order to keep up with their customers. They don't even have a use for patents to protect their investment, because

1 - they don't work that well for people who actually build the products they design. and
2 - just hitting the market first is much more important than anything else.

Patents are a thing for the 19th century, and they didn't even work _that_ well in that time. Right now, they only work at hampering progress, allowing some company to monopolize whole areas of technology development in exchange for nothing.

Re:I remember a time...

[TheRaven64]

Democracy and free-market capitalism have exactly the same flaw. Free-market capitalism relies on informed customers, democracy relies on informed voters. Since neither of these prerequisites are ever found in the real world, we typically create compromises, which have some aspects of these `ideal' systems and some of others to make up for the weaknesses in them.

Re:I remember a time...

[eggnoglatte]

Well, I am at a university, and I have been through the whole startup thing (we sold out earlier this year). Let me assure you that of course you patent when you do commercially relevant research at a university. It is a bare necessity for raising investment capital. And you do need capital to take university research and turn it into a product. That process takes years and is not cheap.

Patents and trade secrets are key pillars of any technology startup. Take those away and there is NOTHING that prevents the big fish from ripping off your work.

Re:I remember a time...

[A nonymous Coward]

Socialism (communism, really) is based on the idea that people are not content with leisure but instead a) have an inner drive to create and b) understand that doing chores because they have to be done is better than doing chores because your boss tells you to.

More to the point, socialism, fascism, and communism are based on the idea that central planning works. I am sure there are many more -isms which fit this bill.

It is easy to extend this to politics in general. People who want to be politicians think they are more moral and smarter than everybody else and deserve to run things since everyone else is an ignorant amoral schmuck.

Re:I remember a time...

[The-Ixian]

oh, you mean like the survey you get when you register a product that you bought?

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Communism is not contingent on and actually does not allow central planning. The absence of central authority is what differentiates communism from socialism.

Re:I remember a time...

[sarixe]

Er... Nvidia has pretty awesome 3D support, at least on ubuntu where I run it. It may not be open, but heck, it's pretty darn good. After all, you don't see open video drivers for Windows (at least I don't..).

Re:I remember a time...

[easyTree]

Bullshit. There is more then enough demand. The problem is that those big companies don't care. The free market idea assumes that if there is enough need, someone will supply something to fill it. However, look what happens when there is a need for a alternative, no big companies like to supply alternatives. What people want are open access hardware, but because every hardware maker prefers closed access hardware, and the people still need hardware, they have no choice but to use closed hardware. Much like food, sure, people want good food, but if in the end, they have no choice but to settle for dog shit, or die, they will eat the dog shit.

"+1 I agree"

Re:I remember a time...

[easyTree]

Nope, that only goes to the company from which you bought the product. I'm saying that even companies from which you don't buy a, for example toaster, should have the opportunity to learn why you didn't choose their toaster. That way they will know what they're doing wrong and have the opportunity to fix it. With the survey approach, they only know what they're doing right.

Re:I remember a time...

[Repossessed]

So... of those cards with full 3D support, will *any* of them fit in an x16 slot? The only one I can find is the 7000, and using it for anything practical seems futile, even if they made it to fit my system board.

What about support for onboard ATI graphics as well?

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we go again. I'm really getting tired of this...

What we have in the US is NOT capitalism, not even close. True capitalism requires that each individual participant in the market retains 100% of the right to spend their earnings where, when, and how they see fit. That is the "invisible hand" you hear about: the sum total of individuals choosing voluntarily how to invest their wealth. THAT is the fundamental prerequisite of capitalism, and it follows that capitalism is directly at odds with government, which by definition employs not voluntary association but coercion as its means.

The US government is now the most expensive, most powerful government in world history. That should be enough to make the lightbulb go off in your head: how can a true free market economy exist in such an environment? It can't possibly exist, because the fundamental prerequisite of free choice is compromised.

I'll make this easy for you: the more government, the less capitalism. The less government, the more capitalism. In the US, we have BIG government. HUGE.

When all is said and done, the average US citizen pays upwards of 40-50% of their yearly earnings to government through federal, state, and local taxes combined. Throw in the effects of central planning and regulation, forced support of certain NON-FREE markets (e.g. home insurance) and the claim that our economy is an example of capitalism is beyond absurd -- it's downright laughable.

Say it with me: Capitalism is defined by the lack of government interference in the market, not the presence of it. You're just going to have to find another boogyman to jerk that knee at, aren't you?

Re:I remember a time...

[jmcnaught]

Maybe people will (continue to) do things for incentives other than wealth? I like to think that when we finally get rid of capitalism, people will be more likely to pursue their actual interests and talents and not just what can get them the most cash.

But if more cash is really your thing, there's a system called Participatory Economics (Parecon) that gives more to those who contribute more.

Re:I remember a time...

[A nonymous Coward]

I suppose you mean in theory as opposed to practice, just as many remarks on capitalism are confused between theory and practice. However, since all modern and historical governments which have called themselves communists did have central planning, I stand by my definition.

Reminds me of friends who brag about being communists, "but not Stalinists".

Re:I remember a time...

[ajs318]

Well, I didn't buy a toaster because I can't stand the taste of electric toast. Gas toast just tastes nicer. And methane toast tastes better than butane toast.

Re:I remember a time...

[killmofasta]

Vanishingly Small? Ultra-microscopic is more like it.

I told ATI/AMD, when I bought my video card, that I requested open source
drivers for Gentoo Linux. Their 'motions' in this direction are to be commended.
BUT, the whole codec thing. Unisys started it all with trying to enforce the 'intellectual property' of
gif files. JMPEG followed that lead, and now codecs come and go from WMP/Quicktime, faster than
blondes through Jim Bakers cell door.

What is really needed is a video driver, with an OPEN plug-in codec architecture,
that you can pick and choose weather you are going to use proprietry codecs.
Problem is that its going to be rough going for a few iteresations, and we may need to do some reverse engineering like DeCSS. Open source codecs on tee-shirts! Im buying! I need something to hang beside my DeCSS tee...

But really the key is, is this going to p*ss off a video driver god? Nothing you can do p*sses off the linux network driver god, Walter somethingorother...

If you get them by the g*n*ds, their hearts and minds will follow.

Re:I remember a time...

[ajs318]

(*) As an aside, it is beyond me how some (note I say some) supposed libertarians can advocate mandatory opening of product specs. Apart from the irony of a "libertarian" requesting more regulation, this would reduce freedom, not improve it. One of the key aspects of freedom of speach is the freedom to shut the fuck up and not tell you what I don't want to.

I think you are confusing freedom with power. The freedom to make use of your own hardware is more important than the power to withhold information from the people who paid your wages, and that freedom is what government should be protecting. It's unfortunate, but as long as there are arseholes motivated by pure power lust and with no respect for anyone else's freedom, there will be a need for governments to keep them in check.

Remember: In a society where the keeping of slaves is permitted, the freest citizen is more free than in a society where the keeping of slaves is forbidden. However, in the former society, the average citizen is almost certainly less free than in the latter. If you could choose to be allocated a position at random in one of these societies, which one would you pick to maximise your freedom?

Re:I remember a time...

[ajs318]

Would you play poker at a table where all your opponents shew each other their hole cards before they bet?

If not, why not?

That's how collusion makes a market less free.

Re:I remember a time...

[dh003i]

Libertarianism: the opposition to any initiation of aggression; e.g., opposition to robbery, theft, murder, rape under any and all conditions. But apparently, you don't believe in silly things like that, and think it's fine to use the threat of violence to steal from people for things that you think are important.

Re:I remember a time...

[Curtman]

It's important that we, as a community, reward the good guys (with more purchases) and to let the sales people know why we choose them over their competitors.

That's very hard to do when who the good guy is keeps changing every week. Sometimes it's Via, sometimes it's Intel, sometimes it's AMD. All of them making an effort to move in the open direction, but none of them with a truly spectacular offering.

ATI was once the darling of the open source community, then fell out of favour, and seems to be coming back again since the AMD ownership.

I don't replace my hardware as often as this stuff changes.

Re:I remember a time...

[SanityInAnarchy]

Well, recently, it seemed pretty obvious to me -- Intel always has good, open video drivers. But, the performance on Intel video cards sucks compared to nVidia or ATI.

ATI is more open, but their Linux drivers suck, and have pretty much always sucked, for new hardware. You could get a free driver for old hardware, but not everything would be supported.

nVidia is completely closed, but their Linux drivers generally work. You pretty much never have to worry, when upgrading your kernel, whether you're going to break your video drivers -- nor do you have to worry about a particular feature (other than HDCP) being unsupported on Linux.

So, it may become difficult if ATI is suddenly completely open at some point in the near future. But right now, it seems pretty obvious -- for video, buy Intel if you don't need performance, and nVidia if you do.

