HDMI Forum Closing Public Specification Access Is Hurting Open-Source GPU Drivers

[CommunityMember]

I don't understand the article.
So far HDMI spec was open, but from now it's closed ?

HDMI specifications up to 1.3 were publicly available. Starting with 1.4 (around 11 years ago) the full specifications were only available to adopters.

The specifications not being available only becomes of interest now that advanced capabilities are becoming more common and some of those capabilities may require host software to utilize.

Being an adopter (and paying royalties on the implementations) gives one rights to various IP and compliance testing, which also includes restrictions on how that information may be used/shared.

HDMI can't be reversed engineered ? It's not legal?

With enough work, and enough time, it is likely it can be reverse engineered. It is, however, not unlikely that those that any employees of companies that are adopters (which are the core contributors to some of the graphics driver code) could not participate in any such activity, nor any code reviews, nor approvals, which may, in practice, make it not practical to get such code into the kernel itself (and that also presumes that none of the technology has any IP encumbrances not covered under OIN, which might only be known by adopters).

[AJSB]

They're mostly the same developers. Why would you just fabricate disinfo like this? Are you projecting your own crippling autism onto other people?

Someone have a thin skin

Hey, if devs are more or less the same and Wayland is the "future", wouldn't be more logic that the petition was done/backed instead by Wayland than the "defunct" X ?

...or maybe actually , besides only inside some limited circles, Wayland have ZERO WEIGHT and the devs have to "still" use the "defunct" X to have the hope to get a bone from HDMI ?

[F.Ultra]

Does HDMI have ANY advantage over DP? I know hdmi sady is the standard in TVs, but other than that i simply don't use that crap...

One major advantage to HDMI is that the maximum cable length is 30m instead of just 3m, something that of course is not relevant for most PC setups on the other hand...

[bridgman]

Hey, if devs are more or less the same and Wayland is the "future", wouldn't be more logic that the petition was done/backed instead by Wayland than the "defunct" X ?

...or maybe actually , besides only inside some limited circles, Wayland have ZERO WEIGHT and the devs have to "still" use the "defunct" X to have the hope to get a bone from HDMI ?

I thought Wayland developers were still part of X.org, and there is no separate "Wayland.org".

The X.org group covers a lot more than just X. Think of it as "free desktop" rather than "X" and it will make more sense - FDO and X.org are separate organizations as far as I know but in practice they overlap a lot.

[CommunityMember]

wouldn't be more logic that the petition was done/backed instead by Wayland than the "defunct" X ?

No, because wayland itself has no formal standing. X.org, on the other hand, is a legal foundation and therefore a process to be able to make such petitions.

[skeevy420]

Haha, I'm not averse to a bit of work but I want it to look good. If I mess it up, it'll annoy me for years. I did mount the last TV but my walls are awkward (no-fines concrete) so it took two stressful attempts and even then, I only just managed to make it straight. I also value my time more than the cost of getting someone else to do it.

Gotcha. Plus without a good hammer drill that isn't fun at all. I forget that not everyone is like me and has two with plenty of experience using them...or Quik Rok just laying around for fast-setting anchors in concrete.

[f0rmat]

Does HDMI have ANY advantage over DP? I know hdmi sady is the standard in TVs, but other than that i simply don't use that crap...

AFAIK, HDMI also allows ethernet connections....USB-4 and Thunderbolt do to, but I do not think vanilla Display Port can do that.

[f0rmat]

Gotcha. Plus without a good hammer drill that isn't fun at all. I forget that not everyone is like me and has two with plenty of experience using them...or Quik Rok just laying around for fast-setting anchors in concrete.

Concrete walls are a pain in the a**. I hate working with them. When I did, it always required me to bring out my Bosch "crew-served" drill and Irwin concrete bits. And the dust is messy, but I did mount the TV into the basement wall - reinforced concrete and all.

[Slithery]

AFAIK, HDMI also allows ethernet connections....USB-4 and Thunderbolt do to, but I do not think vanilla Display Port can do that.

Allowed by the spec, yes. Can be found in a single piece of manufactured hardware, no.
I don't think there was ever even a chip designed let alone tested with ethernet capability.

[f0rmat]

Allowed by the spec, yes. Can be found in a single piece of manufactured hardware, no.
I don't think there was ever even a chip designed let alone tested with ethernet capability.

Thanks for the clarification.