AMDGPU LLVM Expert Has Left AMD, Now Working For Red Hat

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMDGPU LLVM Expert Has Left AMD, Now Working For Red Hat

A Phoronix reader pointed out an interesting reference on a Mesa patch today... Tom Stellard, the former GSoC student who was instrumental in developing the AMDGPU LLVM compiler back-end, is now working for Red Hat...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Tom-Stellard-At-RedHat

[Veerappan]

Huh, so he is.

Goodbye Tom... Hello Tom

[boxie]

I wonder if Red Hat is gearing up to make a fully open work station, i.e. selling supported hardware as well as it's OS

[King InuYasha]

I wonder if Red Hat is gearing up to make a fully open work station, i.e. selling supported hardware as well as it's OS

Nope. Not happening, ever.

[geearf]

It'll be interesting to learn more about that, and the future of the LLVM backend.

[liam]

I wonder if Red Hat is gearing up to make a fully open work station, i.e. selling supported hardware as well as it's OS

Can't imagine that's likely.
They likely hired him because of his general excellence in the stack (i assume) and, possibly, increasing demand from customers who are using mesa.

[chimpy]

I guess this proves that AMD won't be using RADV for the open source Vulkan driver. I mean why else would an AMD employee working on the open source Vulkan driver leave to work for another company working on the same driver?

[smitty3268]

Can't imagine that's likely.
They likely hired him because of his general excellence in the stack (i assume) and, possibly, increasing demand from customers who are using mesa.

He's also an LLVM release manager. I'm sure that position is worth something to Red Hat.

[smitty3268]

I guess this proves that AMD won't be using RADV for the open source Vulkan driver. I mean why else would an AMD employee working on the open source Vulkan driver leave to work for another company working on the same driver?

Tom wasn't working on the open source Vulkan driver.

He works on the radeon llvm backend, which is used by the OpenGL and OpenCL open source drivers, and would also be used by the hypothetical future AMD Vulkan driver once it's open sourced too.

[airlied]

He's also an LLVM release manager. I'm sure that position is worth something to Red Hat.

It's definitely more for this, his main task is not graphics related.

Dave.