I could do a similar analysis of various other pieces of hardware. It's been hard to choose a hard drive recently, but at least there's no compatibility issue there. But you can usually find out pretty easily what's supported by Linux, and what isn't.

Re:I remember a time...

[jbengt]

The "free market" (can't exist btw, it's just a idealized concept) IS working how it's supposed to.

Actually, the classic "free market", as an idealized concept, requires commodities that can be produced by multiple people/companies, with little or no barrier to entry, knowledgeable buyers, and the flexibility to switch products at will as supply, demand, and prices dictate.

The current situation with graphics cards fails those prerequisites on all counts.

Re:I remember a time...

[FLEB]

How does that account, though, for things that aren't interesting or "fun" enough to attract sufficient desire? Many jobs that suck (and are driven primarily by promise of pay) are nonetheless important to the current and future standard of living, and allow people to pursue their hobbies on their own time in far greater comfort and accommodation.

Re:I remember a time...

[daem0n1x]

Kudos for you.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

When you specifically list communism and socialism, you shouldn't ignore the key difference, which is the absence of central leadership in communism. It is a common mistake to call socialism communism, because socialist leaders like to misappropriate the power-to-the-people charisma of communism and because capitalists like to scare people away from communism by showing them examples of failing socialism. The real problem with communism is much more subtle than the oppression by the regimes that it is usually misassociated with. That's the reason for both its continuing attraction and its absence from the real world.

Re:I remember a time...

[mdwh2]

Good luck building your own fab. Apparently only a trillionaire can afford such simple freedoms.

This is clearly an example where capitalism fails miserably.

What - it's capitalism's fault that building advanced processors requires vast amounts of resources? Feel free to propose your own alternative system where money and fabs grow on trees.

(Uh oh, here come the angry "Capitalism is God, how dare you infidels question the market!" right wing Republo-jihadists with mod points...)

(Well I'll wait for the the angry "Capitalism is the root of all our problems, how dare you infidels defend it!" left wing Communist-jihadists with mod points.)

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Is there a stable opensource driver for Linux even close to the performance of the WinXP/Vista drivers...

Heck, with ATI there isn't even a stable closed-source driver from the vendor for Linux. Their last "binary-blob of instability" won't work at resolutions greater than 1280x1024 and the release notes warns of screen corruption "after a period of use".

ATI is really losing its way.

Re:I remember a time...

[Travoltus]

Yup, just as I predicted. I said runaway capitalism is the problem, and you knee jerked right into "he is saying capitalism is the problem."

Yes, I know you probably were home schooled, but your parents should have told you the difference between "x" and "runaway x". A car is good and it gets you places. A runaway car is a deadly hazard to everyone in its path. Likewise, capitalism is good, but runaway capitalism consumes a nation with utter greed. Now I don't know about you but where I come from, greed is not good. This might have changed, though, in this age of total Godlessness - er, no wait, money is God now. Sillyme.

As for the dorks talking about the evils of Government, what difference does it make? If you get rid of the Government you will inevitably wind up with warlords where he with the biggest and mostest guns, makes all the rules - and guess what? The rich people will influence him to make the rules. Government embodies the will of the people, in a democratic society. Try and live in a country without Government and see how long you last. You may kill the FIRST bandit coming to your door, but not the one a mile away aiming that rocket launcher at you. Think: Ruby Ridge - on a daily basis.

Re:I remember a time...

[KDR_11k]

This means that anyone must be able to set up and compete in the market, without barriers to entry or unequal access to suppliers, property, capital or labour.

Sounds like communism except the entities being equalized are companies instead of people. I don't see a real way anyone could equalize access to property, capital or labour.

Re:I remember a time...

[dh003i]

Wrong. All that the free market requires to work is that the State not create artificial barriers to entry, or prevent competition in various ways (e.g., mandate cartelization, regulate, allow patents, etc). All that the free market requires is the lack of initiation of aggression. To the extent that there is aggression, the free market is hindered. This is the correct concept of the free market, as elaborated by the Austrian school of economics.

What you refer to is not the classical concept of the free market at all, but the modern unrealistic neoclassical conception, which is a nirvana fallacy.

Re:I remember a time...

[symbolic]

I think the problem is not too much capitalism, it is too little. Adam Smith's free markets have been replaced by an international neo-conservative monarchy and nobility.

I'm not sure I agree. I think there's plenty of capitalism, but I also think that capitalism is a lot like freedom - if you take it forgranted, you'll eventually get screwed. Participation in an capitalistic society is an active process, not a passive one. The passivity is born from laziness. Change only really seems to happen when something reaches the tipping point and enough people are being affected by a specific capitalistic influence. As an example, it is conceivable that the citizens of the US could have put the RIAA out of business a long time ago. But people still insist on giving them money (for the mediocre crap they produce, no less), which the RIAA then uses to continue to tightening the noose around copyright law and fair use.

Re:I remember a time...

[CTachyon]

Wrong. All that the free market requires to work is that the State not create artificial barriers to entry, or prevent competition in various ways (e.g., mandate cartelization, regulate, allow patents, etc). All that the free market requires is the lack of initiation of aggression. To the extent that there is aggression, the free market is hindered. This is the correct concept of the free market, as elaborated by the Austrian school of economics.

How convenient that lying is not a form of aggression. I suppose, then, the market will just run itself perfectly smoothly if we just roll back 100 years of consumer protection laws and let companies make whatever baseless claims will sell their products? That the government is harming the free market by restricting the free speech of corporations by initiating force against them if they make fraudulent claims?

There's a reason for the modern conception of a "free market" — a simple-minded adherence to "no initiation of force" doesn't magically result in a Smithian "invisible hand" when information is asymmetric, or the barrier to entry is high, or when a natural monopoly is the default, unregulated state of an industry.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's certainly a trade off. Without patents you have the option of keeping quiet while developing your product and then having the first to market advantage, which in many cases will cause you to become a big player before the existing dinosaurs have enough time to replicate what you've done. Just look at Google: A decade ago no one had even heard of them, but they were first with a killer app and now they own the search market. The downside is that there is more risk: You have as long as it takes for Microsoft to clone your work to make it big, and if you don't your sunk. However, with patents it seems you don't end up much better: Instead of having a chance to become a big player, you try to license your patent to a big player, end up with a fraction of the profits they derive from your idea and you still have to hope that when you disclose your idea they can't find a way to implement it without infringing the patent or otherwise lawyer you out of your expected revenue.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

My X850XT is an x16 card. I'm reasonably happy with the open source "radeon" driver.

Wikipedia has a nice table that can be used to compare the various Radeon models. It looks as though all R300 and R400 based Radeons have an x16 version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ATI_Graphics_Processing_Units

Re:I remember a time...

[pushing-robot]

...when chip manufacturers gave away the full specifications. I even received by snail-mail thick books, 500 pages or so, with the specs from companies like Texas instruments and Motorola. Some manufacturers even sent free samples of the chips themselves.

Where have they gone wrong?

Monoculture, and convenient drivers.

Back in the day, most anyone who developed a software program that used a given hardware device had to create their own driver for that device, and needed the hardware specifications to do it. Hardware makers had no choice but to make the details of their hardware more or less public.

Nowadays, with the rise of the MS monoculture and modular driver architectures, hardware makers can just provide drivers instead of the complete hardware specifications, and any program that does things the Windows way can talk to the driver instead of the device. Hardware vendors don't mind this situation, as it gives them an excuse to keep the details of their hardware as secret as possible.

But, naturally, those of us outside the monoculture are screwed.

Re:I remember a time...

[WNight]

It's not a government cracking down on a monopoly, it's another monopoly, of road and bridge owners called the public. They're making a strategic decision to not allow you to use their resources and legal benefits (incorporation, etc) if you're pursuing a business course hostile to theirs.

In other words, we own the other 99.9999% of the world that your monopoly (in area X) does not. We act vindictively to those who bite our hands by trying to single-source important parts and screw with price.

Doesn't seem like something a free market monopolist should have a problem with. It's nowhere near as bad as how Walmart treats its suppliers...

Re:I remember a time...

[dh003i]

If the lying constitutes fraud, then it's a tort. If I say I'll give you a box of apples for $10, you give me $10, and then I give you a box of sand, I've defrauded you, and you're entitled to your $10 back (or a box of apples from me). Of course, local expectations and reason dictate what "a box of apples" is (e.g., what condition do they have to be in, how big, etc). That's something for courts to figure out. Buyer and seller beware.

