Radeon vs. RadeonHD Fighting Continues

[Louise]

Could you explain a bit further? There's only a tiny bit of stuff missing from the r5xx support, and it's all pretty trivial/non-important (color controls for textured video, dynamic powersaving), and also missing from radeonhd, too.

Sounds cool. Does that mean new stuff has happened since last update of http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature ?

[duby229]

double post sorry guys.

[duby229]

So what exactly are you trying to prove? That obeying GPL is a target 'per se' here? (instead of having fully-functional Open Source ATI driver)
Combined forces (cooperation) are ALWAYS better option when you want to achieve some goal - not competition.

I have to disagree with you.

In this case I think they should merge efforts and work together. But the reason I think that is simply because there isnt enough man power to support two different teams.

Listen cooperation is definitely --NOT-- always better.... Are you going to cooperate when someone tells you to jump off a bridge?

Are you going to cooperate when you've got an 8 years old product that hasnt been updated or improved, and no future product in development? This is what happens with monopolies. This is what the GPL was designed to prevent. Only competition can foster new idea's and innovation. Competition, not cooperation drives technology forward. Cooperation stagnates innovation, and kills competition.

EDIT: And yes obeying the GPL is exactly the target..Not just "per se" exactly. It all comes back to free market principles, and a monopoly is not a free market.

[reavertm]

So what exactly are you trying to prove? That obeying GPL is a target 'per se' here? (instead of having fully-functional Open Source ATI driver)
Combined forces (cooperation) are ALWAYS better option when you want to achieve some goal - not competition.

[duby229]

This is flat wrong. Competition is bad, the only reason to compete is when you're denied the opportunity to cooperate. Open source works because of an open exchange of ideas. Competitors don't exchange ideas freely, only collaborators do. Competing is what you're forced to do when everyone is closed-source proprietary, and nobody tells anyone else what they're up to. It's a waste of resources, it retards the advancement of technology, and it's just plain stupid.

Duplication of effort is ALWAYS wrong.

And just because you have a single *end-product* doesn't mean you can't go off and create experimental branches to test new ideas. All of our revision control systems facilitate branching and merging. Again, the tools need to do that because that independent development is essential to the nature of *distributed* development. But endless proliferation of branches always weakens a project as a whole, which is why merging back is so important.

Competition is BAD. Multiple projects that duplicate effort to accomplish the same goal is BAD. *Single* projects composed of a broad group of developers with diverse viewpoints working toward a common goal is GOOD.

I have to highly disagree with you on pretty much everything you just said.

When I think of Open Source I think of the GPL. It's the first license that comes to mind. And when I think of the GPL, I think of free market principles. Which, is exactly what the GPL was based on. The idea behind the GPL is to prevent power from accumulating in one spot. It's an attempt to de-monopolize the software industry. It does so by providing a copy-left agreement that makes possible and encourages competition by allowing you to fork projects. Provided that the conditions of the GPL are met, you can split that code and start developing it yourself. In direct competition.

The GPL is based on free market principles, and free market principles require competition.

[duby229]

Ah, I have a 780G chipset too, and here both drivers work. (though radeon crashed the whole computer while trying to rotate, did not try with radonhd) Did you report a bug to the radeonhd devs?


Yes, there are some benefits. But there are also bad sides: If radeonhd does not work for you, you *maybe* report no bug to radeonhd, just because radeon works. And if a newbie tries to install a linux distri with radeonhd by default and gets no X because he has your hardware config and you did not report the bug because you know how to switch to radeon. So it *can* be bad for the end user experience.

By dropping radeonhd from the default build script?

Some hardware works good with both drivers, other hardware better with radeonhd, other hardware only with radeon. If there was only one driver there would be a better chance that your hardware configuration works.
(because potential bugs are more likely reported)

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows my views, for those who dont, I've been saying for a while Novell needs to $%^&# off, and ATi needs to hire there devs. I think all of the developers involved deserve an awefull lot of credit. Though I think RadeonHD is a waste of time. Instead of working around in worthless circles accomplishing nothing, all of those guys need to get on Radeon right now. ASAP. Time is running out. End of story. The bottom line is that you guys can keep wasting time developing dead end code paths or you can get on the ball and start contributing something positive.... There --IS-- enough paralellism to support more devs on the same team. Throwing more people at the problem isnt going to solve it. But, throwing more people at specific problems will... And despite what some people would have you believe there are plenty of specific problems to choose from.

