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Gordon's Thoughts On Open-Source GPU Drivers

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  • #31
    Originally posted by elanthis View Post
    The average Linux user may not care much (Linux users are by necessity generally not the game playing type), but the average computer user in general (some ~70% of which play games) is going to really care about this. If they can't run their silly little $10 bargin bin game because it just happened to some simple graphical effect that requires a proprietary driver, or it happens to hit one of the many slow paths in the current Mesa drivers, they're going to (rightly) assume the Linux desktop is a piece of crap and go back to Windows.
    Except that this situation doesn't really come up, does it? Their bargain bin game is generally not going to run on Linux at all. A small fraction of people installs Wine, and a small fraction of those gets the game to work. An installable binary driver that works in stable releases of Ubuntu is going to be the least of your problems.

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    • #32
      I think what AMD is doing is great too. But if you bought something like a HD4870, even after 3years, under Linux, its still utterly useless for what it was intended for.

      There simply aren't enough independent driver writers using the docs and developing features that the community actually wants in order to justify buying hardware from AMD on the basis of their open source initiative when they clearly disregard official Linux support (i.e crappy catalyst).

      You're better off buying Nvidia, because you'll be getting excellent official Linux support and you'll be supporting a true open source community that has worked hard to reverse engineer complex hardware for no personal gain.

      Don't be fooled by AMD's open source contributions. If they were really committed to open source GPU support, they would have open source developers on their payroll like Intel does.

      Take it from someone who has bought a lot of ATi graphics cards, the momentary monetary savings, are simply not worth the years of frustration.

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      • #33
        Originally posted by cruiseoveride View Post
        Don't be fooled by AMD's open source contributions. If they were really committed to open source GPU support, they would have open source developers on their payroll like Intel does.
        We do have open source developers on the payroll; I'm one of them. The amount of developer time the open driver gets is commensurate with the size of the Linux desktop market. The usual chicken and egg argument about games/users vs. drivers follows.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by agd5f View Post
          We do have open source developers on the payroll; I'm one of them. The amount of developer time the open driver gets is commensurate with the size of the Linux desktop market. The usual chicken and egg argument about games/users vs. drivers follows.
          Well clearly one of you have your statistics on the "size of the Linux desktop" completely wrong

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          • #35
            What would be really dangerous is if Red Hat got sued because they included patented software they didn't have a licence for.

            Ryan Gordon might know a lot about games but he knows jack all about the realities of software patents

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            • #36
              Originally posted by RealNC View Post
              It's a small minority because of this. It's the chicken-egg problem. There can't be more than a small minority simply because Windows is much better at this, so those users prefer Windows over Linux and only the small minority stays with Linux.
              Thats not what I'm saying. Even on Windows, most users have zero interest in games or 3D. You can't dispute that 90% of Windows users are non-gamers like 90% of Linux users.

              Obviously, there are more Windows gamers than Linux gamers, but as a percentage of the whole user base they're both small.

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              • #37
                Come on

                It shouldn't come as a surprise for me to see these comments and reactions against Icculus here on Phoronix... but it still irritates me.

                Look, most if not all of us here love (GNU) Linux and the ideal of Freedom, but lets be real. A computer is a tool, and we buy and use accordingly to what we need. Just because the majority only uses a browser and have compiz enabled, doesn't mean the open source drivers are all we need. I would LOVE to buy the newest and best Radeon and exclusively use the open source driver, but as it is today that doesn't suit my needs. That doesn't make me anti Freedom, and screw you for telling me I should use Windows/OSX instead, and that I'm in league with the devil because I use Nvidia (I wouldn't have used Linux for the past decade if it wasn't for Nvidia's proprietary driver).

                I also smell a lot of hypocrisy here, with people flaming others for not sharing their purist views, but still cheering for "closed" companies like Unigine and Valve for considering Linux, or hail AMD for opening technical specs while still using the Catalyst driver to play aforementioned proprietary games. And if you deny any closed drivers, why are you even interested in what closed source software developers choose and do? Probably because you want to get the full potential out of that supercomputer of a GPU that AMD sells.

                We all share the same dream of a better open world, but some of us enjoy our freedom AND get to use our PC for what we want, with our pragmatic views.

                /rant

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by allquixotic View Post
                  RE: icculus: "dogmatic attitudes towards software freedom"

                  Dogmatic attitudes towards software freedom? REALLY? This is the differentiating factor of GNU/Linux. Not that it's fast; not that it's developed efficiently "in the open"; not that it's more secure than Windows. People trying to pervert the vision of GNU/Linux into just another OS are the ones who are really dangerous.
                  According to whom? You? The Linux kernel devs have made it clear that it's not about being Free, but about being awesome.

                  I couldn't care less about the "GNU" in "GNU/Linux". I only care about the "Linux" part. GNU can go hump themselves for all I care.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by RealNC View Post
                    According to whom? You? The Linux kernel devs have made it clear that it's not about being Free, but about being awesome.
                    Well there are some devs that are more about the "Freedom" then the functionality. That is usually when Linus does one of his famous "let's get back to reality" replies.

                    I couldn't care less about the "GNU" in "GNU/Linux". I only care about the "Linux" part. GNU can go hump themselves for all I care.
                    Same here. I care about "Linux" the "operating system" that can provide a "viable alternative environment" that requires one to "not make sacrifices in the name of politics" in order to use it or make use of my hardware.

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by numasan View Post
                      And if you deny any closed drivers, why are you even interested in what closed source software developers choose and do?
                      I am not interested at all.

                      I just want them to release specs, and, if possible, release a proof-of-concept design.

                      I don't care about the existence of closed drivers, I care about the existence of OPEN drivers. I expect a hardware company not to stand in the way of open drivers, they can write 1000 closed drivers if they want to, and dance samba with them.

                      I fucking hate people who have 20 different options for running closed stuff on closed hardware, but insist that we MUST NOT have even one open one.

                      Release the specs, then you can do what you want. Knock yourself out.

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