Furthermore, regarding asymmetric information problems, consumers have an obligation to do their research. Asymmetric information is a problem that the market can deal with, absent government interference. There are consumer advocate groups, and review organizations, etc. Regarding barriers to entry, the most significant barriers to entry in any field are created by the State. And there is nothing wrong with natural capital barriers to entry in particular areas; that's just the nature of things. Individuals may need to leverage existing wealth into those areas. Regarding natural monopoly, that entire theory is a fraud; all historical real monopolies -- where competition is prevented -- occur because of the government. DiLorenzo and Armentano have done a lot of research on this, and shown that (for example), there were private roads, there were competing utility companies before state takeover. As for other "textbook cases" of monopoly -- meaning that the company has earned a large share of the market by excellence -- there is Standard Oil, which was increasing production and lowering prices; hardly harming the consumers, although I can see why prospective competitors would want to lobby the government to cripple it. See Armentano, The Case Against Anti-Trust: mises.org/books/antitrust.pdf

Finally, all of the problems you mention which don't exist in the unhampered free market, or can be adequately dealt with, exist in spades with the State. Asymmetric information is the insurmountable norm, and individuals trying to find out things can be dealt with in any manner the State pleases. The State provides a central organization for businesses to lobby to get special privileges, prevent competition, increase regulations (which increases the burden on smaller companies relative to large ones), etc. There are enormous externalization problems, as those in the State can easily externalize the costs of their actions to a large extent. The war in Iraq costs GWB nothing, but US citizens trillions, and foreigners their lives. It was the State -- specifically Truman -- not any private corporation, that decided it would be great to nuke tens of thousands of Japanese people off the face of the Earth.

Finally, none of your arguments in any way justify you or anyone else by "vote" or whatever means pointing a gun to my head and forcing me to pay taxes (which is ultimately what is done to anyone who resists). Rather than attempting to justify the robbery, theft, rape, and murder that the State necessitates due to it's existence, you divert the issue.

PS: Adam Smith was not some great proponent of the free market. This is a myth, which only those ignorant of the history of economic thought buy into. In some ways, he opposed intervention in the market, but in many more, he was a mercantalist and protectionist. Furthermore, he was also a plagiarist, and a poor one at that: there was very little that was original with Adam Smith, and what was was economic fallacy; he also diluted down and muddled those views he plagiarized (from people like Turgot, Cantillon, etc).

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

> It is a bare necessity for raising investment capital.

Again, that is just a symptom of the current system. Which can only measure innovation by counting patents.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

"Sounds like communism except the entities being equalized are companies instead of people. I don't see a real way anyone could equalize access to property, capital or labour."

Well everything can sound like everything thing else if you abstract out far enough, but having laws to enforce the free market does not make one a communist.

If you sell computers, and your operating system supplier charges you $100 per box, but charges a similar company $50 a box, then they are colluding against you.

Likewise in England, there is a certain supermarket that just ignores the planning laws and then lobbies/threatens local councils after it has illegally built the buildings for respective permission. That company has unfair access to land.

Re:I remember a time...

[eggnoglatte]

The freedom to make use of your own hardware is more important than the power to withhold information from the people who paid your wages, and that freedom is what government should be protecting. Absolutely, definitely, positively NOT.

Freedom of speech, including the right to say nothing is a basic human right. The right to use some crappy piece of hardware is a privilege you have won through contractual negotiations, and is not even close in importance to freedom of speech. One of the other pillars of free societies is the right to negotiate any contract (so long as it doe not violate basic human rights (*)), and have the contract enforced by the court system. Well, the vendor of your hardware offered you the hardware without specs at a certain price. You accepted the deal, and a contract was formed. If you didn't insist on the specs as part of the contract, you are shit out of luck, my friend.

And yes, I do realize that in practice it would be very hard and expensive to strike a contract that provides you with specs. So what? The right to negotiate a contract does not guarantee that you will find a partner who accepts your conditions.

(*) Note that this point addresses your slavery example.

Re:I remember a time...

[Marcion]

I'm not sure I agree.

I think we probably do agree. Taking capitalism for granted is what allows a neo-nobility to control us. I agree with your point entirely.

As an example, it is conceivable that the citizens of the US could have put the RIAA out of business a long time ago. But people still insist on giving them money (for the mediocre crap they produce, no less), which the RIAA then uses to continue to tightening the noose around copyright law and fair use.

I think the RIAA is a bit like AIDS. If you have never heard of AIDS, then you are exposed to it by default. However, when you know that AIDS exist, if you have unprotected sex then you are consciously choosing to expose yourself to the risk of it, well at least you have the choice.

If you have never heard of the RIAA then you are part of the system, however as soon as you know how the system works then every time you buy music, you are actually consciously choosing to expose yourself to the RIAA or not.

So the RIAA have a problem, when everyone knows they exist then they are finished. Bands and labels will leave the RIAA if it costs them sales. And the RIAA only makes sense if it controls the vast majority of artists.

Re:I remember a time...

[eggnoglatte]

Actually, it is deeper than that. Before investors give you money, they expect a certain level of security. Startups are risky investments under the best conditions, of course, but at least you want to make sure that if everything goes as well as it could, you are not going to fall prey to a rip-off at the end.

I'll give you a non-startup example of how things can go wrong if you don't patent. A colleague of mine at the university invented a really cool technology that would blend in nicely with existing firmware in certain consumer products (sorry I don't think I should be more specific, since I obviously don't have his permission). He didn't patent, and in fact published his work on his web site and in scientific journals. He then tried to get companies to include the stuff in their product. To his surprise, he was told in no uncertain terms that yes, it is a good invention, and yes, they would license it if he had a patent, but no, absolutely not will they touch it since the technology is unprotected.

The problem? They would have had to spend in th eneighborhood of a million introduce the technology in their products, and and because the method was not protected, they could not assess how many other companies were going to do the same, which made it unclear how much return they would be able to get on the initial investment.

The end result is that even now, 4 years later, the technique has yet to show up in any commercial product. Needless to say, my colleague has started to patent his inventions if he thinks they have commercial applications.

P.S: the thread is kind of drifting away from the original topic, so this will be my last repsonse here.

Re:I remember a time...

[A nonymous Coward]

Once again you ignore the reality that every self-proclaimed communist government has had central planning. You may wish to argue the finer points of a never-implemented theory, but don't confuse that with practice.

Communism had and still has central planning. Your theory has nothing to do with reality.

As for this nonsense -- It is a common mistake to call socialism communism -- I don't know who you are arguing against there, because I specifically listed both of them because they are separate.

You ought to figure out who you are arguing with and what you are arguing about before you start arguing. It sure isn't me and it sure isn't reality.

Re:I remember a time...

[ajs318]

And yes, I do realize that in practice it would be very hard and expensive to strike a contract that provides you with specs. So what? The right to negotiate a contract does not guarantee that you will find a partner who accepts your conditions.

So, it is the legitimate purpose of Government to ensure that the people get all the rights they deserve, all the time. Including the right to be privy to any secret embodied in any article they rightfully own. In other words: If you won't tell me of your own free will, it's the Government's job to make you tell me.

Re:I remember a time...

[jbengt]

Without multiple buyers and multiple sellers, you cannot have a market in the traditional sense, so you don't have a "free market" either, however you want to construct your definition of freedom.

I admit I don't know the details of "classical economics" or "neoclassical economics", but I used the word "classic" as an adjective, not "classical" as a name.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the GP was talking about the free market "working" they probably meant working well as opposed to just working. Monopolies are part of a working free market, no matter how much we dislike them. The market will of course work itself out in the long run, but as John Maynard Keynes said: "In the long run, we are all dead."

Re:I remember a time...

[eggnoglatte]

You did not pay for the specs, so you don't have the "right" to get them. Just because you want something does not make it a right.

There is no constitution on this planet that defines the right to obtain product specs as a basic human right. Since it isn't a basic human right, it is subject to contractual negotiations. You loose. Get over it.

Re:I remember a time...

[u235meltdown]

Some manufacturers even sent free samples of the chips themselves.

Where have they gone wrong?

Actually, Texas Instruments, Microchip, and various other companies still fully disclose many specifications and offer samples.
http://sample.microchip.com/
http://www.ti.com/home_b_samples

Of course, they don't sample anything as powerful as a modern GPU, but the time of samples isn't over!

Re:I remember a time...

[ajs318]

It's my property, so nothing about it is a secret from me. That is a fundamental right -- it's part of the definition of ownership. Any constitution which permits the ownership of property should grant this right, if governments were doing the job we paid them to do properly.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

What I'm saying is, if you list socialism and communism, you can't ignore what separates them. Otherwise, what's the point of listing both? Socialism and communism aren't synonymous political and economical systems just because people call socialist states "communist" to lure or scare others. If you had just written "communism, like fascism, is based on the idea that central planning works," I would have simply ascribed that to the usual imprecise use of the word communism. By listing both, you insinuate that there is a difference, but then proceed to make a conclusion which negates that very difference.

