Open ATI R600/700 3D Graphics For Christmas?

[rbmorse]

Duby, you should write to your law school and ask for your money back.

[val-gaav]

I wonder why this is yet another topic that turned into DRM debate.

Really I don't like DRM, I don't want it on Linux, preferably I don't want it in my hardware (because I will not use it anyway) however talking about it over and over again is really boring at this point. This is yet another thread with the same arguments, the same opinions and since it's like the 4th or 5th time I'm seeing this here in ATI boards I'm having a really strong deja vu right now....

[duby229]

Duby, you should write to your law school and ask for your money back.

And that is the reason why it'll prolly never happen.... You can choose to be oppressed, but I refuse thank you very much...

[elanthis]

Duby, being ignorant of the law and making wild claims that fly in the complete face of reality does not mean you refuse to be repressed. It just means you refuse to actually go through the effort to fix things. You'd apparently rather hope that AMD will do all the work for you, while you probably still buy DRM'd DVDs and buy iPods and buy video cards with HDCP and CPUs with TPM and watch streaming movies and play games on consoles gaming machines and otherwise keep throwing money at all the parties involved in making DRM a reality.

You sit on your ass at home posting nonsense on a forum populated almost entirely by Linux users who already hate DRM instead of actually making an effort to go out and protest and evangelize to people who don't know the evils of DRM.

I'd be surprised if you've ever even written a letter to a Senator... or even just bothered to send a form letter from an organization like the EFF.

You've probably never donated to the EFF, for that matter, or any other anti-DRM organization.

Instead you just blabber on about how AMD is supposed to break numerous contractual obligations and then go and win a series of high-dollar legal cases proving that they somehow magically didn't, all so that you don't actually have to do anything, or even take the time to educate yourself on the basic facts of the situation.

Congratulations, you're part of the problem.

[duby229]

Duby, being ignorant of the law and making wild claims that fly in the complete face of reality does not mean you refuse to be repressed. It just means you refuse to actually go through the effort to fix things. You'd apparently rather hope that AMD will do all the work for you, while you probably still buy DRM'd DVDs and buy iPods and buy video cards with HDCP and CPUs with TPM and watch streaming movies and play games on consoles gaming machines and otherwise keep throwing money at all the parties involved in making DRM a reality.

You sit on your ass at home posting nonsense on a forum populated almost entirely by Linux users who already hate DRM instead of actually making an effort to go out and protest and evangelize to people who don't know the evils of DRM.

I'd be surprised if you've ever even written a letter to a Senator... or even just bothered to send a form letter from an organization like the EFF.

You've probably never donated to the EFF, for that matter, or any other anti-DRM organization.

Instead you just blabber on about how AMD is supposed to break numerous contractual obligations and then go and win a series of high-dollar legal cases proving that they somehow magically didn't, all so that you don't actually have to do anything, or even take the time to educate yourself on the basic facts of the situation.

Congratulations, you're part of the problem.

I guess you know me huh? Funny how this turns into a personal attack. So I'm part of the problem eh? It amazes me how ignorant you are. At least I've taken the opportunity to make a suggestion to like minded individuals... You on the other hand choose to make personal attacks... Keep up the great work please....

I've spoken with my district representative on this issue --IN PERSON-- I dont use windows. I buy movies and then immediately convert them into an open format. I buy Music and them immediately convert them into an open format. I've contacted the RIAA, and the MPAA and voiced my opinion. I've done what I can personally do. I wish I was more powerful then I am, but I'm not. I'm just one average guy doing my small part.

And you actually want to talk about ignorant of the law? Are you kidding me? The basic facts are freely available and well documented. We actually have at least 7 other similar cases (4 of which were about book publishers, the other 3 were more recent about software(all of which came down to the superiority argument)) that have been ruled on in the past 100 years, and all with favorable results. 4 of our supreme justices have publicly stated that they believe the DMCA to be unconstitutional. We've got at least 100 years of case law and almost half of the highest court in the land telling us that DRM is just plain wrong.

I've done the part that I can, now it's time for those persons and companies that have the ability to make a difference to do something. ATi is one of them.

My interests are computers. ATi is a computer hardware manufacturer. And so I concentrate my efforts on the field that I know. If I was a Doctor, I'd concentrate my efforts in medicine. If I was a lawyer, I'd concentrate my efforts in law.... Fortunately I know that I have a small role to play... Unlike you, at least I'm playing my role to the loudest and best of my abilities...

I'd say that your the one that is contributing to the problem by not making --any-- attempts to counter it... My attempts may be meager, but at least I'm trying...

edited to remove some inflammatory junk.

