Hi bridgman. I'm encouraged to see that the corporate culture at AMD is such that you feel free to openly participate in this forum.
It sounds to me like the strategy of AMD with regard to open source, DRM, etc. is going to evolve in response to customer demand (where by "customer" I include OEM of course).
I wonder what sort of process you can use to hear back from the open-source-using customers. I know that you have strong communications channels with OEMs, of course, and through your end-user support process you probably get feedback from proprietary-driver users, but I suspect there's a communications disconnect from the open-source-using customers (like me) to you.
For almost everyone that I know, the question that is asked is "What's the best/cheapest graphics hardware that I can buy today which will work with 100% Free Software/Open Source drivers?". The answer to that question changed dramatically when AMD/ATI opened up and the radeonhd project took off.
However, for me and all the people I know, the point of contact between myself and AMD has been limited to when I bought the card down at Circuit City and thus sent a few dollars back up the channel towards you.
I had no way of communicating to you that the reason I chose that card was that the radeonhd project listed it as a supported card, for example.
I dislike DRM so strongly that I will tend to avoid supporting products which offer even *optional* support for DRM. For example, all other things being equal, I would prefer to buy a card that does *not* support DisplayPort, because the DisplayPort standard is tainted with the stench of DRM in my mind.
I can probably name a hundred people that I am friends with, or work with, or cooperate on open source projects with, who have substantially the same opinions and buying habits that I do, but I don't know if AMD has any process for learning about this subset of its customers.
Thanks for listening.
Regards,
Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn
It sounds to me like the strategy of AMD with regard to open source, DRM, etc. is going to evolve in response to customer demand (where by "customer" I include OEM of course).
I wonder what sort of process you can use to hear back from the open-source-using customers. I know that you have strong communications channels with OEMs, of course, and through your end-user support process you probably get feedback from proprietary-driver users, but I suspect there's a communications disconnect from the open-source-using customers (like me) to you.
For almost everyone that I know, the question that is asked is "What's the best/cheapest graphics hardware that I can buy today which will work with 100% Free Software/Open Source drivers?". The answer to that question changed dramatically when AMD/ATI opened up and the radeonhd project took off.
However, for me and all the people I know, the point of contact between myself and AMD has been limited to when I bought the card down at Circuit City and thus sent a few dollars back up the channel towards you.
I had no way of communicating to you that the reason I chose that card was that the radeonhd project listed it as a supported card, for example.
I dislike DRM so strongly that I will tend to avoid supporting products which offer even *optional* support for DRM. For example, all other things being equal, I would prefer to buy a card that does *not* support DisplayPort, because the DisplayPort standard is tainted with the stench of DRM in my mind.
I can probably name a hundred people that I am friends with, or work with, or cooperate on open source projects with, who have substantially the same opinions and buying habits that I do, but I don't know if AMD has any process for learning about this subset of its customers.
Thanks for listening.
Regards,
Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn
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