The topic is difficult enough without thoughtlessly mixing up the vocabulary. As long as people think of the failed and failing socialist states when they talk about communism, they can't really discuss what communism was meant to overcome and what the problems with that are. Everybody likes freedom, right? So we hate commies, right? Well, the people who like the promise of communism are not thinking of it that way. To them communism is the very promise of freedom which they don't have in feudal, capitalist and socialist societies. They think of socialism as a necessary step (put the means of production into the hands of the people) towards communism, which then frees them of the central authority. If you mix up the two, you rob yourself of the chance to discuss the problems which are inherent and unique to the communist model. Without removing the misattributed overshadowing central authority from the model, you can't discuss the motivations and hopes which are nourished by the communist model, and if you can't discuss them, you can't disprove them.

Your friends who are "communists but not stalinists" are entertaining these hopes. If you want to talk about these hopes, know that your friends are not trying to establish another central authority regime. They are not just aiming for "good central authority." You have a much better chance if you start from there and let them try and explain to you how that's supposed to work.

Re:I remember a time...

[mdwh2]

Yup, just as I predicted. I said runaway capitalism is the problem, and you knee jerked right into "he is saying capitalism is the problem."

Yes, I know you probably were home schooled, but your parents should have told you the difference between "x" and "runaway x".

You said "capitalism fails miserably", not runaway capitalism - I don't know what that is anyway, as other commenters pointed out, the US is far from an extreme or runaway capitalist society. You also appear to have knee-jerked into defending the need for a Government; I can't see where I suggested I was an anarchist(!)

The crappy state school education of myself and the other commenters obviously didn't teach us what the technical economic definition of "Runaway Capitalism", so perhaps you could explain to us - preferably without resorting to a car analogy, please.

I would also be curious to know how the lack of chip fabs for everyone is due to greed?

And please stick to the debate rather than ad hominems.

Re:I remember a time...

[A nonymous Coward]

What I'm saying is, if you list socialism and communism, you can't ignore what separates them. Otherwise, what's the point of listing both?

I can ignore whatever aspects of the three -isms I want. I can list all three (THREE, count 'em, THREE) -isms together if I want, because it has to do with my point of them all having central planning. I don't care what you think separates two (not THREE?) of them, I'm not writing your posts, or your doctoral thesis for that matter. You're on your own there, buddy. You want some other point made, you need to buck up the courage to start your own posts rather than hang on somebody else's like a piece of used and forgotten toilet paper.

I like how you leave fascism out of your complaints while arguing against a nonexistent theme that I lumped the other two -isms together. What, fascism got your tongue? Afraid to utter that word? Or maybe you think it's ok to lump socialism and fascism together, or communism and fascism? Well, I'll save you some trouble, I didn't do that either.

The way you harp on and on about this theoretical aspect of theoretical communism, well, who gives a shit other than some ivory tower marxist theoritician? I thought I'd run into all sorts of shitiots out there, but you're a new one.

This is a fun game. I like learning how people can be so obtuse.

Re:I remember a time...

[symbolic]

You make a good point.

Re:I remember a time...

[xenocide2]

Pretty much no, they haven't released anything relevant to 3d. The 900 pages was perhaps a useful cross indexed reference to 2d display, but I have not seen anything referencing useful things like textures or geometry. The drivers the GP mentioned were done without aid of recent documentation.

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

The current problems with capitalism would plague humanity whether America is an anarchist, minimal-government'ist, socialist-capitalist hybrid or totally socialist state. No matter what system you bring up, you have decision makers being bribed into doing something that is not favorable to the masses. That having been said, you owe your current degree of freedom not to capitalism or socialism, but rather to (representative) democracy: your vote is the final say. Vote to outlaw the bribery, that's your only hope.

Re:I remember a time...

[c_forq]

The problem is that those big companies don't care. The free market idea assumes that if there is enough need, someone will supply something to fill it.

I hate this "big company" rhetoric. Let me ask you a question, how did these big companies become big companies? If there is enough need it will happen, no matter what the current providers want to happen, due to the creation of new companies and new players. Notice how Intel has now made moves into the graphical arena, and note that their are still graphics companies that could be potential competitors if they thought they could generate profit from the niche market (potential companies include VIA, Transmeta, 3DLabs, Matrox and others).

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can list all three (THREE, count 'em, THREE) -isms together if I want, because it has to do with my point of them all having central planning.

You can write anything you want, obviously, truth be damned.

Sorry for being obtuse. I thought you had made an honest mistake there, that you had not just blabbed inconsistent misconceptions to rile up other people and poison discourse with misinformation. Do keep that demeaning tone, though. It's a really nice character trait.

Re:I remember a time...

[dh003i]

That is the neoclassical definition of a market, or of "perfect competition", but it is a nirvana fallacy (compare the market as it exists to some unattainable, impossible "ideal", then note how short it comes up). In many cases, especially with entirely new products, there is only one seller. And of every product in its particularity, there is only one seller. It is thus an arbitrary definition. The free market need not refer to a state of the complexity of the economic system. There can be a primitive free market between two people on an island, provided neither coerces the other in exchanges. Nor need there necessarily be multiple buyers; companies often want some specialized service or program or technology, and will solicit competing offers from various producers.

As for freedom, all that freedom requires is that people be allowed to homestead and own property (1st user rule), and that there is not the initiation of aggression. To the extent that these two principles are abrogated, so too is freedom. Of course, even absent a State -- which is most responsible for theft, robbery, assault, rape, and murder -- there will always be crime. But that can be dealt with as a problem needing solutions by the market like any other. The State is the source of systematic and constant crime on a grand scale.

Re:I remember a time...

[rdoger6424]

humanity. Everyone's too greedy, and realistically the government will not do what Adam Smith said (i.e. infrastructure and prevention of monopolies/oligarchies only)

Re:I remember a time...

[lsatenstein]

I am not bothered by the RIAA or DRM, or even INTEL. They will disappear as a result of the Regan American capitalism plans that started years ago and make corporations responsible for the well being of the citizens. So, as responsible corporations, they will move all manufacturing off shore. Because no one has exclusivity on intelligence, China will introduce a cpu processor that is performance wise, superior to Intel's finest, and just like clothing, dishes, cars, televisions, stereos, appliances, and the like, we will buy our products from them. Since we will not be buying American products, what can the RIAA say or do?

Why did I say Chinese, well, America, wake up and come down to reality. Greed is good for the corporation in the short term, but keep the jobs at home. Too much greed means that your manufacturers go off shore, and their children get the university education that you cannot afford for your own. And as customers looking for deals, you will purchase offshore goods and your dollar sinks even further. It has already started that big sinking and sliding away.

Sorry to introduce two topics, but in my mind the RIAA is symptomatic of American Corporations and the tip of the iceberg that is to come.

Re:I remember a time...

[jgeeky]

Many of you are confusing socialism with communism. Communism (be it Marxist, Stalinist, et al) is an economic system based on rewards for input effort (each according to his need...). Communism DOES usually imply a central system, much like statism or Marx' State Socialism. This should not be confused/associated it socialism (be it syndicalist, primitavist, et al), a social system designed on the concept of human equality and on the sort of Ubuntu concept of "i get better because we all get better". Most socialist would be offended to be called communists, as the two are far more different than Republicans and Democrats (and you certainly wouldn't call one by the other's title).

Re:I remember a time...

[sqrt(2)]

Get over the fact that your definition of theft (taxes) isn't shared by the majority of the Democratic world. No one is going to ever take you or your philosophy seriously unless...actually you'll never be taken seriously. Libertarian ideas would be hilarious if they weren't being presented as things that could actually work. I say could because there exists no working example of a libertarian economy in all of human history. Libertarianism whores itself out to the darkest parts of humanity and cherry picks a set of ethics that makes that a perfectly acceptable way to live. Silly? You wish Libertarianism was merely silly. Try morally regressive, try economically ruinous, try evil .

Re:I remember a time...

[andreyvul]

Why do you need an advanced GPU on your server?
So you can play <insert GPU-intensive game here> on a thin client running off the server.

Re:I remember a time...

[KDR_11k]

But how do you equalize access to capital? Should banks be required to give you money independent of your credit worthyness and should investors be forced to use a govt-style contract auction? Or do you just mean banks shouldn't exclude you based on criteria that the govt doesn't approve of? That's not going to make a huge difference, by any sane criterium a small company should get less money than a big one.

Re:I remember a time...

[Kristoph]

All politicians think some degree of control over society is required. It's not an idea unique to communism, socialism, or fascism. Also, every successful nation engages in 'central planning' to some degree (ever hear of the ECB and the FED).

In respect to your specific point about 'central planning', one can clearly argue that it does work as:

(a) China has raised the standard of living for 100's of millions of people in a few decades by a percentage much larger than what the west has achieved this century. (Admittedly, China only managed this because of the existence of the free market outside it's borders but it was done through 'central planning' nonetheless.)

