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Radeon vs. RadeonHD Fighting Continues

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  • #61
    Yep, the ideal seems to be "fork only when there is serious disagreement on technical direction, try both approaches and use the experiences to reach common ground on how to proceed, merge back together, rinse, repeat".
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    • #62
      Originally posted by elanthis View Post
      Welcome to Open Source, dude. We duplicate a lot of stuff. Because that's how you get good software. We have multiple Free Software/Open Source kernels, We have multiple desktop environments. Multiple word processors. Multiple everything, really. And the Free Software ecosystem is better for it.

      Competition is good. For example, it lets developers try out radically different approaches to solving a problem (like with radeon vs radeonhd) and determine which one is best. The alternative would be to just make a decision and have no way to find out if it was the right one. RadeonHD has taken work from Radeon, and vice versa. Without both projects existing, it is entirely reasonable to assume that we might not have a driver as far along as either of them.
      This is flat wrong. Competition is bad, the only reason to compete is when you're denied the opportunity to cooperate. Open source works because of an open exchange of ideas. Competitors don't exchange ideas freely, only collaborators do. Competing is what you're forced to do when everyone is closed-source proprietary, and nobody tells anyone else what they're up to. It's a waste of resources, it retards the advancement of technology, and it's just plain stupid.

      Duplication of effort is ALWAYS wrong.

      And just because you have a single *end-product* doesn't mean you can't go off and create experimental branches to test new ideas. All of our revision control systems facilitate branching and merging. Again, the tools need to do that because that independent development is essential to the nature of *distributed* development. But endless proliferation of branches always weakens a project as a whole, which is why merging back is so important.

      Competition is BAD. Multiple projects that duplicate effort to accomplish the same goal is BAD. *Single* projects composed of a broad group of developers with diverse viewpoints working toward a common goal is GOOD.

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      • #63
        Originally posted by bugmenot View Post
        Ah, I have a 780G chipset too, and here both drivers work. (though radeon crashed the whole computer while trying to rotate, did not try with radonhd) Did you report a bug to the radeonhd devs?


        Yes, there are some benefits. But there are also bad sides: If radeonhd does not work for you, you *maybe* report no bug to radeonhd, just because radeon works. And if a newbie tries to install a linux distri with radeonhd by default and gets no X because he has your hardware config and you did not report the bug because you know how to switch to radeon. So it *can* be bad for the end user experience.

        By dropping radeonhd from the default build script?

        Some hardware works good with both drivers, other hardware better with radeonhd, other hardware only with radeon. If there was only one driver there would be a better chance that your hardware configuration works.
        (because potential bugs are more likely reported)
        I'm pretty sure everyone here knows my views, for those who dont, I've been saying for a while Novell needs to $%^&# off, and ATi needs to hire there devs. I think all of the developers involved deserve an awefull lot of credit. Though I think RadeonHD is a waste of time. Instead of working around in worthless circles accomplishing nothing, all of those guys need to get on Radeon right now. ASAP. Time is running out. End of story. The bottom line is that you guys can keep wasting time developing dead end code paths or you can get on the ball and start contributing something positive.... There --IS-- enough paralellism to support more devs on the same team. Throwing more people at the problem isnt going to solve it. But, throwing more people at specific problems will... And despite what some people would have you believe there are plenty of specific problems to choose from.

        Larrabee gets closer everyday, And if ATi doesnt have some kick ass unbeatable solution by then, they will lose the entire linux market. Period.

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        • #64
          Originally posted by highlandsun View Post
          This is flat wrong. Competition is bad, the only reason to compete is when you're denied the opportunity to cooperate. Open source works because of an open exchange of ideas. Competitors don't exchange ideas freely, only collaborators do. Competing is what you're forced to do when everyone is closed-source proprietary, and nobody tells anyone else what they're up to. It's a waste of resources, it retards the advancement of technology, and it's just plain stupid.

          Duplication of effort is ALWAYS wrong.

          And just because you have a single *end-product* doesn't mean you can't go off and create experimental branches to test new ideas. All of our revision control systems facilitate branching and merging. Again, the tools need to do that because that independent development is essential to the nature of *distributed* development. But endless proliferation of branches always weakens a project as a whole, which is why merging back is so important.

          Competition is BAD. Multiple projects that duplicate effort to accomplish the same goal is BAD. *Single* projects composed of a broad group of developers with diverse viewpoints working toward a common goal is GOOD.
          I have to highly disagree with you on pretty much everything you just said.

          When I think of Open Source I think of the GPL. It's the first license that comes to mind. And when I think of the GPL, I think of free market principles. Which, is exactly what the GPL was based on. The idea behind the GPL is to prevent power from accumulating in one spot. It's an attempt to de-monopolize the software industry. It does so by providing a copy-left agreement that makes possible and encourages competition by allowing you to fork projects. Provided that the conditions of the GPL are met, you can split that code and start developing it yourself. In direct competition.

          The GPL is based on free market principles, and free market principles require competition.

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          • #65
            So what exactly are you trying to prove? That obeying GPL is a target 'per se' here? (instead of having fully-functional Open Source ATI driver)
            Combined forces (cooperation) are ALWAYS better option when you want to achieve some goal - not competition.

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            • #66
              Originally posted by reavertm View Post
              So what exactly are you trying to prove? That obeying GPL is a target 'per se' here? (instead of having fully-functional Open Source ATI driver)
              Combined forces (cooperation) are ALWAYS better option when you want to achieve some goal - not competition.
              I have to disagree with you.

              In this case I think they should merge efforts and work together. But the reason I think that is simply because there isnt enough man power to support two different teams.

