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AMD Releases Open-Source R600/700 3D Code
Michael writes "AMD has just released code that will allow for open-source 3D acceleration on their ATI R600 and R700 graphics cards, including all of their newest Radeon HD 4xxx products. This code consists of a demo program that feeds the commands to the hardware, updates to their RadeonHD driver, and a Direct Rendering Manager update. With this code comes working 2D EXA acceleration support for these newer ATI graphics processors as well as basic X-Video support. AMD will be releasing sanitized documentation for these new ATI GPUs in the coming weeks. Phoronix has an article detailing what's all encompassed by today's code drop as well as the activities that led to this open-source code coming about for release."
The scenario you describe has one issue: last week's dev code is copyrighted by the company, not the developers. They probably needed to have some long conversations with the lawyers and accountants to get this done.
I chose ATI over Nvidia in my most recent graphics card purchase because of ATI's policy.
Thanks ATI; it's the right thing, and it will help your revenue.
ATI's linux drivers are still craptastic... not likely to change in the next few months. You're still better off with Nvidia for linux.
If the govt becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law, it invites man to become his own law, it invites anarchy
The parent has pegged a round hole with a square question. Hardware support in Linux works well if you build your own machines, or happen to get one with supported hardware. How do you find a system that is fully supported and for which distributions?
This is still a problem for F/OSS software. Some distributions are better at handling the problem than others. For many end users, finding a proprietary driver and installing it on Linux is a deal-breaker.
I'm glad to see that ATI is moving toward support for all OS software, but it still leaves the general community with a problem. That problem won't go away until hardware manufacturers support F/OSS out of the box. It means changing their model and prospective future business plans to some extent.
I'm willing to bet that if everyone who *REALLY* wants to see great F/OSS drivers for ATI were to plop down $5 USD it would make a difference to how they are thinking about releasing drivers. Yes, $50,000 might not be much but it also might make a difference to ATI. This falls into a category of donations that I've talked about before.
Finding who to donate to is not always easy since many apps are hidden from the user, such as Samba, drivers, etc. It would be good if there were some place people could just drop a donation for the distribution they are using and feel safe that some percentage of that went to all those apps that are part of the distribution. This always brings up some heart felt discussion, but I think something like this is an awesome thing that would help drive better development for F/OSS software. See, getting $1.75 per user is a lot of money to some F/OSS teams. Hell, even fifty cents would be a lot more than they are getting now. So a donation of 50 or 75 bucks could mean a lot to many people. I try to donate to the apps that I use the most and I KNOW how difficult it is to do that.
If anyone is interested in progressing such a thing, contact me. I can probably find some time to donate to this as a project.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Why can't it be both? I'd say the Gates Foundation has been far more successful at promoting Microsoft than some of their more direct efforts.
We all joke about his billions of dollars, but to see them put to use attempting to vaccinate an entire continent, I gotta tell ya that is a pretty damned impressive thing to do.
Don't get me wrong, donations of time and money to Open Source projects are also good and noble things, and they provide infinitely-copyable and long-lasting amounts of good. But if someone asked me "who did more good, the guy who saved x-hundred-thousand kids or the guy who donated an improved scheduler algorithm to the Linux core?" there's only one way a human being could answer that question. There is a different question in there, and that is "who donated more overall effort?" Gates' money made him rich enough that he may not even feel the pinch of spending $37 billion, but the coder likely sweated over his efforts for months, sacrificing evenings and dinners with his S.O., etc. And I suspect its part of the job of the foundation to ensure the first form of the question is asked on camera, and not the second.
John
You're still better off with Nvidia for linux.
Well, for Linux gaming, you are, for now anyway. But over the long term, we should get free, open-source drivers, which means drivers that actually work. In the long run, you may be better off with ATI cards.
And, I will be voting with my dollars: I'll now try to buy ATI cards where it makes sense, partly because for the long term I think they will be a win, but also to thank ATI for doing something I wanted them to do.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Yeah... is there a catch?
No. You can be forgiven for asking the question, given history, but... no.
TFA:
The microcode for the newest GPUs has also been released.
This is the real deal. Actual specifications about how the hardware interfaces actually work in a format that can't be encumbered by copyrights or patents. NVidia and Intel will follow with their own release announcements within weeks, or watch their proprietary crap die. This is "a race to the bottom" where the "bottom" is "fully open". The funny thing is that the "bottom" is a door to a whole new world of opportunity.
To be fair Intel has been fairly open, and Nvidia has been opening up. Windows only video drivers are soon to be a legacy best forgotten. Please hold a moment of silence for the brave chairs that are about to lose their integrity in Redmond.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
We all joke about his billions of dollars, but to see them put to use attempting to vaccinate an entire continent, I gotta tell ya that is a pretty damned impressive thing to do.
Sounds good on the face of it doesn't it? But look a little closer. The entire vaccination program is about intellectual property - countries have to forgo local pharma factories that produce medicine without paying royalties - despite it being perfectly legal to do so since most of those countries do not recognize foreign patents anyway.
But if someone asked me "who did more good, the guy who saved x-hundred-thousand kids or the guy who donated an improved scheduler algorithm to the Linux core?" there's only one way a human being could answer that question.
If you are going to cherry pick the question, then of course the outcome is predetermined. But what about taking into account the source of all that money in the first place? How much of the world's GDP has microsoft skimmed off the top? Money that would have been re-invested into the domestic economies all around the world, resulting in improved economic and living conditions without having to go through all the fat-cat middlemen, each taking their cut of that money before it eventually comes back around in the form of a "charity?"
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
True or not, they're still giving the Linux community exactly what they've been asking for: documentation to write good drivers for their devices. It's win-win for everyone.
Well, the sanitized docs for the R300/R500 chips lead to very usable opensource 2D/3D drivers in less than half a year. Let's give AMD the benefit of the doubt here, they've proven to deliver useful documentation in the past.
Whatever their motivations happen to be, they are doing exactly what the kernel developers have been asking them to do.
If it saves ATI/AMD money, even better. Maybe other companies will see the light and follow suit.
*sigh* back to work...