(b) US managed to avoid a recession in 1995 and in 2001 by effectively managing its monetary policy.

The problem with broad central planning is that it often serves not society but the politicians and their cadre, either directly through corruption or indirectly in support of their position. So in China where central planning is extensive there is a great deal of corruption. In the EU and US there is less corruption but you'll often find many cases where politicians take action largely to secure their re-election (farm subsidies being a prime example).

]{

Re:I remember a time...

[KDR_11k]

Is that really a free market? After all the people are already in control of that and they don't mind the status quo much so wouldn't enforcing the will of the people reinforce the status quo?

Re:I remember a time...

[A nonymous Coward]

it's nice to see an intelligent response. I will point out that I do not think only socialist, communist, and fascist politicians desire control over society (I think that of ALL politicians), but I don't think you meant to imply that.

Yes, central planning did help China, but (1) I don't know how much detail was in the central plans (did they specify specific numbers of screw to make, as the Soviets did), and (2) I think the main cause of China's rapid growth was not the central planning so much as the lack of it compared to the Mao nonsense. It could well be that if they had simply lifted the Mao nonsense and sat back, things would have gotten even better. On the other hand, the leaders seem to have done a remarkable juggling act of lifting restrictions slowly enough to avoid collapse.

While the FED and subsidies and tax codes are a kind of central planning, I mainly meant the extremeley detailed kind which is more concerned with keeping inefficient factories open or meeting ridiculous numeric quotas (screws by the pound leading to lots of big useless screws). It is a continuum, where the more detailed the central planning, the more susceptible to corruption, fraud, and general stupidity.

Re:I remember a time...

[eggnoglatte]

That is simply not the case. Just because you buy a Coke does NOT entitle you to the recipy. For food and drugs you are at least entitled to basic nutritional information since it can be important for mainatining your health, but even there the specifics are trade secrets. For anything else, you can try to reverse engineer, but the manufacturer has no obligation whatsoever to provide you with additional info.

Trade secrets have centuries if not meillenia of tradition. Any attempt to get rid of them like you propose, would face serious constitutional challenges in all jusrisdictions where I know a bit about the law (US, Canada, where I live, and contintental Europe, where I am from). Admittedly, I don't know much about constitutional situation in the UK, but it if it allows for the abolishion of trade secrets, it is pretty fucked up.

Clearly we won't see eye to eye on this issue, so I will stop posting about it now. I am just glad I don't live in a country where you or the likes of you run the show.

Re:I remember a time...

[mad_clown]

(Uh oh, here come the angry "Capitalism is God, how dare you infidels question the market!" right wing Republo-jihadists with mod points...)

Quick, guys! This radical free-thinker is upsetting our nefarious plans with his firebrand ideas and revolutionary alternatives! Spare no effort to mod him down and silence his dissent lest the very foundations of our whole hegemony are shaken to their very core!

Re:I remember a time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know what a "neo-conservative" actually is? Because I don't think the label means what you seem to think it means.

Re:I remember a time...

[Just Some Guy]

Why do you need an advanced GPU on your server?

So you can run GPGPU.

Re:I remember a time...

[WNight]

Not really, but neither is a market ruled by MS or Walmart, which was my point. By status quo who do you mean our system of trying to prevent monopoly abuses (AT&T, MS trial), or our system of mostly ignoring Walmart, MS, etc until they truly are monopolies?

If a monopoly is good, well then, our monopoly decided that theirs is out of business. If that's not good, then they'll agree we need rules to control monopoly powers.

Re:I remember a time...

[KDR_11k]

I was thinking more of all the restrictions that exist on the current market (like the FCC, IP laws, safety standards, etc) which libertarians seem to object to.

What's the news?

[Anonymous Coward]

We have seen all of this "promise cascade" before, and nothing changed since then.

Hopefully...

[BiggerIsBetter]

Hopefully they will also be more commercial-source friendly as well. I've "resorted" to buying XiG's product in the past, because Xorg wasn't working quite right for me... but I (and many others with driver problems) simply don't have that option unless AMD passes the info to commercial vendors such as these as well. Yes, I know FOSS is all that, but when you need things to Just Work, sometimes it's easier to pay the money.

Let's hope they're still in business then...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now I wouldn't buy an AMD card and apparently change is still in the management talk phase. I am looking forward to fully supported graphics cards from AMD, but if they don't hurry up, I don't expect AMD to be around anymore by the time those are supposed to hit the market.

Re:Let's hope they're still in business then...

[dhasenan]

They're at least saying the right things. Either they care enough about me to do stuff for me, or they at least care enough about me to lie to me.

Worked for me.

[h4rm0ny]

I just upgraded my system. I'm not a big graphics user but I bought an ATI HD 2600 Pro over an Nvidia card because AMD seem to be really supportive of Open Source at the moment. Driver support will catch up with me soon enough and I expect ATI cards to end up the best supported cards under Linux, until Nvidia starts following.

Re:Worked for me.

[Eddi3]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Nvidia cards are supported just fine under Linux. Just because they aren't supported how you like, doesn't mean they aren't supported. Not that I wouldn't like it if they opened up their specifications, though.

Re:Worked for me.

[eggnoglatte]

$500 say you won't see quality open source drivers for your card within the next 3 years. By quality I mean something that supports all features, is robust, and within 10% or so of the performance of commercial drivers.

No, I am not trolling. This is a serious offer to you h4rm0ny. If you agree, just reply to this posting within the next 2 days.

Re:Worked for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I expect ATI cards to end up the best supported cards
> under Linux, until Nvidia starts following.

What do you mean? Intel graphics chipsets already
have documentation and you get 3D RIGHT NOW for
free with xorg. Yeah, maybe their hardware
specs aren't up to the bleeding edge
for ATI/Nvidia (I wouldn't know. I don't
need bleeding edge 3D graphics at this time.)

But the graphics chipset is plenty good for
compiz, the 3D games for Linux that I've played,
etc.

---Johnny says give Intel it's due

Re:Worked for me.

[canuck57]

I just upgraded my system. I'm not a big graphics user but I bought an ATI HD 2600 Pro over an Nvidia card because AMD seem to be really supportive of Open Source at the moment.

So far, this is lip service. ATI first has to release the information or reference driver source and then give it 6 months for testing before you see see it in the sources.

If you are buying a GPU, I would first look at the hardware list for your favorite Linux distro, and purchase based on that as support is proven, the vendors have either indirectly helped or it was reverse engineered. By buying these products it sends a clear message to vendors, Linux or loose this market share.

What I will do when picking my next PC is I also take a Live CD of the distro or similar. Say SUSE 10.3 Live CD and go down to the shop and have the salesperson run it. If it boots, runs well, sees the network on DHCP I will likely buy it.

Re:Worked for me.

[bigpicture]

I guess I was just the opposite, I bought a Nvidia card (mid range) about a year ago, even though I could have got better dollar for dollar performance from ATI. All because it looked like Nvidia was leaning more toward Linux support. (I could find more sources of Nvidia Linux drivers on the web)

I typically had been ATI all the way back to "ATI Wonder".

Re:Worked for me.

[Aardpig]

...and in upgrading my laptop (from an abysmal Asus to an outstanding Lenovo), I took the decision to ditch ATI and go with NVidia. ATI drivers are slow, buggy, and change in unpredictable ways from one release to the next. The final straw was a driver upgrade that made the GPU run at 70 degrees *centigrade* when idling.

Whereas, with my new NVidia-based system, the drivers have been as solid as a rock.

I wish you good luck with ATI, but I fear you're in for a whole world of pain...

Re:Worked for me.

[h4rm0ny]

Oh, I know that, but thank you. :) I'm not dismayed. I'm actually using an Nvidia card at the moment. I just felt that with my new computer (updating the OS now), that I should show my appreciation of ATI opening up to the open source world. My new card works okay with the proprietary drivers (so far). I've been following the forums on Phoronix and I think it wont be that long before I see an equivalent open source driver. And from there on, it's all improvement.

Re:Worked for me.

[chromatic]

Nvidia cards are supported just fine under Linux.

Perhaps that subset of Linux known as x86 has fine support, but the last time I looked, PPC Linux (for example) had no support from NVidia. Synecdoche does not make for accurate engineering.

Re:AMD is not good

[baadger]

Your link takes me to some Holdenville/MyMiniCity bullshit. Link spam, ignore parent.

Don't buy AMD.

[ni1s]

DRM "functionality" in hardware? No thanks.

Re:Don't buy AMD.

[baadger]

You might want to rethink that..

Re:Don't buy AMD.

[Ant P.]

The alternative is to make that functionality part of the driver code. See also: TV-in Macrovision, Winmodems, Softmac wi-fi, ...