              Listen cooperation is definitely --NOT-- always better.... Are you going to cooperate when someone tells you to jump off a bridge?

              Are you going to cooperate when you've got an 8 years old product that hasnt been updated or improved, and no future product in development? This is what happens with monopolies. This is what the GPL was designed to prevent. Only competition can foster new idea's and innovation. Competition, not cooperation drives technology forward. Cooperation stagnates innovation, and kills competition.

              EDIT: And yes obeying the GPL is exactly the target..Not just "per se" exactly. It all comes back to free market principles, and a monopoly is not a free market.
              Last edited by duby229; 23 October 2008, 07:42 PM.

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              • #67
                double post sorry guys.
                Last edited by duby229; 23 October 2008, 06:16 PM.

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                • #68
                  Originally posted by MostAwesomeDude View Post
                  Could you explain a bit further? There's only a tiny bit of stuff missing from the r5xx support, and it's all pretty trivial/non-important (color controls for textured video, dynamic powersaving), and also missing from radeonhd, too.
                  Sounds cool. Does that mean new stuff has happened since last update of http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature ?

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                  • #69
                    Unless radeon and radeonhd are somehow radically different in their approach to the problem there doesn't seem to be much point in developing both.

                    However the people who volunteer their time to a project are free to do whatever they want. Of course if someone thinks it's a stupid idea they are also free to tell them that.

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                    • #70
                      Originally posted by highlandsun View Post
                      This is flat wrong. Competition is bad, the only reason to compete is when you're denied the opportunity to cooperate.
                      Again, wrong. Sometimes you don't want to cooperate. Sometimes you want to do things totally and absolutely differently.

                      Like, for instance, using AtomBIOS -- which radeonhd ignored for months. Or using CS, which only radeonhd is using at the moment. And so on.

                      Quite simply, the radeon and radeonhd WANT to compete, otherwise they WOULD be cooperating, because nobody is denying them the opportunity.

                      Open source works because of an open exchange of ideas. Competitors don't exchange ideas freely, only collaborators do.
                      Clearly you're living in a different reality, since we're talking about two competing Open Source projects.

                      Competing is what you're forced to do when everyone is closed-source proprietary, and nobody tells anyone else what they're up to. It's a waste of resources, it retards the advancement of technology, and it's just plain stupid.
                      By that logic, having any kind of discussion is just plain stupid. Everyone should automatically agree and automatically take the same approach to solving the same problems. I mean, it's dumb for two people to waste time thinking about opposing ideas when clearly they could have spent that same time and effort just working on one of those two ideas without the discussion, right?

                      That's what competition in Open Source code is. A debate. A debate that is worth far, far more than slinging words about, because it's a conversation in which ideas are expressed in code and in which winners are measured by results.

                      Code is just ideas. Two projects competing to solve the same problems is no different than two people debating two ideas to the solution. The code fork just happens to be more effective at actually reaching a conclusion.

                      In some cases, those conclusions result in a merger. Or the death of a branch. In other cases, both ideas continue to live on because there simply isn't a conclusion.

                      Take KDE vs GNOME. There is no winner. KDE and GNOME are both desktop environments -- and the naive make claims about wasted effort and duplicate work -- but the real fact of the matter is that each desktop project represents a different ideal of how a desktop should be constructed and how it should interact with users, and there is no easy conclusion that can result in a single codebase.

                      I don't think anybody expects radeon and radeonhd to live on forever. But they are still competing -- and with real results to show for that effort -- because neither camp knows for a fact that they have the "right way" of doing things. They might think their way is right, but it hasn't been proven.

                      It's only going to ever be solved by actually having the competing code bases to judge. You can't know whether one way is right or not without actually giving it a try.

                      But endless proliferation of branches always weakens a project as a whole, which is why merging back is so important.
                      Which isn't always possible. You can't merge two completely divergent approaches to solving a problem. It's the definition of unmergeable. Sure, you could slap both approaches into a single tree somewhere and add in a ton of build framework code and runtime logic to switch between internal approaches or something, but it's quite silly to think of that as better than just having two different packages that can (and do) merge code back and forth when possible and desired.

                      Competition is BAD. Multiple projects that duplicate effort to accomplish the same goal is BAD. *Single* projects composed of a broad group of developers with diverse viewpoints working toward a common goal is GOOD.
                      Technically, it IS a single project -- the X.org project. It IS a broad group of developers with diverse viewpoints working toward a common goal (getting Radeon R500/R600/R700 working flawlessly).

                      You seem to be implying that the radeon and radeonhd developers aren't aiming for the same thing. Or maybe you're implying that the fact the radeon and radeonhd drivers aren't just two separate folders in the same git tree is evil. You're DEFINITELY making it clear that you don't understand the word "competition" and that you seem to think it means "cutting throats and killing each other solely for the sake of being the winner despite the actual results," which is totally off the rocker.

                      ALL successful ideas -- be they software, machines, medicine, or even biological lifeforms -- are built by pitting opposing ideas against each other and seeing which is the winner. It is the very most fundamental principle of scientific research, the cornerstone of natural evolution, and the only true way to build the best software. Homogenized development does not fetter out the bad ideas, it does not challenge developers to build higher, and it encourages stagnation.

                      The fight between radeon and radeonhd will die when it is naturally time for it do so. That will happen when one driver falls entirely behind the other because its approach turned out to be a dead end, or when both drivers are already practically identical in all aspects because they've pulled the best ideas out of each other.

                      For all intents and purposes, radeon and radeonhd are just two experimental forks within the same over-arching project exploring possible solutions to a single component problem. You're just getting confused because they don't share a git tree.

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