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The State Of Open-Source Radeon Driver Features

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  • Post docs and code, not excuses!

    Bridgman writes:
    > I was probably insane before I came here...

    The first step is admitting that you need help. And sure enough
    you are getting better:

    > Yeah, we've been thinking of switching to BSD.

    It has been several years now and still power management needs
    significant work, and UVD has no support whatsoever? How many
    generations of hardware have come out in this time? You could
    have easily changed the hardware to make it easy to document
    UVD. And what exactly is the reason for lousy power management?
    Do the power companies have compromising photos of you?

    Releasing docs bought you a lot of goodwill initially, but it has
    been too little too slowly. "It is soooo haaaaarrrrrd!" What,
    are you 3 years old? We customers are tired of the excuses.
    Your window is rapidly closing. Nouveau has video decoding, by
    reverse engineering, and you can't provide it even with insider
    information? And there are *multiple* projects reverse engineering
    other existing chips. And there are *multiple* projects designing
    new chips that will be completely open from day 1.

    If you want sales, I have a suggestion: spend less time posting the
    same excuse 6700 times and more time posting documentation and code.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by bridgman View Post
      I was probably insane before I came here... I volunteered to set up and lead the open source effort
      I am not insane...

      I am insane, when you, sir limit the driver development.

      Ok, I can understand (halfway) why the UVD interface is blocked.. Hollywood makes Linux-based Bluray players, but fails to produce interface so Linux users can buy and watch Bluray. They don't want our money and want us to torrent their films..! Okay.

      I am also *okay* with MESA development rate.

      But presegmenting the driver development as already sub-class, in fact TWO TIMES, this is just not gonna work. This is Ratner Effect. People will not work happily on from-begin sub-class driver that is doomed to loose to FGLRX anyway no matter what. I am totally *not okay* with that.

      You will have to motivate people to use your driver, in order for your opensource strategy to be successful. I totally don't see it...

      Instead, you silently push FGLRX, which always was broken pile of code, you suddenly decided to rewrite, knowing that even in top state it will never be more advantageous than existing nvidia blob(!) So, you use corporate resources to achieve zero advantage(!).. I don't get it..

      Why don't you use opensource driver as base for cross-OS development, prefering in-house solution instead? You are automatically limiting OS support to steam engines. When the resulting driver is underperforming you claim opensource strategy may not work out.

      But when microsoft releases another forced-preinstalled failure to the market, you magically want to support it ASAP holding everything else off. That, in fact, does not surprise me.

      I don't get it. You (AMD) are supposed to seek new markets, expand the marketshare and stimulate the sells. Instead, you offer one sub-class product and a sub-class legacy development as an addition...

      Very well if you spend more money on opensource than anybody, but what about everything above? From consumer standpoint its like demanding people to buy a bad-working product (so marketshare grows) in order to produce drivers for it, which are already told to be crap and suddenly dropping it from priority list or threating to abort because CUSTOMERS are misbehaving.

      I am sure anyone who does this on windows market, Osbornes the windows marketshare in just one year.

      I registered here because of AMD card and I end it after several years because of AMD card.
      Policies like this are not going to work, regardless of which market.

      You gotta LOVE what you do, or it will never show results, unless its that what you expect from the beginning.

      Why am I "insane", well, the higher you expect - the harder you fall, the louder you yell... the longer you remember.
      I am also extremely thankful to all people who contribute to open stack and it was never anything different.

      That said, its my last post on Phoronix, just because there is little point talking to a vendor who is very respositive, yet who's completely not behind it.
      Like in this story (you don't need to know the language to understand the meaning)

      Comment


      • Well, since the rise of ARM, how AMD see porting FGRLX to other platform CPU architectures. Moreover there was a story that VALVE are very excited about open source intel linux driver, and they actually managed to find bug in it. Debugging and seeing what's in the driver allowed them to profile their engine port like no one before.
        I am sure that if AMD had open source windows driver, there would be no R.A.G.E. fiasco. After all Carmack is not the average graphics programmer. Proprietary drivers are so 90's, and they have no future. Intel got that. AMD will get it, the hard way.
        Last edited by Drago; 18 January 2013, 07:27 PM. Reason: typo

        Comment


        • Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
          I am not insane...