AMD haven't released all the specs yet?

[baadger]

Other than the specs released back in September, have AMD even released full specifications to their full range of GPU's yet?

I was speaking to a X driver developer on IRC a few weeks back, and in the course of discussion, he claimed AMD hadn't yet released specs for the 3D engine of *any* of their GPU's yet. Is this true?

Re:AMD haven't released all the specs yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's true. All the documents have to filter through their legal department before publication, and that takes time.

I remember a time...Back in the day.

[Anonymous Coward]

"...when chip manufacturers gave away the full specifications."

Since we're living in the past. I also remember when chips were a lot less complex and came in ECL, TTL, and BiCMOS.*

"I even received by snail-mail thick books, 500 pages or so, with the specs from companies like Texas instruments and Motorola."

They've all gone electronic and my bookshelf thanks them for it.

"Some manufacturers even sent free samples of the chips themselves."

I'm still waiting for Intel to send me a sample Core Duo 2.

"Where have they gone wrong?"

Wrong to who? The minority hobbiest? The people who really need the specs have their boss pay for them as well as agree to all the needed NDAs. They're not the ones complaining.

*Yes I'm an EE.

Re:I remember a time...Back in the day.

[BiggerIsBetter]

Wrong to who? The minority hobbiest? The people who really need the specs have their boss pay for them as well as agree to all the needed NDAs. They're not the ones complaining. Um, yes they are. Name me ONE 3rd party X-server vendor that supports current ATI graphics products.

Re:I remember a time...Back in the day.

[mangu]

Since we're living in the past. I also remember when chips were a lot less complex and came in ECL, TTL, and BiCMOS.*

IIRC, the most complex chip for which the manufacturer sent me the full data book and a free sample was the Motorola 68020, this was around 1988. Of course, at that time very few people had CD-ROM drives, so it made sense to use paper books for that.

Wrong to who? The minority hobbiest? The people who really need the specs have their boss pay for them as well as agree to all the needed NDAs. They're not the ones complaining.

Despite you claiming to be an EE, you have never really worked in designing electronic systems, have you? I don't think Intel or anybody else would send a free sample of a $1700 chip to just anybody who asked, and a hobbyist wouldn't know where to start in designing a motherboard where that chip would work.

The contract and NDA signing phase comes when you have settled on who is going to be your supplier. The problem is that more and more corporations want to go direct to contracts and NDAs, without letting the design engineers decide for themselves. If I go to my boss and say, "hey, let's sign a contract with AMD", he will ask "haven't we done this with Intel already".

I'm not worried about hobbyists, because, as I mentioned, they wouldn't be able to make the circuit boards to use advanced chips. The problem is that chip manufacturers today insist on having a contract for I-don't-know-how-many thousands of chips before they give out the full specifications. This makes not only driver design impossible for third parties, but also makes it very difficult for engineers to perform preliminary designs.

Re:I remember a time...Back in the day.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Despite you claiming to be an EE, you have never really worked in designing electronic systems, have you? I don't think Intel or anybody else would send a free sample of a $1700 chip to just anybody who asked, and a hobbyist wouldn't know where to start in designing a motherboard where that chip would work."

Good thing I didn't claim to be a comedian too.

"The contract and NDA signing phase comes when you have settled on who is going to be your supplier."

Fortunaly all the big names produce more than just CPU's.

"I'm not worried about hobbyists, because, as I mentioned, they wouldn't be able to make the circuit boards to use advanced chips. The problem is that chip manufacturers today insist on having a contract for I-don't-know-how-many thousands of chips before they give out the full specifications. This makes not only driver design impossible for third parties, but also makes it very difficult for engineers to perform preliminary designs."

There are resources OTHER than just manufacturer's documentation, especially for those doing preliminary work. Also those who have preexisting relationships don't have as big a problem as some guy who just walked off the street claiming they're an EE.;)

The Artiicle is abot GPU's not CPU's

[RotateLeftByte]

And as far as raw performance goes, Intel GPU's are a bit 2nd division. Granted that they have opened up their specs. However this has tipped the hand of ATI(AMD) and Nvidia to do the same with theirs.
After all, how many top notch graphics cards are there on the market that use Intel GPU's?

Here, AMD seem to be saying that we are looking at ways to change parts of the GPU so that bits that we can't get permission to release(patents DRM etc etc) are no longer used. To me, that is good news. That statement has nowt to do with Intel or Nvidia.
This is an ongoing process and will not happen overnight. Remember that Sun took a long time to open up the Solaris source code due to licensing issues. IMHO, this is just the same process.

liars

[TheGratefulNet]

I don't believe AMD/ATI. their video cards have always had really bad unix support.

nvidia is no better, really. their 8-series still has zero accel linux video (HD) support. even their XP (!) drivers don't fully support their own chips and this is almost a year after the 8's came out.

when I can use full mpeg and avc playback in linux, I'll believe AMD/ATI. but until that day, its all lies and false promises.

Re:liars

[babbling]

I don't think you're being fair on AMD. It wasn't too long ago that they announced that they would be releasing documentation for some of their GPUs, and people (understandably) didn't believe them. But then they actually did it a couple of weeks later!

As they came good on their last promise, I'm willing to believe them on this one.

In the end it doesn't really matter whether we believe them or not, though. What matters is whether they end up doing it, and no one should rush to buy their GPUs until they have actually done this.

Re:liars

[canuck57]

I don't believe AMD/ATI. their video cards have always had really bad unix support.

Quite true. Many years ago, almost last century ATI had a series of well supported cards that worked well with Linux, but also BSD and Solaris. Quite nice cards too in their time. But then ATI changed hard and fast to being closed and getting drivers became near impossible. A lot of times the VGA basics would work, but you were under utilizing the card. It is about where I stopped buying ATI and moved to nVidia because they are least supply drivers. nVidia drivers here Given ATI support is increasing, I will watch. But just that.

About dual head Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey,

I'm desperate to buy me a graphical card that will give me a hassle free installation, yet a fully functioning dual head setup. I have a Nvidia Geforce FX 5200 and I can't figure out how to get the dual head working. Despite downloading the Nvidia drivers etc, etc...
You know about a card that will give me a hassle free install. I'm holding the money in my hand, and I'm willing to pay...

Re:About dual head Linux

[nawcom]

Google your question.
results: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Dual_Monitors
It's called TwinView. Mainly has to do with changing settings in xorg.conf, though you can run nvidia-xconfig and have that modify your xorg.conf to satisfy your needs. FYI, the fx5200 is fully supported.

Re:About dual head Linux

[X0563511]

http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/169.07/README/chapter-13.html
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/169.07/README/chapter-14.html
http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86_64/169.07/README/chapter-15.html

These three sections will give you everything you should need to configure that FX5200. Note the selection on the bottom of each chapter has a link to the index... lots of good info I would suggest reviewing regardless of your usage of those features.

Promises, promises...

[Kjella]

nVidia got
a) open source 2D driver
b) closed source 3D driver

The hardware is good, the driver is good and the installation of proprietary drivers is extremely easy in my favorite distro. If you want to get back on my computer (I bought one ATI card, flaky POS) then I want open source 3D specs. No secret registries or features that makes it half-assed compared to closed source. That is, *after* you've released the specs for the most recent cards and OSS developers have had some time to work on it. There's no way I'd buy an ATI card NOW because the driver wouldn't be ready until I'm ready to buy my next card, in the mean time I'll buy nVidia. You decide just how long you want that to be. Promises? Cute. I can promise to buy something once you've kept up your end, did you notice words are cheap and words don't pay bills?

Personally I think AMD/ATI is heading straight to hell, they're slipping in both markets and have their head up the ass looking for "synergies" between the two. I don't think they're there, at least not significant enough if they get beaten into a bloody pulp by Intel and nVidia, respectively. nVidia is clearly holding back now with their 8800 line (slower release cycle, no extreme version of the GT) and Intel completely owns the high-end quad market and gaming market, is in front on process tech and makes good designs. I think they're out of rabbits to pull out of the hat.

Correction: Don't buy Vista.

[n dot l]

DRM "functionality" in hardware? No thanks. You know, I remember an NVIDIA engineer complaining to me about how they'd had to do a bunch of really fucked up stuff to get the G80 GPUs to support HD playback on Vista. I'm pretty sure Intel's latest stuff has to deal with the same bullshit too. So really, the title of your post should read "Don't buy post-Vista GPUs". That kinda puts a damper on the whole 3D graphics thing, doesn't it?

Better advice would be, "Don't run your new GPU on an OS that forces it to enable the stupid DRM logic that the engineers really didn't want to build into it in the first place." Yeah, that's much better.

Re:Correction: Don't buy Vista.

