Gordon's Thoughts On Open-Source GPU Drivers

[deanjo]

I'll tell you why, it's because she has no idea what she's doing. She saw a marketing sticker telling her how awesome it was, and thought sure, i can afford that. So why not?

And then she takes it home to try out that marketing fluff and finds out it can't do it....

[deanjo]

We'll leave your blob to you, you leave the Linux decisions to RedHat, Fedora, SuSE, Debian, and the others who actually care. Stop telling those who develop Linux how they should develop it.

And btw, maybe you should follow your own advice and leave the decisions to vendors as to how they are going to support their product.

[MostAwesomeDude]

Didn't they lose that lawsuit?

I would say that it doesn't matter; the fact that a lawsuit happened is enough deterrence for distros and users.

I agree that his post was ridiculous and won't accomplish anything. On the other hand, it's pretty clear by this point that posting on the mesa-dev mailing list won't either. So in the end i don't think it really mattered.

Only in that mesa-dev is pretty unanimous on this point already. This isn't a hard question.

Remember GIF? Remember how PNG was invented *because* of GIF? There are a few texture compression formats out there which are not encumbered with patents. FXT1 is the traditional example, but there are a couple newer formats which are on newer GPUs too. I don't think it's fair to blame Mesa for a lack of support of these formats in hardware.

[efikkan]

Have Nvidia release the specs, and the problem will be mostly solved.

Not true at all. Even with AMD's specifications the open source drivers are poor compared to the proprietary ones, especially nVidia's proprietary drivers. When new hardware generations arrive, the proprietary drivers has already been in the works for a long time. If what you are saying were true, we would have very good open source drivers for AMD's GPUs by now, with AMD both releasing documentation and contributing to the drivers. But we know that's not the case.

[deanjo]

Have Nvidia release the specs, and the problem will be mostly solved.

LMFAO, uhhuh that was the same thing people were crowing with ATI. They kept saying "release the specs, and the problem will be mostly solved." and then when they did they then changed their tune expecting AMD to write the drivers too.

[BlackStar]

LMFAO, uhhuh that was the same thing people were crowing with ATI. They kept saying "release the specs, and the problem will be mostly solved." and then when they did they then changed their tune expecting AMD to write the drivers too.

AMD open-source drivers are fucking awesome. Precisely due to these specs.

[cynical]

Even with AMD's specifications the open source drivers are poor compared to the proprietary ones

That is not true at all.

[curaga]

There are a few texture compression formats out there which are not encumbered with patents. FXT1 is the traditional example, but there are a couple newer formats which are on newer GPUs too. I don't think it's fair to blame Mesa for a lack of support of these formats in hardware.

http://www.opengl.org/registry/specs...ssion_bptc.txt ?

IP Status

No known IP claims.

Seems supported by AMD HW.


Also, surprising to see Intel support fxt1, when AMD apparently doesn't.

[smitty3268]

I don't think it's fair to blame Mesa for a lack of support of these formats in hardware.

Well, there we differ. I think it's extremely fair. If the hardware supports it but Mesa refuses to, who else is there to blame? There's certainly no legal issues hiding patented features behind a configure switch, FreeType has shown that.

[smitty3268]

Please

And then she takes it home to try out that marketing fluff and finds out it can't do it....

Stop trolling.