More Broken Promises and Prevarication

[bridgman]

I think the work over the last year does count as "special circumstances", ie a major re-architecture of the graphics stack.The development work started at least a year earlier, but during the last year UMS and KMS needed to co-exist side-by-side in the same code base.

Starting with the spring 2010 distro releases I think pretty much everyone will be moving to KMS, although we'll want to keep the UMS paths going for a while until other OSes are able to implement the required KMS/GEM/TTM/DRI2 functionality and get away from UMS completely. There are other architectural transitions coming, eg moving Mesa from classic HW drivers to Gallium3D-based drivers, but nothing with the same bottom-to-top impact.

So yeah, special circumstances.

Most of the communication between developers is archived (IRC, mailing lists and Phoronix) so whether or not I control what developers say is irrelevent. If a different message went out in the past there should be a record of it.

Probably best for airlied or agd5f to comment on expected # of RCs. There are still reports of problems with the KMS paths but the recent ones don't seem to repro on the developer's systems so not sure how they will shake out.

I agree that hastily thrown together release candidates appearing only after vigorous campaigning would look shoddy, but since your first post about the 6.13 release came *after* the first RC was announced I assume that is a hypothetical question.

http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22327

[tball]

Better.

But let's talk turkey here. My department has over 50 PCs with radeon cards. This is not something that can be changed on a whim, however tempting that might be. And I did not make that decision in the first place, the cards were bought purely on cost.

Then there is the question of the Spring round of releases. The current candidates for us are Ubuntu 10.04 and Fedora 13. Which gets chosen will ultimately mostly depend on the quality of the graphics support. And that of course, depends on whether there is a release between now and then.

So I fail to see how I do not have a serious interest in this matter.

I think everybody in this forum is tired of your disrespect of the developers. They are just trying to make the best out of the oss radeon driver. They are not waiting to release the final version of the 6.13 driver just to annoy you, but rather to ensure the good quality of the driver for everyone else.

It is okay to give negative feedback to the devs, if just it is constructive negative feedback. Hell your feedback is nothing but complains and invectives. Next time, try to be less childish in your complains and be more mature in your feedback. Try to see the situation from their perspective and not just yell "I want, I want, I want". Well thats basically how you sound.

[gordboy]

Bit Of A regression There, Dave

Neither of those two distros rely on a release date they both ship git the rcs already so if you just stated the problem at the start we could have pointed that out and you wouldn't have had to look like an idiot.

Dave

But Dave, I'm not the one who looks like an idiot. And you have still failed to answer the question.

[bridgman]

For the record, I should probably make it clear that I do *not* manage the release plans for the drivers -- that done by the maintainers and the development community.

What I was trying to do, however, was to summarize a year of IRC and mailing list discussions and explain *why* the devs felt that offering a major release between 6.12 and 6.13 was not a good idea. I don't remember seeing a lot of debate on the subject, which normally means that most of the developers felt the same way.

[bridgman]

But Dave, I'm not the one who looks like an idiot. And you have still failed to answer the question.

The last thing you heard from the developers was that there would be a ddx release after 2.6.33 locked down, ie sometime in Feb/Mar depending on the 2.6.33 schedule. I believe that is still the plan.

Yes, thanks for that, guys. So some time after 2.6.33 in Feb/Mar or even 2.6.34 is a good ballpark for the next stable DDX. Good to know.

If you're looking for an exact day, you may be asking too much.

[Wingfeather]

Wow. I'm amazed that you guys have spent 6 pages feeding a troll! You people are all intelligent, respectable individuals.

While I know it's cute that gordboy thinks he can use big words, it really might be best if everyone just stopped answering him. I think you all have better things to do with your time.

[gordboy]

Beware Of Self-Serving Generalizations

I think everybody in this forum is tired of your disrespect of the developers. They are just trying to make the best out of the oss radeon driver. They are not waiting to release the final version of the 6.13 driver just to annoy you, but rather to ensure the good quality of the driver for everyone else.

It is okay to give negative feedback to the devs, if just it is constructive negative feedback. Hell your feedback is nothing but complains and invectives. Next time, try to be less childish in your complains and be more mature in your feedback. Try to see the situation from their perspective and not just yell "I want, I want, I want". Well thats basically how you sound.

Have you conducted a poll ? Gosh, I'd be really interested to see the results. Your arrogance, if you'll pardon my complimenting you, is breath-taking. You didn't say "most", "some" or even "just me". You went for "everyone". But don't let's quibble over small matters like accuracy. Feel free to abuse every tenet of logic and communication

You know what I think ? Most people will look at the quality of some of the "answers" here and wonder how so few ideas could be spread over so many words. They will rightly wonder as to the suitability of the devs, given their proximity to so many half-arsed "supporters".

If I were one of those devs, I'd have disclaimed all connections with anyone claiming to support their side of the argument. Because, as the saying goes "with friends like that, who needs enemies ?"

It is people like you, who have no interest in the matter, who are making the devs look bad. Ever thought of that ?

No, I thought not.

[gordboy]

Turn To Page 6 For The Answer

The last thing you heard from the developers was that there would be a ddx release after 2.6.33 locked down, ie sometime in Feb/Mar depending on the 2.6.33 schedule. I believe that is still the plan.

If you're looking for an exact day, you may be asking too much.

Damn, you've spoiled my fun by actually answering.

So let me get this clear. You are saying that if all goes well, there will be a full release in the next 2 weeks. That is fantastic news.

And I take it, that the devs will keep phoronix fully apprised of the situation, should things take a turn for the worse.

[airlied]

But Dave, I'm not the one who looks like an idiot. And you have still failed to answer the question.

okay idiot is the wrong word, illiterate is probably better since you've displayed the ability to not read a number of times.

As I said neither Fedora or Ubuntu are reliant on a release so if you intend on using one of these distros you have no stake in this at all.

There will be a release when there is a release, at that time a release will exist. You can ask as much as you like for dates, but there was never any time based released plan for -ati before this and myself and Alex are happy not to get stuck on time based releases after this.

-ati has always had feature based releases, with RCs since it got modularlised out from the X monolith. This procedure hasn't changed in nearly 3-4 years from what I can see.

Dave.

[gordboy]

Requiescat In Pace

okay idiot is the wrong word, illiterate is probably better since you've displayed the ability to not read a number of times.

As I said neither Fedora or Ubuntu are reliant on a release so if you intend on using one of these distros you have no stake in this at all.

There will be a release when there is a release, at that time a release will exist. You can ask as much as you like for dates, but there was never any time based released plan for -ati before this and myself and Alex are happy not to get stuck on time based releases after this.

-ati has always had feature based releases, with RCs since it got modularlised out from the X monolith. This procedure hasn't changed in nearly 3-4 years from what I can see.

Dave.

Not sure I agree with your Calculus of Stakeliness, old chap. Just because these distros are currently (forced to be) using git snapshots or whatever, doesn't mean this is normal or a desirable state of affairs. For my money, distros want to use stable releases. And a stable release in the next (very) few weeks would be a definite help to everyone who actually has to deploy and use linux/radeon. I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that this would occur.

As for time-based vs. feature based, I concede there are points for both camps. But this goes further than that. Given the (unusually) long latency between releases, people are naturally concerned whether there will _ever_ be another stable release, or whether they will be forever be waiting outside the gates forlornly with their begging bowls.

Anyways, I mustn't detain your Lordship, and so by your leave, I shall retire, Sire.