Which one contributes more to open source? AMD or Intel?

[deanjo]

Good call, doing the same for intel.com shows just how huge the disparity is all of the amd ones are just to support their devices, but the intel ones touch alot of the core components to the kernel.

Keep in mind as well again the sheer amount of resources intel has to spare vs AMD. Keeping that in mind the field starts to level out. (Just dropping IA-64 specific code drops that down by a bunch too)

[energyman]

Well, remember when AMD introduced amd64 (aka x86_64). Linux was the first OS to support it. And do you know why?
Because AMD did not only help the devs - it also included suggestions from the linux devs into the architecture. Has Intel ever done something like this?

[deanjo]

Well, remember when AMD introduced amd64 (aka x86_64). Linux was the first OS to support it. And do you know why?
Because AMD did not only help the devs - it also included suggestions from the linux devs into the architecture. Has Intel ever done something like this?

Ya, AMD had an emulator ready for devs way before the Athlon 64 ever came out. I was going to stay away from that one because it could be seen as product oriented even though intel eventually adopted it as well begrudingly because MS was backing it.

[Hephasteus]

Ya deanjo. That and itanium was a huge bust cause it caused so many problems with 32 bit compatability when mixing 64-bit and 32-bit.

[tball]

Which one of both companies contribute the most to Linux open source projects, excluding their own driver support?

Browsing the net I've noticed that Intel is a big time supporter of Linux and open source and I've found nothing special about AMD except for their the development of their own drivers for Linux.

I'm planning to buy a new PC and was initially going for AMD + Nvidia (I've always been an AMD supported in the past as a Windows user) but since AMD doesn't seem to be very active (correct me if I'm wrong) in Linux desktop development, I may consider paying a bit more for Intel + Nvidia hardware.

I noticed that only Intel of the two actively develops the X project which is like the second important part of the Linux desktop so I may go choose for Intel instead depending on the feedback.

Thanks in advance

Uhm why not support both intel + amd, buying intel with an Amd gfx card. Given fglrx is getting better (maybe not as good as nvidia yet, but its getting there) and you will also get an opensource driver later. I would say that is a win / win situation :-D

[bugmenot]

I make you a list how many points each company gets:

Intel *and* AMD contribute much (1 point each), so either way you do not something wrong. nVidia for example does not help linux at all (-1 point) , so simply buy not nVidia if you like linux and open source. They do not even help the nouveau developers and ignore petitons with more than 10.000 signers.

AMD has AFAIK open source support (not everywhere 3d, yet, but the future sound promising) for every graphics card AMD provides (+1 point) and also they sell cards for gaming with open and officially supported 3d support (very important in my opinion (+1 point), intel cards for example are not for gaming and intel does not support the poulsbo driver (-1 point), which is a bad thing. Actually intel has a really good image, but the poulsbo driver is really crap. Even if it is actually not really by intel, but as long as intel's name is under it, intel should support it.

There are other opensource projects, like coreboot (a free BIOS implementation), and there AMD helps really a lot and intel does in practice not help at all. (+1 point)

AMD helps more in GCC, because intel has it's own compiler, but intel helps a lot with linux in general (kernel, powertop etc...) (both 1 point)

VIA has hired a man who can be asked for open source questions and it seems they make good progress so VIAa is not such a bad choice i think (1 point). I don't know how much they contributed to linux, yet.

And now look at how the companies look financially: intel is really rich and so it is not a big deal to hire a few developers, but for AMD it is a bigger step, because they do not make so much profit at the moment (+1 point). I can't speek for VIA, because i know not enough about this company.

So if you ask me, buy VIA, intel or AMD, and if you can, buy AMD, because they have the most points.

And don't take the points so serious, of couse intel has helped the linux ecosystem much more than via yet, of course. This list is just for helping you to get an overview over the situation.



AMD:6
intel:1
VIA: 1
nVidia: -1


Apart from that i'd buy AMD anyway, because they need the money and the processors are fast enough in every case for me and they also produce in germany.

[monraaf]

I make you a list how many points each company gets:

[...]

AMD:6
intel:1
VIA: 1
nVidia: -1

Good analysis. However I would like to deduct 1 point from AMD for not having opened up the UVD block on their hardware.

[EarthMind]

Uhm why not support both intel + amd, buying intel with an Amd gfx card. Given fglrx is getting better (maybe not as good as nvidia yet, but its getting there) and you will also get an opensource driver later. I would say that is a win / win situation :-D

That's something I really want to avoid seeing how superior Nvidia's Linux driver is compared to ATI's. As long as there's no VDPAU alternative in ATI's Linux driver ATI is a no go for me.

[mirv]

How about we all try to avoid another "nvidia is better, no ati is better" thread here. There's plenty available on discussing the closed source linux drivers from both companies, the pros and cons of each, but last I checked, this thread wasn't about that.

[kraftman]

Uhm why not support both intel + amd, buying intel with an Amd gfx card. Given fglrx is getting better (maybe not as good as nvidia yet, but its getting there) and you will also get an opensource driver later. I would say that is a win / win situation :-D

That's right and when someone wants to support OS friendly companies just avoid nvidia.