Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AMD Confirms Vulkan Driver For Linux, But To Start Off As Closed-Source

Posted by timothy on from the port-in-a-storm dept.

An anonymous reader writes: AMD has finally revealed some basic details concerning their support of Vulkan on Linux. AMD has a Vulkan driver but it will begin its life as closed-source, reports Phoronix. In time the AMD Vulkan driver will transition to being open-source. This Vulkan driver is built to interface with their new AMDGPU kernel DRM driver that's part of their long talked about AMD open-source strategy for Linux. This closed-then-open Vulkan driver will be competing with Valve's Intel Vulkan driver that will be open from day one.

47 comments

  1. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To keep the competition in the dark?

    1. Re:Why? by arbiter1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      No doubt, AMD loves to tout open this and that but keeps their stuff closed as long as possible. example, AMD said mantle was gonna be open source for since day one, did THEY ever release the source for it before killing development for it?

    2. Re: Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is also likely that they are depending on libraries with licenses that do not allow it to be open sourced. Replacing them or negotiating exceptions for the purpose of their driver can be time and cost consuming.

    3. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But they definitely love having people develop free drivers for them so they dont have to pay for it while releasing as little as possible information to do it.

    4. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently Mantle was absorbed into Vulcan.

    5. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Most of it turned into Vulkan in the first place so...yes?

      I would guess their assorted contracts with console makers is the reason for closed source issues more than some AMD desire to keep code secret for ??? and profit. Mantle supports XBox and PS4, I doubt it does that without a whole lot of proprietary(and therefore licensed) information about their platforms.

      is it better to give us a functional binary blob that still has licensed code or make us wait for it to be completely removed and tested?

    6. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Anyone who cares to look can just disassemble the code so it's not really that important in terms of keeping it secret. It's more effort, but for determined competition that is a small price to pay.

    7. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You show me one business that doesn't like employees to work for free.

    8. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why not?

    9. Re:Why? by edxwelch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > To keep the competition in the dark?
      I would doubt it would give the competition any real advantage - given that the it's written specfically for AMD hardware and the competition already have working drivers that are doing the same thing as AMD's drivers.
      More, likely it's to hide stuff that might be infringing on patients, contain plagarised code, or gaming benchmarks.

    10. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      plus, they don't want to answer questions about the sausage, in general; it's a support issue.

    11. Re:Why? by cheater512 · · Score: 2

      Probably more accurately, they are building the driver to work first, then they need to do a legal assessment to see what code (if any) has restrictions on it.

      Hard to do that before it has taken shape and starts working.

    12. Re:Why? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      No doubt, AMD loves to tout open this and that but keeps their stuff closed as long as possible. example, AMD said mantle was gonna be open source for since day one, did THEY ever release the source for it before killing development for it?

      AMD has failed to execute in a number of areas, I don't think this is any more of a "planned failure" than the rest. In particular you have to produce what you want to release first, then get it through legal so it's not surprising that an abandoned project hasn't open sourced any code. Their problem is that Intel is becoming usable for casual gaming - it has 20% market share on Steam now, they're open source too and unlike AMD they've got a war chest to fight on every front at once. Sure, Intel doesn't have high-end discrete cards but you don't find many of the AAA games that need them on Linux either so they have it where it matters. If Intel has day one open source Vulkan support and AMD doesn't then their whole open source strategy is pretty much a failure, they've had years of head start and still get left in the dust.

      Not that I'm really surprised the whole "traditional" AMD including old ATI had $378 millions of revenue last quarter, that's regular CPUs , APUs and GPUs combined. The rest was enterprise/embedded/semi-custom solutions. Fury was not the savior many hoped for, Zen had better be if they want to exist in the consumer space at all.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    13. Re:Why? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      ?No doubt, AMD loves to tout open this and that but keeps their stuff closed as long as possible. example, AMD said mantle was gonna be open source for since day one, did THEY ever release the source for it before killing development for it?

      AMD has failed to execute in a number of areas, I don't think this is any more of a "planned failure" than the rest.

      It's not about that. It's more that if you were planning for AMD to actually release the stuff they said they would release, you're making unrealistic plans.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    14. Re:Why? by exomondo · · Score: 0

      AMD said mantle was gonna be open source for since day one, did THEY ever release the source for it before killing development for it?

      No they didn't, in fact "Open Source" is not even applicable to Mantle. They said it would be an open specification, however instead of creating yet another standard they decided to offer it as the basis for glNext (now Vulkan) for which the specification will be open, just like OpenGL.

    15. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Zen is like 6 months late and the lead architect/VP Jim Keller is leaving. Zen is not going to be anyone's "savior", least of all AMD's.

    16. Re:Why? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      It's not about that. It's more that if you were planning for AMD to actually release the stuff they said they would release, you're making unrealistic plans.