[mooothecow]

Hardwired HDCP compliance which is required to get a high definition stream that is standard? Without it, it's illegal to play Blu-ray and HD-DVD? Let's place blame where it's due.

Re:Correction: Don't buy Vista.

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a discussion on AMD/ATI, where someone stated that using an ATI GPU and an AMD CPU would unlock their TPM implementation (or at least some form of DRM). Would this affect all software, or only the dreaded OSs that have DRM functions built-in?

Re:Correction: Don't buy Vista.

[Anonymous Coward]

TPMs are (among other functions) devices for remotely attesting that you are running specific binaries. Having a TPM doesn't stop FOSS, but it does that a company can let you have source code... but you cannot recompile it and have it work as it did (since you cannot digitally sign it). So they can put the DRM in the software and give you the source... safe in the knowledge that the TPM will report that you cannot be trusted if you aren't running an "approved" (signed) binary.

Don't buy Taco. Inc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually my next PC will be Intel. Not because of any DRM but because Intel's the only one with a viable quad-core that doesn't take two sockets.

The End Times are Near

[sykopomp]

..it's the only conclusion I can reach. ATi drivers are going to be Linux-friendly, the courts and colleges are actively pushing back against the RIAA and MPAA, both of which are starting to change their business model, and Duke Nukem Forever is actually going to be done at some point.

Hold me, I'm scared.

Re:The End Times are Near

[Alsee]

Hold me, I'm scared.

rumorf?

-

Future?

[j.a.mcguire]

Oh c'mon, you make it sound like AMD actually has a future.

Re:Future?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Intel has any sense they'll let them (and VIA etc) live in some form so that they can't be accused of having a monopoly on x86 chips.

Re:Future?

[canuck57]

Oh c'mon, you make it sound like AMD actually has a future.

While AMD screwed up buying ATI, and didn't move towards quad processors fast enough, I would not count AMD out. This is not the first time this has shifted and will not be the last. And AMD still has the price point, as grandma does not need a $2+K 8GB quad core to surf the Internet when a $600 AMD X2 is overkill.

I currently have 3 systems based on AMD, 2 of which have been over clocked, over heated, abused and been through multiple sets of fans and hard drives (aging). They keep on ticking. Over the years I probably have had mostly Intel by a small lead, but have always been pleased with AMD. Right now the score for failed systems is 2 for Intel and 0 for AMD. But most get retired. For me, it isn't just about speed.

So long as AMD keeps it reliability, I will have them as my top choice. But I will admit, if they tie in ATI chips to the CPU, they could lose me as only 1 of my 7 systems runs MS anything.

I remember a rosey time...

[Anonymous Coward]

"We don't have free market capitalism in the western world. Most markets are tightly controlled and made mostly worthless - hence all our technological development hasn't made most of us rich."

I'm not certain what you mean by "rich"? Individualy economically we all are all over the spectrum but that has as much to do with our own circumstances as it does to any organized force. "Rich" as in we all live in societies that give us a higher standard of living compared to previous generations? Or simply "rich" as in "I want to be rich but I don't want to put forth the effort"? As for "tightly controlled"? Guess you forgot about the food and lead scare that recently happenned. Complain all you want but deregulation has taught that sometimes some control is better than no control.

Re:I remember a rosey time...

[Bloater]

As an example, due to automation and agricultural techniques, food of the same quality as that available for an hours work 50 years ago should be available for less than an hours work now. It is not, it costs an awful lot more.

"sometimes some control is better than no control."

I would say that no control is impossible - somebody is always in charge. The point of some control is to maintain equality on a real economic basis of value (wealth) exchange rather than allowing inequality based on gaming strategy to cause trivial, legally protected theft.

IE, working generates wealth, and inventing new efficient techniques and automation generates wealth and the markets should be based on those things. Being able to trick people into giving you stuff when you haven't met their criteria is not useful generally so when we, the general population, maintain our markets they shouldn't be based on valuing trickery.

This is offtopic. Mod accordingly if you're bored.

[untaken_name]

The definition in your .sig is wrong. I believe you're thinking of "Keynesian Economics". That said, libertarianism does require more personal responsibility than the average 'civilized' citizen has anymore. Which is sad, really. We've abdicated most of our personal responsibility to the government... the irony is that it would have been difficult for us to have mucked it up quite so badly on our own. At least, if some people did, THEY would have to suffer the consequences of it, instead of everyone having to suffer.

Re:I remember a time a poll

[Anonymous Coward]

omitted building your own fab from the options of what a billionaire could do

Not capitalism

[atlep]

>The big picture is that runaway Capitalism is where they have gone wrong.

Capitalism is about free competition. CRM, the cited problem here, is about regulation. Regulation is not the same as free competition.

Some people have a tendency to think that when exploitation and capitalizing on other people is going on, then automatically capitalism is to blame. It is of course not that simple. Exploitation and capitalizing on others happen under capitalism, but also under a lot of other systems.

This time it is not capitalism, it's regulation of competetion through CRM, in many ways the opposite of capitalism (yes, that statement is oversimplified), that is to blame.

Re:Not capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is about free competition. DRM, the cited problem here, is about regulation. Are you intentionally redefining words here? You need to look up capitalism and regulation.. and free markets/competition while you're at it.

Free markets are nice but they don't exist. They are also not what capitalism is. To quote wikipedia, capitalism is "an economic system in which the means of production are predominantly owned and controlled privately, rather than by the state." That describes the current situation rather well. Instead of a free market though, this is a perfect example of a market where several players are colluding. The vehicle they are using for their collusion is DRM. DRM is not regulated. It is not regulating. You need a government for regulation. There is no regulation happening. This DRM is directly a result of capitalism: private parties are pushing DRM -- not the government.

Re:Not capitalism

[atlep]

You should read the whole article you're quoting.

For example:
During the Cold War, theories of capitalism continued to be developed and elaborated in order to explain, justify, or criticize the private ownership of capital; to explain the operation of capitalistic markets; and to guide the application or elimination of government regulation of property and markets.

Anyway, my main point does not depend on how you define capitalism. Just because someone is capitalizing on something doesn't mean you can automatically blame capitalism. And DRM is regulation, which is not something that only happens in capitalistic systems.

Not capitalism

[atlep]

>The big picture is that runaway Capitalism is where they have gone wrong.

Capitalism is about free competition. DRM, the cited problem here, is about regulation. Regulation is not the same as free competition.

Some people have a tendency to think that when exploitation and capitalizing on other people is going on, then automatically capitalism is to blame. It is of course not that simple. Exploitation and capitalizing on others happen under capitalism, but also under a lot of other systems.

This time it is not capitalism, it's regulation of competetion through DRM, in many ways the opposite of capitalism (yes, that statement is oversimplified), that is to blame.

This sounds ridiculous to me

[s_p_oneil]

This sounds like kids complaining about dessert when they haven't even started the main course. While it would be nice to have hardware-accelerated video playback, video plays just fine on most Linux/BSD systems today. Linux/BSD needs accelerated 3D graphics much more. It's not easy to write a really good OpenGL driver for an advanced video card like that (actually, it's several video cards, which makes it even harder to write and test). Maybe AMD will change their minds in the couple of years it takes the open source community to write one. ATI's OpenGL drivers have always sucked anyway, so it wouldn't even help much if they released the source for that. ;-)

Re:This sounds ridiculous to me

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully it's just the drivers that suck, not the hardware and/or firmware...

Re:This sounds ridiculous to me

[Fry-kun]

I see you haven't tried playing HD content without hardware acceleration.
I've got some video clips that can't be played on a reasonable-spec laptop (1.8G Core Duo, 2G RAM) unless I'm using the proprietary ATI driver - and even then, the only way to get nice-looking picture is to render to opengl interface.

Re:This sounds ridiculous to me

[s_p_oneil]

You got me there. I don't have an HD-DVD or BluRay drive on any of my systems, and I don't have enough free disk space to be downloading HD content. Although it might be better to write shaders to help with the decoding and just use OpenGL than to use something specialized (because then the same will work on nVidia, and hopefully on any DX10-level integrated chipsets that come out.

In one of the weirdest coincidences I've been involved in recently, I happen to be in the middle of writing GLSL shaders to help decode JPEG 2000 files as I type this (so don't tell me it's not possible to do it using shaders).

P.S. - If you think I'm full of it, check out my web site. This kind of thing is right up my alley.

Too little too late ?

[zebslash]

That's funny. ATi have been told for years to do this, and they were very reluctant about it. And finally, several years after, they finally do this move, hoping the open source movement will help them regain some momentum they have recently lost. So they just stupidly postponed a move they had to do one day or another. And I am afraid now it is a little too late. AMD faces huge problems (slow and buggy chips). AMD and ATi both had their period of fame a couple of years ago, but unfortunately, we are slowly moving toward a monopoly where Intel and nVidia are the sole actors.