          I am insane, when you, sir limit the driver development.

          Ok, I can understand (halfway) why the UVD interface is blocked.. Hollywood makes Linux-based Bluray players, but fails to produce interface so Linux users can buy and watch Bluray. They don't want our money and want us to torrent their films..! Okay.

          I am also *okay* with MESA development rate.

          But presegmenting the driver development as already sub-class, in fact TWO TIMES, this is just not gonna work. This is Ratner Effect. People will not work happily on from-begin sub-class driver that is doomed to loose to FGLRX anyway no matter what. I am totally *not okay* with that.

          You will have to motivate people to use your driver, in order for your opensource strategy to be successful. I totally don't see it...

          Instead, you silently push FGLRX, which always was broken pile of code, you suddenly decided to rewrite, knowing that even in top state it will never be more advantageous than existing nvidia blob(!) So, you use corporate resources to achieve zero advantage(!).. I don't get it..

          Why don't you use opensource driver as base for cross-OS development, prefering in-house solution instead? You are automatically limiting OS support to steam engines. When the resulting driver is underperforming you claim opensource strategy may not work out.

          But when microsoft releases another forced-preinstalled failure to the market, you magically want to support it ASAP holding everything else off. That, in fact, does not surprise me.

          I don't get it. You (AMD) are supposed to seek new markets, expand the marketshare and stimulate the sells. Instead, you offer one sub-class product and a sub-class legacy development as an addition...

          Very well if you spend more money on opensource than anybody, but what about everything above? From consumer standpoint its like demanding people to buy a bad-working product (so marketshare grows) in order to produce drivers for it, which are already told to be crap and suddenly dropping it from priority list or threating to abort because CUSTOMERS are misbehaving.

          I am sure anyone who does this on windows market, Osbornes the windows marketshare in just one year.

          I registered here because of AMD card and I end it after several years because of AMD card.
          Policies like this are not going to work, regardless of which market.

          You gotta LOVE what you do, or it will never show results, unless its that what you expect from the beginning.

          Why am I "insane", well, the higher you expect - the harder you fall, the louder you yell... the longer you remember.
          I am also extremely thankful to all people who contribute to open stack and it was never anything different.

          That said, its my last post on Phoronix, just because there is little point talking to a vendor who is very respositive, yet who's completely not behind it.
          Like in this story (you don't need to know the language to understand the meaning)
          I've come to the conclusion that it is obvious that Bridgman doesnt like the OSS drivers and he uses the OSS community as an excuse for not liking the drivers. (Which is kind of odd because of his position)

          So at this point I've pretty much just decided to stop saying anything at all to him and I would suggest you do the same. Anything that we say to him is going to just inflame his opinion even more. Inflaming his opinion would hurt us because of the position that he is in. So really all OSS advocates wopuld be better off to try and stay on his good side. The only way I can see to do that is by not saying anything at all. You know that old saying, if you don't have something nice to say, then just dont say anything.
          Last edited by duby229; 18 January 2013, 08:01 PM.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by bridgman View Post
            ... aaaaand this gets back into the question of "what do you mean by better" ? Improved static PM (which is more of a challenge for APUs), or just keep pushing on advanced DPM and hope we can release that ?

            Right now we're focusing on advanced DPM as a priority but that just means it makes progress, doesn't guarantee it will happen or make it happen "real fast".
            Well, dynamic PM for the start... it's pretty bad if you can't even use the GPU at full clock! Also, please don't keep on pushing the profile approach as acceptable, it's not. Automatic frequency scaling is a must.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by duby229 View Post
              I've come to the conclusion that it is obvious that Bridgman doesnt like the OSS drivers and he uses the OSS community as an excuse for not liking the drivers. (Which is kind of odd because of his position)