[elanthis]

I was out line for me to be making assumptions that you weren't a true activist. My truest apologies. (I can't help but feel compelled to note that ripping a DVD to a free format does not in any way negate the original purchase of the DRMed media, thereby financially rewarding the producers, publishers, and manufacturers of said media.)

The law issues are still relevant. Forget the DMCA, it has absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It's purely a question of contractual obligations, and to a lesser extent, market forces. It doesn't matter if there is a law endorsing DRM or not as the fact is that AMD has had to sign contracts in order to be allowed to make use of certain patented technologies in their hardware and drivers and in order to make use of certain trademarks in their advertising materials, not to mention getting Microsoft's past and current technological and marketing support.

The problem is, quite simply, that AMD has already gone to bed with DRM proponents. It had to, or else it would have slowly gone out of business. Now it has no way to change its mind without facing severe penalties.

The market forces are quite simple. Consumers want hardware that supports their HDCP-capable HDTV and monitors, that supports their Blu-ray players, and supports various DRM'd application stacks. AMD either had to sign or they had to exit the graphics business. Likewise, they really did have to jump on the bandwagon with TPM or risk potentially losing the desktop CPU market.

That is why I spoke about the hypocrisy in buying new hardware or DVDs or the like. If people spend even a single cent on these technologies then they are helping to back companies like AMD into a corner, forcing them to play along. These purchases are also reinforcing the market's acceptance of DRM, which in turn reduces AMD's incentive to fight it at all -- why should they spend money to stop DRM when their customers keep handing over big wads of cash to buy hardware that supports HDCP?

AMD *CANNOT* fight directly against DRM in a court of law. It has no options here. None. To even try would likely violate a ton of contracts which -- even if they managed to bring down the DMCA in the process -- would still result in a crippling sum of civil fines from their business partners. Afterward, their hardware would lose Microsoft's backing, they'd lose the legal ability to use certain patented connector types, they'd lose the legal ability to include VC-1/h.264 decoding in their video acceleration, and then they'd no longer be able to compete against NVIDIA or Intel or even Via/S3 in any significant graphics market. They might be able to win an anti-competition lawsuit against those partners, but the proceedings alone would take years, and by then AMD would already have lost enough cash and market share to be doomed to irrelevance, if not bankruptcy. There are plenty of examples of cases that have worked out exactly that way, unfortunately.

This is why we're saying your legal claims are so off, Duby. You're focusing entirely on one totally irrelevant issue -- the DMCA and related federal laws -- and ignoring the remainder of the corporate legal reasons why AMD cannot fight this fight.

The absolute most that we can possibly hope for out of AMD is some help lobbying Congress and the MPAA and some help evangelizing to regular consumers, but first we're going to have to make that financially advantageous for AMD. Buying their hardware and then complaining that parts of it don't work in Linux is NOT a solid argument; AMD already got the cash, and they know they'll get more the next time hardware is in need of an upgrade. Even if a handful of executives at AMD decided to fight the good fight, they're actually still required to support the stock-holders' interests, or risk being forcibly removed from their positions. And stock holders as a rule only care about the bottom line.

Only by having enough people refuse to upgrade to hardware that supports these objectionable technologies -- which means giving up a lot of things, like new games -- are companies like AMD going to actually feel any real pressure to do something about DRM. Until then, the profit/risk ratio is totally in favor of playing along with the MPAA and Microsoft, and at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of us just aren't willing to do that. Myself included, I will admit. This doesn't mean that we don't care about fighting DRM. It just means that we've irrevocably proven to AMD that it's not their job to fight it. Since we're willing to buy their DRM-supporting hardware, we're going to have to find other venues of fighting DRM, such as refusing to subscribe to DRMed media services or buy DRMed media, or lobbying our representatives directly, or sitting on our asses hoping for some huge and rich entity to come out and do it all for us (I do not recommend betting on this one).

AMD isn't our champion. Simple as that.

[duby229]

I'm not saying that ATi is the sole solution, but I still think they can be part of it. You think that it's going to cost a whole bunch of money, and kill the company, but I think it's going to save them millions, and greatly expand there potential market into new fields that are currently impossible due to DRM.

Right now DRM massively limits what content, players, and yes even hardware can be used.... I think it's in ATi's best interest to fight against DRM in any way that it can. Even going along with DRM, they are limited mostly to PC's and hardware players. There are at least 5 other form factors I can think of right now that are off limits, that ATi could gain new income from if DRM was gone. And that's just off the top of my head....

DRM is costing AMD money to implement, and vastly limiting the market penetration that ATi is capable of achieving.

[energyman]

is there a way to automatically ignore users?

[Zhick]

@energyman: Yes, there's an menu option "Edit Ignore-List" in the User CP.

@duby: Please stop bringing up the drm-discussion in every single thread.

[energyman]

Zhick, thanks a lot!