The Truth About AMD's Development Cycle

[niniendowarrior]

The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux is now finalized and is waiting a final review by AMD just to make sure I didn't expose their deeply inner secrets. Expect it to FINALLY go live this coming Friday!

About time. I do wonder if AMD will want this article spun in a particular way... but oh well... that's just me thinking aloud.

[Vakilik]

The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux is now finalized and is waiting a final review by AMD just to make sure I didn't expose their deeply inner secrets. Expect it to FINALLY go live this coming Friday!

About time AMD put it through, should be a great article man. Can't wait.

[Moustacha]

huzzah!!!!!

[Michael]

The Truth About ATI/AMD & Linux is now finalized and is waiting a final review by AMD just to make sure I didn't expose their deeply inner secrets. Expect it to FINALLY go live this coming Friday!

[joshuapurcell]

Well, I'm the first to get stuck in the roof for jumping around like an idiot, once these drivers have been released, but somehow, I kind of doubt that they'll open source their drivers. "Open graphics drivers" (e.g. what got announced at the RH-conference) could mean anything.

Not only the definition of "open source drivers" could be different than what people expect, but the open source drivers could come out and we find out that ATI cards still perform worse than Nvidia. It's a huge step forward and I'm excited for what it could mean, but it hasn't happened yet and nobody knows exactly what it will do for Linux gaming. Still, anything is better than nothing... and we may all be pleasantly surprised (I hope).

[Huenengrab]

I also think that this company has proved they are much more interested in the open source community than their competition due to their promise to provide open source drivers.

Well, I'm the first to get stuck in the roof for jumping around like an idiot, once these drivers have been released, but somehow, I kind of doubt that they'll open source their drivers. "Open graphics drivers" (e.g. what got announced at the RH-conference) could mean anything.

[joshuapurcell]

At any rate, I understand what you're saying, but I still disagree that they cannot/should not share more information with the public about their *nix-driver efforts.

If anything, their public image in the free/open-source community would improve, and people would badmouth ATI products less. This might lead to healthier future sales as their brand-value improves with a growing market for linux PC's (as demonstrated by Dell's recent announcement to start selling Ubuntu-based PC's).

While I also agree that more information would be better for those of us consumers who are interested using AMD products under Linux, I also think that this company has proved they are much more interested in the open source community than their competition due to their promise to provide open source drivers. I think this step goes much further towards helping their image than any document they will be providing (although the doc is still relevant of course).

My next card will no doubt be an AMD/ATI card... in fact I may replace my current card once the drivers are released. I'll still have to take performance into account, so I'm looking forward to future benchmarks.

[emparq]

AMD needs to remain competitive and one of the ways they do that is by not showing all of their cards at once. By saying such a thing as they will be delivering a new OpenGL driver in August followed by providing the source code to their 2D components, that would give NVIDIA several months time to respond with a new driver feature or what have you (NOTE: the statements used in this sentence are for example purposes only).

And as for secrets for other things like new products, as Advanced Micro Devices is a publicly traded company they have regulations that they must conform with such as with press releases, etc.

As far as your other questions, they will hopefully be addressed in this upcoming article.

Sure, but this is software and drivers support we're talking about- not their bread-and-butter new products that will be hitting the market soon. I understand the need to keep those types of secrets, as new products are what keep them afloat. But sadly, even here, they're doing a better job of keeping the public informed of what's in the pipeline.

At any rate, I understand what you're saying, but I still disagree that they cannot/should not share more information with the public about their *nix-driver efforts.

If anything, their public image in the free/open-source community would improve, and people would badmouth ATI products less. This might lead to healthier future sales as their brand-value improves with a growing market for linux PC's (as demonstrated by Dell's recent announcement to start selling Ubuntu-based PC's).

[Svartalf]

That is good news. However, I think this also demonstrates a truth about AMD/ATI's management and their decision-making policies.

How long ago did you first contact AMD/ATI, Michael? I imagine that this was sometime back in February? And now, only in the middle of May (5/18), do they finally get the final sign-off?

I really hope that this delay period was just an extreme case of nondecision/bureaucracy within AMD/ATI's management structure.

Not an extreme case- the norm, unfortunately.

[Michael]

Cool, I'm psyched to hear that (that AMD/ATI proactively approached you.. not so much the part about the engineering management having to go through so many hurdles).

That underscores my point though, that there's certainly room for improvement in whatever process is controlling their public relations- at least as it concerns their *nix-related development.

What I don't understand though, is why the secrets in the first place? Even if they don't have anything to show us just yet, why not let their developers or marketing people blog or interview about their near-term driver development goals or roadmap?

As you pointed out on Chris Blizzard's blog here, AMD/ATI Marketing guy Henri Richard said that they "committed to fixing the ATI problems with open source." That certainly sounds great, but what does that mean exactly? Better binary (fglrx) drivers? Opening up hardware documentation so that open-source developers can actually write truly open drivers?

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Why keep this type of information secret? Why not just tell us, what they're planning on doing, what they've done so far to get there, and when/how often we can expect to hear news or updates on the development process? That right there would already be a giant first step towards rebuilding their good-faith with the *nix community, even if they aren't delivering on their promises just yet.

But at any rate, I suppose that these slides are essentially just that- AMD/ATI trying to be more open about what they're doing and their near-term goals. I really hope so.

But I guess we'll (finally) find out soon.

AMD needs to remain competitive and one of the ways they do that is by not showing all of their cards at once. By saying such a thing as they will be delivering a new OpenGL driver in August followed by providing the source code to their 2D components, that would give NVIDIA several months time to respond with a new driver feature or what have you (NOTE: the statements used in this sentence are for example purposes only).

And as for secrets for other things like new products, as Advanced Micro Devices is a publicly traded company they have regulations that they must conform with such as with press releases, etc.

As far as your other questions, they will hopefully be addressed in this upcoming article.