RadeonHD Driver Takes A Blow In Novell Layoffs

[Kjella]

Beancounter: "Let me get this straight...you want money to [spend money] on a low-visibility project that is costing us a great deal and has absolutely no chance of bringing in revenue in the future?"

The way you put it, there wouldn't be any reason to spend any money whatsoever. Obviously AMD is spending a lot of Bridgman and his team's time, lawyer time, executive time running things up and down the flag pole for release and so on. Compare that to say 10x $400+$100 for shipping and handling to the top 10 developers and it's a bargain. There might be a lot of other practical matters that means it's not possible but pure cost couldn't possibly be one of them.

[rbmorse]

If only they had a budget for that kind of thing....

Beancounter: "Let me get this straight...you want money to send some stuff to a guy who used to work for somebody else but got laid off, has no contract with us to do anything, in hope he might work for no salary on a low-visibility project that is costing us a great deal and has absolutely no chance of bringing in revenue in the future?"

Bridgeman: "Yes, that's pretty much it."

Beancounter: "I just came up with a brillinat idea of how we can save even more money. Clean out your desk."

[Saist]

Question being why doesn't ATI just send out the hardware under NDA to such developers with a proven track record? They send tonnes of pre-release hardware to review sites why can't the same be done for the devels?

also with Mr. Bridgman and Alex on staff, it's not like AMD doesn't have people who can TELL them who the good driver developers are, and who should be shipped some hardware.

***

I will point out though that most of the pre-release hardware sent to review sights actually comes from 3rd parties, e.g. Sapphire.

[deanjo]

It's really a shame since radeonHD was so good and stable at what it was able to achieve. Best of luck Luc Verhaegen. As others have stated cash/and or hardware if you want it.

Question being why doesn't ATI just send out the hardware under NDA to such developers with a proven track record? They send tonnes of pre-release hardware to review sites why can't the same be done for the devels?

[sreyan]

It's really a shame since radeonHD was so good and stable at what it was able to achieve. Best of luck Luc Verhaegen. As others have stated cash/and or hardware if you want it.

[Saist]

I'm not sure the story is "over" for the RadeonHD driver. The information used by the developers is still available, and unless things have changed where AMD's not releasing any more information (a job headed internally by Mr. Bridgman I believe), the code documentation to build RadeonHD is still around.

***

I did however have an off-shoot idea. Via's been trying, albeit poorly, to establish a good direction in Open-Source development. I wonder if Via's thinking about hiring Luc on an official basis...

[cruiseoveride]

well it was fun to watch the radeonhd driver get this far

[grantek]

Yeah, hopefully one of the big OSS companies will pick him up, or if he wants a direction change in his career, hopefully he'll still be around to advise/mentor new devs

[Arch64]

I hope he goes to help xf86-video-ati in their r600-r700 code.

[bugmenot]

Oh my god. Now it's getting even harder for radeonhd to exist parallel to radeon. Thanks for your great work in so many projects! Hope you find a new job soon.