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Ask Harald Welte, "VIA's open source representative"
In this recent Slashdot post kernel hacker Harald Welte was characterized as "VIA's open source representative," but that is just one of many irons he has in the fire, as a glance at his Wikipedia bio will show. You can obviously ask Harald about many interesting things besides VIA's open source strategy — and before you ask about VIA, you ought to read the last few entries on his blog, at least one of which mentions VIA questions he can't answer. But VIA aside, there's plenty to ask Harald about. For example, he won an award from the FSF earlier this year for his work on gpl-violations.org. In any case, Harald is a powerful force for GNU/Linux and Free Software, and we appreciate him taking time out of his undoubtedly hectic schedule to answer your questions. (Usual Slashdot interview rules apply.)
I worry that VIA will stray from staying standards compliant now that it is only making chipsets for its own boards/processors.
Will the chipsets remain more or less as standards compliant and open as they are now or will yet more reverse engineering and mystery registers be on the way?
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.
Your Wikipedia bio mentions that you left your position as Lead System Architect for the OpenMoko project in 2007 due to "internal friction and demotivation". What are your current thoughts on the OpenMoko platform, has it made significant improvements since your decision? What are the biggest hurdles it still needs to overcome before you would consider it a successful project? Are there any other upcoming mobile platforms that have you excited for the future of open source development on mobile phones, or is the industry/market perhaps still too premature for open-architecture Linux on the cell phone?
Hi,
A friend just got a Wibrain b1 that came with Ubuntu.
The drivers for all the VIA stuff are binary blobs which prevents him from upgrading the kernel. They also don't seem very reliable as he is seeing crashes.
Is there already Open Source drivers for that kind of hardware or is this part of your mission for VIA?
Thanks
I have an Epia MII mini-ITX board, based around the Eden processor, which I bought nearly 3 years ago to use as a low power media server.
Despite claims about the graphics and media abilities of the board (Integrated VIA UniChromeâ 2D/3D graphics and an MPEG-2 accelerator with motion compensation), playback of DVDs and large video files in Linux using the community-developed Unichrome driver is choppy at best, and largely unwatchable.
Does VIA have plans to provide robust, open source drivers for the Free Software world that match up to the Windows versions for past products?
Is crushing a suspect's child's testicles illegal?
John Yoo: "No, [if] the President thinks he needs to do that."
Do you prefer the GPL version 2 or version 3?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
... But it has to be asked.
OpenBSD's developers (including OpenBSD 'benevolent dictator' Theo DeRaadt) have praised VIA Padlock functions in the past.
As a user of both OpenBSD and Gnu/Linux, I'd like to know if you share Linus Torvalds infamous appreciation of OpenBSD developpers? Or do you have good relations with all open source projects?
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
My recent brush with VIA is when I bought a HP mini-note laptop which uses the VIA C7 processor. Unfortunately, I ended up picking the laptop with Windows Vista and I'm sorry to say that it is not the right operating system for this category of portable laptops. I am much more happier with Ubuntu loaded on the machine now.
My question to Mr. Welte is, how is VIA working with vendors like HP to promote Linux on this new and exciting range of netbooks that coming out?
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
He's only a representative of Open Source. So, he's open enough to sort of show people what Open Source is all about without actually being able to get in to the real nitty gritty details. In other words, his skin is transparent, but you're not actually allowed to open him up.
Have you ever accused anyone of violating the GPL and then found out that they didn't?
It's my understanding that VIA has recently provided a dump of new "cleaner" code to x.org that supports the Unichrome lineup more properly. (By the way, thanks...)
However, this doesn't help fully in the big-picture sense of things.
Right now, an Atom based netbook will have 3D capable of doing Compiz (I know, I've played with it on at least two differing eeePC models right now...) and some lower-end FOSS 3D games out of the box. With what has been given out so far, you still can't do this with VIA's offerings, which include the netbook designs and the EPIA boards. That, alone, isn't a good thing or selling point, really, for those designs right now. What is VIA planning to do in regards to fixing the 3D situation on the stuff that you have already released stuff for?
The aforementioned only talks to Unichrome/Unichrome Pro/Unichrome II. What's the story with the other Chrome lineup? Are we going to see FOSS support for those chips or are they even relevant going forward?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
But that hair cut! Oh no!You need something else, darling.
And that black pull over: no way!
Here's my suggestion you potential F/OSS beefcake: look at Steve Jobs of Apple. He's not all Brook's Brothers, but he's neat. Another source, Larry Ellison of Oracle. Uuuuugly guy, but he sure has a look!
