RadeonHD Driver Takes A Blow In Novell Layoffs

[duby229]

Thats some pretty exciting stuff there. The open source world just keeps getting brighter and brighter

[sreyan]

I've done some reading on Bilski, but I cant quite grasp what the implications are. I'm not a patent lawyer and unfortunately I dont understand much of the terminology being thrown around in the blogs. Is there an english interpretation in laymans terms that you can point me to?

Groklaw has tons on bilski, but the article that summarizes what it means in terms of MS's patent portfolio is here:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081102011538422

[duby229]

Of course we'd all like to know the patents in question, since In re Bilski probably makes many of them worthless. Given that, the actual numberer of real patents that free software users can be threatened with is probably an order of magnitude smaller.

I recall at one point a bunch of big corporations agreed to use their patent portfolio as a deterrent. Other than MS suing some gps manufacturer, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

I've done some reading on Bilski, but I cant quite grasp what the implications are. I'm not a patent lawyer and unfortunately I dont understand much of the terminology being thrown around in the blogs. Is there an english interpretation in laymans terms that you can point me to?

[sreyan]

The problem is that Novell sold out the open source world to get it. I'd like to see what these 200 patents are.... How many of those patents are broken by Novell in projects like Mono, which they conveniently pass the blame to the open source world as a whole.

They infringe on other companies patents, then they dont tell us what those patents are, and then actually have the gall to blame the rest of us for it.... I mean jeez...

If you dont think that is a coordinated plan to ruin open source then your blind.

Of course we'd all like to know the patents in question, since In re Bilski probably makes many of them worthless. Given that, the actual numberer of real patents that free software users can be threatened with is probably an order of magnitude smaller.

I recall at one point a bunch of big corporations agreed to use their patent portfolio as a deterrent. Other than MS suing some gps manufacturer, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[duby229]

Having been employed largely in the windows world it pains me to admit that .NET is actually really nice and slick; I enjoy programming in C# much more than I enjoy Java or C++.

I have actually used mono, and a client was impressed that we could run some server side software on linux instead of windows machines.

Mono certainly isn't perfect; I've personally found embarrassing bugs (see http://code.google.com/p/flowlib/iss...il?id=10&can=1), but it does make cross platform development cheaper for small firms.

I also appreciate Novell's work supporting KDE, evolution, etc -- even if I don't use them

Compatibility is good. Competition is good.

The problem is that Novell sold out the open source world to get it. I'd like to see what these 200 patents are.... How many of those patents are broken by Novell in projects like Mono, which they conveniently pass the blame to the open source world as a whole.

They infringe on other companies patents, then they dont tell us what those patents are, and then actually have the gall to blame the rest of us for it.... I mean jeez...

If you dont think that is a coordinated plan to ruin open source then your blind.

[sreyan]

Novell has enough money for many developers of duplicated non-functional crap called "Mono" but not for basic HW drivers?

BTW: Anyone else surprised by Nouveau progressing at same pace as AMD open source drivers ? At least as far as I can tell.

Mono is the pet project of Miguel, and I really don't get his reasoning behind it.

Having been employed largely in the windows world it pains me to admit that .NET is actually really nice and slick; I enjoy programming in C# much more than I enjoy Java or C++.

I have actually used mono, and a client was impressed that we could run some server side software on linux instead of windows machines.

Mono certainly isn't perfect; I've personally found embarrassing bugs (see http://code.google.com/p/flowlib/iss...il?id=10&can=1), but it does make cross platform development cheaper for small firms.

I also appreciate Novell's work supporting KDE, evolution, etc -- even if I don't use them

Compatibility is good. Competition is good.

[makomk]

wtf? They are nowhere near to any usuable 3d acceleration and you call their progress comparable to that of radeon/hd?
They don't have reliable VT switching either... they're basically same as nv but with 2D acceleration. Apart from the general fact that the driver code for radeon/hd is probably /much/ cleaner.

Well, the same as nv but with very good 2D acceleration on everything earlier than the 8000 series. The current-gen hardware is harder, since they can't use the 3D engine to draw to linear surfaces and haven't figured out how to make the framebuffer tiled yet. Oh, and I think they've had 3D mostly working on NV40-class hardware (equivalent of r500) for quite a while, and are now looking at doing stuff like LLVM on it.

(At least some of the issues with 3D seemed to be Gallium-related. Until very recently, nouveau was the only open-source driver for real 3D hardware that was using Gallium. The other one was the Intel driver, but I'm not counting that for obvious reasons. I don't think the Intel hardware that's targeting even has vertex shaders.)

Radeon/RadeonHD have, thankfully, caught up in most areas now. For quite a while after RadeonHD started, though, Nouveau actually seemed to be under heavier development than RadeonHD. It also had a head start in 2D acceleration, with fast 2D and Xv support for the nv40 cards back when RadeonHD didn't even exist and documentation from ATI was a pipe dream.

[deanjo]

Only with their own customers and not the community as a whole...

You or I are NOT protected in that little deal. It's not a fire detector or a firehose. Bad analogy deanjo.

A fire detector only protects the area of the coverage. Not the entire city. Nor do I buy liability insurance with the intention of screwing up someone else's wellfare.

[Svartalf]

The agreement has no such thing. The agreement protects any future action that maybe brought by MS but does not admit to infringing any patents at all. You wouldn't say a fire detector is a sure sign of a impending fire now would you?

Only with their own customers and not the community as a whole...

You or I are NOT protected in that little deal. It's not a fire detector or a firehose. Bad analogy deanjo.

[Anato]

The agreement has no such thing. The agreement protects any future action that maybe brought by MS but does not admit to infringing any patents at all. You wouldn't say a fire detector is a sure sign of a impending fire now would you?

Yeah, but it also limits Novell's ability to protect the community. And by singning it implies that there are some valid (as from Novell's point of view) concerns that MS might be hold such "patents".