Radeon's ROCm OpenCL Runtime Finally Open-Sourced

[darkbasic]

Guys I completely agree with you that free software isn't free anymore if you have to use firmware blobs, but let's celebrate this massive release for now

[Zucca]

Unknown, but according to Stallman or other Free/Libre proponents it's like that. Suff in ROMs is ok, stuff loaded at runtime is not. Even if it is the same.

This has been puzzling me for quite a long time now.

Think about XeonPhi cards. They have a complete operating system (although open one, some intel Linux distro) inside them. Now imagine if those cards also contained a SSD, so that you don't need to "upload" the OS from the main OS you are running.
Now the "firmware" (and the whole OS) is contained inside the harware and is ok in FSF standards?
Using that same analogue: If graphics cards would contain flash chips that store heaps of data that run some overly complicated firmware that no-one (except few people) knows what it is doing... It's an 'OK' for FSF?

I'm personally ok with closed-firmwares, where ever they may reside. Open source drivers provide enough flexibility/hackability that community can utilize.

[eigenlambda]

The firmware is software that runs on the GPU, not part of the driver that lets Linux programs use the GPU. If you want an open source GPU, and you have more money than Donald Trump, why don't you go hire several hundred hardware engineers?

[dungeon]

it shouldn't, since firmware is a hardware's implementation detail

And indeed it is software, by vocation non-free Thus should be named as such when claim friendliness to Free/Libre.

[pal666]

As far as i understand it OCL is C

your understanding is outdated. opencl is c++14

[pal666]

If it is not, why you use it? Why not remove it?

why do you use hardware? who not remove it? idiotic question, isn't it?

[pal666]

1) Driver is useless without firmware, so it effectively is.

driver is useless without hardware, so?

2) yes. At that point it becomes hardware.

only idiot prefers his hardware to be unfixable

[pal666]

it should say "No(firmware required)"

it shouldn't, since firmware is a hardware's implementation detail

[Marc.2377]

There is enough (imo) C++ support in recent OpenCL versions to be productive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL#OpenCL_2.2

I'd like to ask Bridgman what are the current expectations to support OpenCL v2.1 or v2.2 now. Marc Driftmeyer has already expressed some concern regarding this but it went unanswered.

I too have a SI card (the R9 280x) but I'm optimistic that ROCm can be made to work with it, given enough time.


Last I checked it was abandoned...

Well, found this: https://cgit.freedesktop.org/mesa/me...rackers/clover
Will definitely test later.

[dungeon]

That is total garbage. What do you want next, the source code to the hardware?

It isn't about me, it is if you claim something Free/Libre friendly it must align to their POV that is all...

There are real limits to what a company like AMD can do and continue to survive as a company. Lets face it some really bad moves over the last few years have put them in bad shape. Simply put they have to keep certain aspects of their GPUs secret to survive. This has nothing to do with respect of a community.

The Libre movement should be happy that AMD is doing as much as they are. More is better of course but who can we go to that is dramatically better?

I didn't said anything about AMD there, but about someone who editing columns on that link.

https://www.phoronix.com/forums/foru...424#post951424

So that is only what i complain here, do you see there "Driver status > Free/Libre > Yes"? instead of Yes that shoud be No (blob firmware required).

This has nothing to do with respect!!!

It is about respect, as from that POV you don't say Yes and then sneaks some blobs in Instead with 'No (blob firmwares required)' everything is clarified fine.