      That has been obvious for quite some time, yes. And though you can use marketing BS to bridge a few gaps in your product line-up and string users along to wait a while, every once in a while you must deliver and cash in the sales. If not the users will understand that they're just chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and buy a product that's on the shelf and delivers today. You saw it most clearly on the FX line that AMD never officially killed, fans were waiting and hoping in vain only to slowly turn sour and buy an Intel. Giving people false hope is even worse than the truth.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    17. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I can imagine with the NVidia gameworks shenanigans going on, AMD isn't too keen on showing their inner workings just yet. Not because they are afraid the competition is going to use it to improve its own product, but that they are going to use the knowledge to effectively hamper the performance of AMD hardware.
      http://www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/amd-slams-tragic-nvidia-gameworks-it-even-typically-damages-the-performance-on-nvidia-hardware/036660

    18. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      AMD has hired several prominent contributors from the community, including Tom Stellard and Christian König. They're not as lavish as Intel, but they're still being good contributors.

    19. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They like it if their employees work for free for them, but they do not like outsiders working for free for them, unless specifically requested to do so, in which case it's called subcontracting.

    20. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And idiots on slashdot lap it up, citing how AMD has released a bunch of bullshit specs and talking about how they're going to buy AMD hardware this weekend to support the cause!

  2. Bad move AMD. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please reconsider that...

  3. Score 5: Stupid by r-diddly · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a Vulcan driver... he's very dependable, never a road-rager (except during Pan Faar but I usually just give him the week off).

    1. Re:Score 5: Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I have a Vulcan driver... he's very dependable, never a road-rager (except during Pon Farr but I usually just give him the week off).

      FTFY...

    2. Re:Score 5: Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Canonical adherence to any particular orthographic rendition in Latin script of a language that looks like this is highly illogical.

    3. Re:Score 5: Stupid by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Well, you have to stick to a certain standard transliteration, otherwise it only will end up like this.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
  4. This will likely never be fully OSS by BigBuckHunter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Like the saying goes.... Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a dozen times over the course of two decades, shame on me. I fully expect to be nickel'ed and dime'ed over features like clock-speed, GPU, video transcoding, and thermal management until well after the product's lifecycle.

    1. Re:This will likely never be fully OSS by bug1 · · Score: 0, Troll

      AMD is like capitalism, its terrible, but not as terrible as the alternatives.

  5. Re:Jim Keller leaving by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that it's even later than everyone has already assumed...?

  6. oh boy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But what is the actual problem here? Are the GPU hardware architectures from AMD and Nvidia closed to the public or is it because of the actual software driver?

  7. DRM (disambiguation) by tepples · · Score: 2

    Is it closed source because the Direct Rendering Manager driver has to enforce Digital Restrictions Management in order for things like Netflix to work?

    1. Re:DRM (disambiguation) by Curunir_wolf · · Score: 1

      Is it closed source because the Direct Rendering Manager driver has to enforce Digital Restrictions Management in order for things like Netflix to work?

      In Soviet Russia, Netflix watches YOU!

      --
      "Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
      --- Jerry Garcia
    2. Re:DRM (disambiguation) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No it is probably closed because it was developed from mantle code and needs to be sanitized before it can be opensource. So they will start either writing an all new open driver (like they do for OpenGL extensions) or get the code approved to be opensourced by the managers/lawyers and that takes time. No Digital Restrictions Management in Vulkan.

  8. Re:Jim Keller leaving by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    curious why this was down-modded. Mark Papermaster sent AMD employees a note at 4pm EDT 17/09/2015 announcing that Jim Keller was leaving.

  9. AMD is killing themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There is no reason to keep this closed source. Their developers are obviously morons (proven by the last 20+ years of idiocy). Maybe try actually embracing a new form of software? Seeing as how it shouldn't matter to a hardware company. I mean there are developers chomping at the bit to create badass software for you products. Yet you shun them? WTF?!

    Fucking hell, how many times do you want to shoot yourself in the foot? I hate to see AMD die because there is no other competition to Intel but God Damn they keep pushing it... they are idiots at a level that I can't even describe. I'm continually impressed that they have even stayed in business this long. Morons!

    1. Re:AMD is killing themselves by bugmenot1 · · Score: 1

      The software model is not new, and it's not even uncommon anymore! Stallman was right about them too.

  10. Yay, years more of graphic driver bullshit ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't wait to continue the situation we have now with competing graphics drivers that break in subtly different ways, hoo-bloody-ray.

  11. Re:Open source is overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In which way?

  12. But, will it work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMD's graphics cards' drivers for Linux tend not to work very well, or at all. I don't care if they keep this one closed if they do more like NVidia and put forth drivers that, for the most part, just work.

  13. Fuck off by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I can't see the source I'm not buying it

  14. NO U by bugmenot1 · · Score: 1

    No, fuck YOU, AMD. I'm buying intel.