Larrabee gets closer everyday, And if ATi doesnt have some kick ass unbeatable solution by then, they will lose the entire linux market. Period.

[highlandsun]

Welcome to Open Source, dude. We duplicate a lot of stuff. Because that's how you get good software. We have multiple Free Software/Open Source kernels, We have multiple desktop environments. Multiple word processors. Multiple everything, really. And the Free Software ecosystem is better for it.

Competition is good. For example, it lets developers try out radically different approaches to solving a problem (like with radeon vs radeonhd) and determine which one is best. The alternative would be to just make a decision and have no way to find out if it was the right one. RadeonHD has taken work from Radeon, and vice versa. Without both projects existing, it is entirely reasonable to assume that we might not have a driver as far along as either of them.

This is flat wrong. Competition is bad, the only reason to compete is when you're denied the opportunity to cooperate. Open source works because of an open exchange of ideas. Competitors don't exchange ideas freely, only collaborators do. Competing is what you're forced to do when everyone is closed-source proprietary, and nobody tells anyone else what they're up to. It's a waste of resources, it retards the advancement of technology, and it's just plain stupid.

Duplication of effort is ALWAYS wrong.

And just because you have a single *end-product* doesn't mean you can't go off and create experimental branches to test new ideas. All of our revision control systems facilitate branching and merging. Again, the tools need to do that because that independent development is essential to the nature of *distributed* development. But endless proliferation of branches always weakens a project as a whole, which is why merging back is so important.

Competition is BAD. Multiple projects that duplicate effort to accomplish the same goal is BAD. *Single* projects composed of a broad group of developers with diverse viewpoints working toward a common goal is GOOD.

[bridgman]

Yep, the ideal seems to be "fork only when there is serious disagreement on technical direction, try both approaches and use the experiences to reach common ground on how to proceed, merge back together, rinse, repeat".

[bugmenot]

The funny thing being that for my 780G chipset, the RadeonHD driver can't seem to get my screen to work worth a crap -- bad constant flickering, off center image, missing mouse cursor, etc. -- but the radeon driver works perfectly.

Ah, I have a 780G chipset too, and here both drivers work. (though radeon crashed the whole computer while trying to rotate, did not try with radonhd) Did you report a bug to the radeonhd devs?

Welcome to Open Source, dude. We duplicate a lot of stuff. Because that's how you get good software. We have multiple Free Software/Open Source kernels, We have multiple desktop environments. Multiple word processors. Multiple everything, really. And the Free Software ecosystem is better for it. Competition is good.

Yes, there are some benefits. But there are also bad sides: If radeonhd does not work for you, you *maybe* report no bug to radeonhd, just because radeon works. And if a newbie tries to install a linux distri with radeonhd by default and gets no X because he has your hardware config and you did not report the bug because you know how to switch to radeon. So it *can* be bad for the end user experience.

[...] and determine which one is best.

By dropping radeonhd from the default build script?

Some hardware works good with both drivers, other hardware better with radeonhd, other hardware only with radeon. If there was only one driver there would be a better chance that your hardware configuration works.
(because potential bugs are more likely reported)

[deanjo]

Welcome to Open Source, dude. We duplicate a lot of stuff. Because that's how you get good software.

You should have a BIG asterdisk beside that statement. Duplication is OK if you have enough qualified people that can effectively code the solution. When the numbers of qualified developers is small the exact opposite happens, progress slows from lack of manpower to effectively put out cutting edge support. You end up with a few small featured projects that may excel in one area but losses out in another. You end up getting the software equivalent of a All-in-one printer. Sure it can scan, print and fax, just don't expect it to do a top of the line job at any one task when compared to dedicated solutions. The FOSS world is saturated with incomplete and abandoned projects because of it.