              So at this point I've pretty much just decided to stop saying anything at all to him and I would suggest you do the same. Anything that we say to him is going to just inflame his opinion even more. Inflaming his opinion would hurt us because of the position that he is in. So really all OSS advocates wopuld be better off to try and stay on his good side. The only way I can see to do that is by not saying anything at all. You know that old saying, if you don't have something nice to say, then just dont say anything.
              You both guys just sound like whiny children. Posting manipulative post to try and make Bridgman feel bad in order to booster the open source drivers is no only completely see through but will have no affect what so ever. I understand your frustration but you clearly have no understanding of IT from a corporate viewpoint. If there is one thing I have learn from being a developer for the passed decade it is that its extremely hard to convince management to make changes even when its a very good idea to do so, and changing from a closed development process to an open one is a huge change so I fully understand why things are constantly stalled. Changing a persons mindset is a very difficult thing to do, and when you are dealing with management which typically doesn't always have a technology background yet gets to make all the final decisions changing minds becomes all the more difficult.

              Personally I'm very grateful that Bridgman is thick skinned enough to take all the flak he gets in his stride, and still provide us with feedback.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by brent View Post
                Well, dynamic PM for the start... it's pretty bad if you can't even use the GPU at full clock! Also, please don't keep on pushing the profile approach as acceptable, it's not. Automatic frequency scaling is a must.
                OK, so what you want is what we're working on. Good.

                The only reason I talked about the profile approach was that it could have happened sooner, ie earlier than dynamic PM, and that people kept asking questions about it. At this point I don't think it's worth working on unless it turns out we can't expose dynamic PM for some reason. Not sure why you think I'm "pushing it".

                crazycheese -- do you understand that I have absolutely nothing to do with fglrx development other than occasionally passing problems I see on the forums to the development team ?

                duby229 -- what in the world could possibly make you think I don't like the open source drivers ? The fact that you concluded this from reading crazycheese's post is a bit disturbing
                Last edited by bridgman; 18 January 2013, 09:28 PM.
                Test signature

                Comment


                • Originally posted by timothyja View Post
                  You both guys just sound like whiny children. Posting manipulative post to try and make Bridgman feel bad in order to booster the open source drivers is no only completely see through but will have no affect what so ever. I understand your frustration but you clearly have no understanding of IT from a corporate viewpoint. If there is one thing I have learn from being a developer for the passed decade it is that its extremely hard to convince management to make changes even when its a very good idea to do so, and changing from a closed development process to an open one is a huge change so I fully understand why things are constantly stalled. Changing a persons mindset is a very difficult thing to do, and when you are dealing with management which typically doesn't always have a technology background yet gets to make all the final decisions changing minds becomes all the more difficult.
                  Hi, I am going to break the rule for just one post to you.

                  I too encountered exactly same situation of "stubborn management", "corporate viewpoint" and "stalled things/minds/mindsets".
                  The morale I got however, is extremely different from yours.
                  I just let the founders of iD Software explain it:


                  GL

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by crazycheese View Post
                    Hi, I am going to break the rule for just one post to you.

                    I too encountered exactly same situation of "stubborn management", "corporate viewpoint" and "stalled things/minds/mindsets".
                    The morale I got however, is extremely different from yours.
                    I just let the founders of iD Software explain it:


                    GL
                    That post is in no way relevant to the conversation about open source drivers. I do not disagree with what they did many successful company's have been born in a similar fashion however that situation does not apply here. Are you suggesting the open source radeon devs should start there own company?

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by timothyja View Post
                      You both guys just sound like whiny children. Posting manipulative post to try and make Bridgman feel bad in order to booster the open source drivers is no only completely see through but will have no affect what so ever. I understand your frustration but you clearly have no understanding of IT from a corporate viewpoint. If there is one thing I have learn from being a developer for the passed decade it is that its extremely hard to convince management to make changes even when its a very good idea to do so, and changing from a closed development process to an open one is a huge change so I fully understand why things are constantly stalled. Changing a persons mindset is a very difficult thing to do, and when you are dealing with management which typically doesn't always have a technology background yet gets to make all the final decisions changing minds becomes all the more difficult.

                      Personally I'm very grateful that Bridgman is thick skinned enough to take all the flak he gets in his stride, and still provide us with feedback.
                      Yes. Seriously, grow up people.

                      Thank you Bridgman for having the patience of a saint. I had hoped with Q's dismissal this kind of shenanigans would have died down. It does a disservice to us all.

                      Comment

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