AMD Ports Open-Source Linux Driver To Windows Embedded

[locovaca]

My thoughts exactly. Winblow$ ATMs are constantly fucked up, so whoever happens to depend on anything even remotely similar to life support system driven by a computer running Winblow$ is as good as dead… Winblow$ EULA says that it's not suitable for critical environments, such as aircraft control systems and nuclear power plants for a reason.

Not everything needs to be certified for critical environments. It costs a lot of money and an entirely different development approach to build in the redundancy for a critical system. Not only that, the consumer device market is magnitudes larger than the "critical environment" market when it comes to installed device base, and when you charge for each installation, quantity matters. Attempting to use WinCE on a critical environment is no different than using a chain saw to cut a steak. Neither the steak nor the chainsaw are at fault.

[bridgman]

Anyway - I really hope AMD doesn't screw us by leeching on community code without contributing anything back, because I make it a habbit not to support the crooks with my cash (or anything else for that matter) and would basically be stuck with Intel GPUs (which are good enough for my needs, but not a universal cure)?

???

We just added two more open source developers (going from 2 to 4) contributing to the upstream code, and I already said that we used the open source driver as a basis for the WEC7 driver because we wanted to release source code for that driver as well -- wondering what your criteria are for "leeching" ?

[deanjo]

Winblow$ EULA says that it's not suitable for critical environments, such as aircraft control systems and nuclear power plants for a reason.

I wouldn't read too much into those disclaimers. They are pretty standard affair. The warranty that came with the fuel pump for my 1980 Chev truck also had disclaimers saying it was not to be used for space exploration or medical purposes.

OT: speaking of fuel pumps, I found it hilarious that the russians based their fuel pump for their rocket engines off of a agriculture PTO driven roller sprayer pump. A fact I found out after watching a documentary on SpaceX and how they were scouring the countryside of old USSR looking for old surplus rocket engines (which they found 5 of in a barn of an old USSR rocket scientist.).

[mrugiero]

???

We just added two more open source developers (going from 2 to 4) contributing to the upstream code, and I already said that we used the open source driver as a basis for the WEC7 driver because we wanted to release source code for that driver as well -- wondering what your criteria are for "leeching" ?

I'm not really sure what you mean about releasing the source code. You mean releasing to the public or you mean distributing the driver to the OEM's in source code form?
If it is the first one, it would be nice from your part

[bridgman]

I'm not really sure what you mean about releasing the source code. You mean releasing to the public or you mean distributing the driver to the OEM's in source code form? If it is the first one, it would be nice from your part

The licensing is being worked out now so I can't be more specific yet -- but we're trying to keep all the non-MS bits X11 licensed if we can.

[Prescience500]

Bridgeman, thank you for taking the time to fill us in with your inside information. I think I speak for many people when I ask if you can let us know, when it's ok for the public to know of course, whether gallium, mesa, or any other linux graphics components will be used?

[pszilard]

The licensing is being worked out now so I can't be more specific yet -- but we're trying to keep all the non-MS bits X11 licensed if we can.

Cheers for that!

I really hope you're not joking, though, because that wouldn't be a really bad joke...

[groo_pcd]

Thoughts:

Reasons to use the Radeon driver for embedded windows.

1: No need to pay per-unit licensing on catalyst (cheaper for AMD)
2: No need to port catalyst to additional architectures
3: Much like #2, OSS driver is easier to port to 'funky' devices. An example of this would be a device with a non-rectangular display.
4: OEM access to source enables OEM contribution and rapid prototyping.
5: Less paperwork.

3:"non rectangular display?!?!?!?!?!!?" OMG OMG???? IS DUNDER MIFFLIN releasing THE PYRAMID with AMD HW??? and WINDOWS??? WOW!!! i didnt saw that one coming http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/dunder-mifflin-tablet/ (couldnt resist) :P

[bridgman]

3:"non rectangular display?!?!?!?!?!!?" OMG OMG???? IS DUNDER MIFFLIN releasing THE PYRAMID with AMD HW??? and WINDOWS??? WOW!!! i didnt saw that one coming http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/dunder-mifflin-tablet/ (couldnt resist) :P

The Pyramid has 50L of memory; that's enough to use the proprietary drivers.

[cb88]

So since this means gallium3d will finally be running on another OS will any of those bits get released? and not just the core changes? I suspect it would be nice for developers of other operating systems to have an example implementation of a port to a OS besides Linux since that isn't a port at all.

There is the AROS port of the nouveou but AROS isn't like most operating systems as its mostly stuck in the past as far as design (no protected memory etc...)