Re:Too little too late ?

[Deaddy]

Well, then it should be even more important to be not to harsh with AMD and let them the time they need, because a monopoly would be a disadvantage to the vast majority.
Some posts seem reflect the attitude that AMD/ATI is bad and Intel is good, but the thing that really matters at least to me is that CPU X has a much better performance per money or energy consumption, so I choose it over CPU Y or graphics card W has no driver support for my OS, so I have to use Z.
That attitude is bad for the reputation of AMD and it could be difficult for them to gain market share again, even if they produce better chips, just because everyone thinks "AMD sucks" like today everybody outside the open source world thinks that Linux sucks, because they always were told so and not that Linux doesn't cover up as much needs as Windows does.

Re:Too little too late ?

[ion.simon.c]

"Slow and buggy chips", eh?
Intel's hardware has a fun bug or two, as well. Check it out:
http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15337

Specifically...

[Junta]

They are talking about ensuring that in 1 to 2 years time, video acceleration will be architected to be open-source accessible without compromising DRM (if they continue to implement that).

Contrast this to nVidia which for the GeForce 8 series they've decided to stop supporting XvMC in their closed-source driver.

From my perspective, currently if you are buying a new video card, your system is probably already able to keep up with 1920x1080 playback using only the CPU. In a year to two years time, I can't imagine the generation of systems not being able to cope. XvMC only helps for MPEG-2, wasn't updated to be usable for more advanced codecs. I've seen at least discussion toward changing that, but I think the community is in largely a 'what's the point?' sort of mentality.

As much as I'm all for this strategy, if it costs them a significant amount in terms of production cost someway, it may not be worth the benefit, which is relegated mostly to a token gesture now. The 3D acceleration and, by association, the proccesing capabilities of the GPU are far more interesting. It sounds like they face no insurmountable obstacles in releasing those specs (though they have taken their sweet time about it since their announcement a few months ago).

Re:Specifically...

[MostAwesomeDude]

In about two years, they will have chips on the GPUs capable of decoding H.264 in hardware, and XvMC will hopefully support MPEG-4 hardware decoding. That's what this is about.

quit whining

[dh003i]

You have freedom, you don't have to buy products if you don't want to. GPUs are a luxury, not a necessity. Stop being a spoiled brat. If someone wants to manufacture something, sell it to people, but not give people the detailed specifications for it, that is their right. I wonder why it is that producer freedom is never mentioned. If I make something, and sell it to you, I have absolutely 0 obligation to tell you how I made it.

Btw, if capitalism really couldn't service those "niche" markets, then AMD wouldn't be doing what they're doing right now. The free market is working. What the free market means is basically all voluntary interactions, where no coercive force is used.

But I guess you would rather go the road of barbaric violence and use State-violence and the threat of it to force companies to do what you want them to do.

If something is really important to you, you should use your own resources and non-coercive persuasion (to get others to join you) to accomplish that goal. That would be the mature way to go about achieving something. Instead, you want to stamp your feet, and try to convince the government to force others to do what you want them to do, whether they agree with you about the importance of your goal or not.

PS: Btw, there is an organization developing a completely open graphics card.

I sense a disturbance in the force.

[palegray.net]

There's an orbital deathstar-like supership known only as Broadcom. Complete with storm troopers ready to quash any attempts at some process called "reverse engineering."

Capitalism is not free market

[Stentapp]

Capitalism is not free market, capitalism is actually more about restricting the market. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker

Right, but...

[Junta]

They already do h264 in hardware I believe, but without a framework in Linux to take advantage.it currently. Hence my discussion about a replacement being discussed for XvMC (extending XvMC I believe they decided was not feasible, as it wasn't flexibly designed). And I believe that in 2 years time, hardware accelerated 1920x1080 h264 playback will be moot in the face of the processors that wouldn't be the least bit troubled to play that back.

Big deal

[jonwil]

Until I see results from ATI in the form of documents that tell you how to render 3D on ATI GPUs, I wont hold my breath.

Let me know when I can play Quake III (or use Second Life or any other open source OpenGL app) on a GPU still being manufactured by ATI using 100% open source drivers (i.e. no binary drivers at all) then I will care.

Re:Big deal

[LWATCDR]

Well since nVidia is providing less FOSS support I would guess you only use Intel video cards?
Of course Intel does write that FOSS driver and from what I have read it is poorly documented and the driver is just about unreadable.
At least AMD is trying to do what the FOSS zelots have been asking for.

Re:Big deal

[ion.simon.c]

I can play SL on an ATi AGP x800 by checking out the latest code from the xf86-video-ati project.

Check em out here:
http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=xorg/driver/xf86-video-ati.git;a=summary

mod above flamebait

[dh003i]

Nice job, troll.

You ought to at least understand something before criticizing it. Libertarianism is merely consistent in it's definition of theft and robbery, by which consistency you have to include taxation as robbery (and inflation as theft). If you want to be intellectually dishonest and without integrity, you're welcome to bend over backwards trying to say that the State is something that it isn't. If there are 10 people, and 9 "vote" to deprive the last 1 of his property, that is still robbery. At least have the courage to admit that in supporting the State, you support mass robbery, thievery, rape, and murder. Maybe you think this is necessary, but be honest.

By the way, there are many examples of broadly libertarian societies (that is, Stateless), which existed for quite some time. Ancient Iceland and Ancient Ireland for 300 and 1000 years, respectively. The West in the US for 10 years, before the Federal government trampled over private justice. There are various other examples, as well. And there have been numerous successful minarchies as well. Before making an ignorant claim and saying "there exists no working example of a libertarian economy in all of human history," you ought to have some idea as to what you're talking about. As it stands, you're just an idiot talking out of his arse, with no understanding of history.

Re:mod above flamebait

[sqrt(2)]

It's enough for me to know that your philosophy has been rejected by nearly everyone in my country--and indeed the world. Do you even stop to consider why people like you have nearly no power today? It's not because the rest of the world is holding you down, "the man" isn't blocking your great ideas, the powerful establishment isn't afraid of you. No, it's much simpler than that. Nobody listens because it's obvious to everyone else that what you're saying is complete tripe. Although I must say, persistence is an admirable trait, but it helps when it's directed at something worthwhile.

Best wishes.

Re:mod above flamebait

[dh003i]

(1) Debate from ignorance; (2) Fallacy of appeal to popularity; (3) Fallacy of might makes right.

Re:mod above flamebait

[sqrt(2)]

Are you just quoting Libertarian maxims now?

Re:Hardware Drivers and Motivation

[Douglas Goodall]

I have written a lot of drivers in my life. There are basically two kinds of driver developments. Motivated and Hostile. When a hardware company has a warehouse full of hardware to ship, and it is a driver issue keeping the product from flowing, motivated product engineers are standing by to answer question, provide tips and bits of diagnostic and initialization code they wrote during development. Some of my drivers have been little more than operating system specific wrapping around proof of concept code written by design engineers. When the driver works reliably and efficiently, everyone is a hero, and the hardware ships. The other kind of development occurs when the hardware is already flowing. For instance, if the primary use of a hardware item is Windows, the hardware is selling like crazy already, and the engineers are too busy designing the next cheaper version of the last hardware to roll out. Generous support to driver writers working on "alternative operating systems" is problematic to obtain. What makes this worse is when politics get involved and a hardware vendor doesn't want to piss off the main OS vendor by appearing to care about the alternative operating system. In business, having single sources for necessary parts of your product, or single distribution targets for your products is like putting all your eggs in one basket. It would benefit these hardware companies to have drivers for at least three targets in case any of them fail over time. Thats a nice Windows based business you got there, a shame if anything happened to it.

dumped linux (mythtv) in favor of winxp (mediaport

[majid_aldo]

What a shame. Linux has only basic hardware support.

When building my HTPC, I just HAD to have GPU video acceleration as well as premium sound from my X-fi. No, it's not efficient to use the CPU for that.

Where is the hot water?

[Cajun Hell]

With this information, users could then bypass DRM on Windows, which could then place AMD into legal hot water.

It would be nice if the page explained that better. If, AMD documents how to use their hardware to decode video, then ___ sues them for ___.

It sounds like the hardware doesn't descramble encrypted stuff; it just essentially decompresses. So it's probably not a DMCA issue.

A contract issue? Most likely, but exactly how? Is it that Microsoft will only sign their drivers if they keep how it works a secret, and then an OEM will sue AMD for supplying hardware whose drivers have been decerted? Is it that the codec requires some patent, and licensing it requires that something else, a trade secret, remains protected?

I wish the page connected the dots and really explained what the issues are, for a hardware company. It seems there would be no legitimate reason for DRM to rear its ugly hear, here.