Hi Harald,
Any plans to bring another keg of beer to OLS next year?
Regards,
Daniel
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Can you illuminate the relationship between S3 and Via for us? I've tried in the past getting basic technical specs (e.g. textures per pass, triangle rates, pps, fill rates) on the video hardware that comes with Via boards. This kind of information is readily available from other manufacturers, and occasionally a whitepaper will show up from Via or S3 for a random chipset, but asking Via for this kind of information results in stacks of legal forms to be signed in duplicate, allegedly because of NDA's between Via and S3. Yet, S3 bills itself as "a VIA Technologies, Inc. joint venture company". Doing open source work, I've avoided the NDA entanglements, and ultimately went to ATI for video hardware because I could find specs reliably without 'buying one of each' (this was actually suggested to me). Mostly it's all very confusing for people who just want to develop stuff, and I wonder how this relationship affects the open source drivers and the stuff that's not currently available (3D, hardware media decoding) but is essential for some embedded work.
The related question would be does Via realize that we're out here and want to buy their hardware but are being forced to rule out Via due to secretiveness?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
All I want to say is, good luck to you, I hope things work out for the community. Try to do the right thing.
From your blog:
One of the commonly asked questions is _why_ not the complete source, including codec acceleration, TV out and 3D was published. I cannot disclose the particular reasons for VIA, sorry. (...)
I think we know the usual story here, and since the whole point of DRM is security through obscurity I understand that VIA can't release that. What I would like to ask you though is whether VIA has or is taking any steps to separate the parts that ought to be available from the rest so that more functionality can be exposed to open source drivers? For example, I own a HDV camera and hardware acceleration of that footage should be a natural feature distinct from say AACS-protected media. It's much the same with AMD, UVD/UVD+ will probably never be open sourced but UVD2 may be modular enough to release. Had AMD been earlier into that with their open source strategy it probably would have happened. Intel is also working on support for H.264/VC-1 decode with their new G45 chipset, though there seems to be work to be done on the Linux API side as well. How do you see the chances, from VIAs side, that you will release specifications to enable hardware decoding for coming products?
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How much did IP (intellectual property) concerns weigh on the process of opening the driver code? We've been hearing from companies like nVidia that IP issues prevent them from opening their own code, so I'd be interested to hear just how it is that VIA were able to get to this point in the face of today's treacherous environment regarding IP.
The only way to take advantage of the hardware acceleration for H.264 on the C7 platform is using a patched version of mplayer on Linux. That's nice for Linux users and open source people, but it didn't help get support on Windows or in Media Centre. I returned my EPIA board because of this (not fit for purpose).
How is supporting open source going to make these features available to end users who don't use an open source OS and/or who can't code, i.e. the majority? Or is this just an attempt to get out of costly software development to support your hardware?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So I'll just go ahead and ask it, get it over with.
Is VIA planning to release detailed register-level specs for their graphics chipsets?
I find it interesting that VIA is doing this so fast when previously they were more or less silent. Did you go to VIA first, or did they come to you? Either way, did it take a lot of effort to convince the other side?
Right now, an Atom based netbook will have 3D capable of doing Compiz (I know, I've played with it on at least two differing eeePC models right now...) and some lower-end FOSS 3D games out of the box. With what has been given out so far, you still can't do this with VIA's offerings, which include the netbook designs and the EPIA boards. That, alone, isn't a good thing or selling point, really, for those designs right now.
I'm wondering just how important VIA considers Linux support for its products. I mean, many VIA's products, especially the Epia/mini-ITX stuff are in a market segment halfway between embedded applications and 'low-end' desktops. These products and Linux are a natural match.
With competition from all sides, open source Linux drivers that support all essential features, are at least as good as their Windows counterparts, could give these products the edge they need to beat the competition. Even if a buyer runs Windows on these boards, knowing that the same full featureset/performance is available under open source operating systems, might be considered added value, read: enough added value to pick these boards over competitor's offerings.
So how important does VIA think this is? And is their attitude changing? If so, how? What are they doing (what resources are invested) to match goals with deeds (like, hire developers)?
VIA has a history of releasing chipsets packed full of great video acceleration, but no drivers to make use of that acceleration, sometimes there are even no windows drivers either.
Looking at the linux drivers for instance[1], there are big gaps, and it is disapointing to see no drivers to support the base MPEG4 acceleration let alone new features such as h.264 acceleration.
I have an EPIA SP8000E and the MPEG2 acceleration (XvMC) implemented by the openchrome drivers is awesome, such a shame more than that cannot be supported.
