Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

ARM Talks Mali Vulkan, Lack Of Open Drivers & More @ Linaro Budapest 17

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #11
    Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
    They are basically doing worse than NVIDIA (as NVIDIA driver isn't board specific).
    nvidia probably just doesn't have many boards
    Last edited by pal666; 11 March 2017, 02:25 PM.

    Comment


    • #12
      Originally posted by pal666 View Post
      nvidia probably just doesn't have many boards
      No, but it is a purely technical reason, NVIDIA isn't doing this because they are good.

      Mali is an IP core baked in a third-party SoC, so the blob driver needs to be adjusted to work in that particular SoC. (and ARM wants to keep it blobbed so the only way to do this is to have the third party modify it and ship a device-specific blob)

      NVIDIA's GPUs are self-contained GPU SoCs communicating over standard interfaces, or integrated in NVIDIA's own embedded device SoC designs. There is no need to do these tricks to keep their sauce secret.

      Comment


      • #13
        Making vendor-specific drivers "apt-gettable", as it was called in the video, seems a much more worthwhile enterprise. Let vendors make their drivers open source for the actual benefits it brings, not for pressure.

        Comment


        • #14
          Originally posted by indepe View Post
          Making vendor-specific drivers "apt-gettable", as it was called in the video, seems a much more worthwhile enterprise. Let vendors make their drivers open source for the actual benefits it brings, not for pressure.
          Distributing them isn't the issue, the issue is that you're stuck with whatever crap driver the device manufactuer publishes, and you can't use newer driver versions from ARM because it's board-specific.

          That said, I agree with the second sentence.

          Comment


          • #15
            Originally posted by pal666 View Post
            they gave bullshit excuse for closed source userspace driver: they are "afraid of patent trolls". somehow amd isn't afraid, intel isn't afraid, broadcom isn't afraid, even arm isn't afraid of patent trolls when writing opensource kernel driver, but with userspace driver they imagine some magic arm-only userspace-only patent trolls.
            really people should avoid mali to teach those bastards some clue
            Okay, let me paraphrase that. "ARM admits that they use stolen IP and won't open up the source because they're afraid of getting caught."

            That says the same thing they did, but without all the sugar.

            Comment


            • #16
              Originally posted by willmore View Post
              Okay, let me paraphrase that. "ARM admits that they use stolen IP and won't open up the source because they're afraid of getting caught."

              That says the same thing they did, but without all the sugar.
              Another possible explanation is that they are using third party stuff under license and this prevents them from opening it up. (this is the usual reason in this field)

              Although this is a sensible explanation on its own right, while "afraid of patent trolls" is plain bs, so who knows, maybe that's just the lecturer's own answer under pressure and not ARM's.

              Comment


              • #17
                Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
                Another possible explanation is that they are using third party stuff under license and this prevents them from opening it up. (this is the usual reason in this field)

                Although this is a sensible explanation on its own right, while "afraid of patent trolls" is plain bs, so who knows, maybe that's just the lecturer's own answer under pressure and not ARM's.
                I agree with the third party issue completely, that's commonly stated by other vendors in similar situations. But they didn't claim that in this case. I'm not going to make up excuses for them.

                It's probably what legal told them to say if anyone asked. It makes them sound like they're trying not to be a victim--and hence being a victim. Then hoping that people have sympathy for them because 'poor ARM is being bullied by all of those mean pattent trolls'. Yeah, not buying it.

                Comment


                • #18
                  TLDR: Broken on all fronts.

                  Comment


                  • #19
                    Originally posted by pal666 View Post
                    nvidia probably just doesn't have many boards
                    Nvidia's driver for Tegra is actually open

                    Comment


                    • #20
                      Originally posted by bug77 View Post
                      Nvidia's driver for Tegra is actually open
                      and not written by nvdidia if we are talking about mesa

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X