VIA has once again re-launched their linux drivers[2], and once again the support is very limited, only a small number of distributions, a small number of chipsets, and a small number of hardware features supported. Furthermore applications that can make use of these drivers features are almost non-existent
Wouldn't it be better to work with the the established driver teams such as openchrome, who have broad distribution support, broad chipset support, and are broadly supported by applications, to add the missing hardware support?
[1]http://wiki.openchrome.org/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=HardwareCaveats
[2]http://linux.via.com.tw
Hi I just shelved my VIA EPIA-M in favor of an Intel mini-ITX motherboard. I couldn't find a suitable PCI card that would work properly. Any suggestions? Or, should I just leave it on the shelf? :(
I don't give a damn about Windows, Linux or any OS. I just want to be sure that it is at-least theoretically possible for everybody to write a driver for their OS. That way, I won't have the idiosyncratic restrictions like "you MUST use the OSs which are in the following list:", etc.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
You have stated that your ability to pursue claims against those who violate the GPL is hampered by lack of resources. What amount and type of resources, in your estimate, would be required to pursue all such claims? I'm thinking in terms of everything from vetting the claims to see if they're warranted all the way through the hiring of legal representation to file and pursue lawsuits against the violators.
VIA is dropping some of its older chip series. IBM has open-sourced the patents for hardware in the past, and a few companies (as evidenced by opencores.org) have open-sourced the chips themselves. Now, not everything dropped could be opened like this, due to IP entanglements or IP that is still in highly active use and therefore important to the company, but that probably doesn't apply to everything. Has VIA debated at all the possibility of placing superceded but still interesting algorithms into open-source software or even open-source hardware?
(Either would seriously boost interest in open-source, and perhaps expand some mental horizons.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Intel and AMD both do a fair amount of contributing to GCC and go to some lengths to be sure it optimizes for their processors well. In the past, VIA/Centaur haven't been too participative in GCC or forthcoming with relevant information; among the results is, as the gcc documentation says,
Will detailed specifications dealing with the Isaiah/Nano pipeline etc be released? How will VIA/Centaur be working with GCC developers in the future?
Why do we see a delay from when new hardware hits the market and when open source drivers get released and incorporated? Slow driver releases mean that the hardware is approaching obsolescence before the drivers get widespread acceptance, and that seems to hurt VIA especially in the low-power cpu/mobo area where any delay means the replacement hardware is already on the way.
OpenBSD, along with the FSF, is one of more vocal proponents for free drivers. Unlike the FSF, OpenBSD strongly emphasises the need for driver documentation, sometimes even preferring it to free drivers. They have criticised Intel's free video drivers in the past for obfuscation, magic numbers in the source, and making it almost impossible for anyone but Intel to hack them (I haven't seen any comment from them since Intel provided source in early 2008).
What is the situation with VIA's drivers? Do we get documentation? Why or why not? What are the challenges for providing documentation?
There were 2 or more stories about VIA recently. First story was about going open source and second one was the announcement of actual open source stuff you ship. Normally you would expect praise from community but such thing didn't happen.
While there were some (minority) people praising this move, most of comments were bad mouthing VIA hardware and recently, blaming GPL "stolen" code for this decision. At one point, while never used your hardware I felt obliged to defend VIA and show possibilities with open source, especially about performance enhancements.
It is something I always wanted to ask Helix/Real Networks too. How can you stand such comments and don't they neutralise your emotions for further open source shipments?
Note also, this interview with Welte on the same topic:
http://lwn.net/Articles/291636/
When it comes to making a PVR, the VIA offerings seem so ideal. However, when we start looking at reality, the support for GPUs offered by VIA (and competitors) fail to meet today's needs. Should we be optimistic about seeing a VIA hardware and driver combination that can handle HD broadcast streams like the ones delivered by the SiliconDust HDHomeRun? http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun
Ooops, I didn't realize I wasn't logged in. I'm the coward who posted this.:
When it comes to making a PVR, the VIA offerings seem so ideal. However, when we start looking at reality, the support for GPUs offered by VIA (and competitors) fail to meet today's needs. Should we be optimistic about seeing a VIA hardware and driver combination that can handle HD broadcast streams like the ones delivered by the SiliconDust HDHomeRun? http://www.silicondust.com/products/hdhomerun
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the
we see that delay in the past and present, for products whose R&D was not started with having a mainline mergeable driver finished when the hardware is finished. With a firm driver and mainline support strategy, you should not see that kind of delay in the future.