Sony Continues Tuning AMD Jaguar Support Within The LLVM Clang Compiler

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Sony Continues Tuning AMD Jaguar Support Within The LLVM Clang Compiler

Thanks to Sony using LLVM Clang as their default compiler toolchain for their PlayStation game console, they continue making improvements to the AMD Btver2/Jaguar code for optimized performance. The Jaguar APU is what's in the current PlayStation 4 while we've already seen contributions from Sony to improve the Zen CPU support ahead of their next-generation console...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Sony-Thanks-More-Btver2-LLVM

[L_A_G]

At least they're contributing back to the community rather than using open source as something they can use, but don't have to contribute a cent or line of code back to even when licenses say they have to. Back in the PS3 days their official development toolchain used GCC with in-house developed Cell support, but they never released a single line of code to the public even thou GCC is very obviously licensed under GPL. The FSF probably never took action because the GPL hadn't been found to be legally enforceable back then.

With the PS4 they started actively avoiding GPL-style licenses with pretty much all of the open source components, of which they used even more of, using BSD and Apache style "Sure, just use and modify to your own use case. No need to contribute anything back to the project"-licenses.

[Guest]

At least they're contributing back to the community rather than using open source as something they can use, but don't have to contribute a cent or line of code back to even when licenses say they have to. Back in the PS3 days their official development toolchain used GCC with in-house developed Cell support, but they never released a single line of code to the public even thou GCC is very obviously licensed under GPL. The FSF probably never took action because the GPL hadn't been found to be legally enforceable back then.

With the PS4 they started actively avoiding GPL-style licenses with pretty much all of the open source components, of which they used even more of, using BSD and Apache style "Sure, just use and modify to your own use case. No need to contribute anything back to the project"-licenses.

GPL is toxic, and bad for FOSS software... Sometimes, having private specialized branches or extensions, is needed...

This serious limitation pushes developers away ,.. And, they could have contributed base software to extend support for common stuff, and create closed source extension/branches for specific proprietary stuff... That's why software licensed under Apache/MIT/BSD/... starts to dominate.

[skeevy420]

GPL is toxic, and bad for FOSS software... Sometimes, having private specialized branches or extensions, is needed...

This serious limitation pushes developers away ,.. And, they could have contributed base software to extend support for common stuff, and create closed source extension/branches for specific proprietary stuff... That's why software licensed under Apache/MIT/BSD/... starts to dominate.

At least the GPL isn't as bad as KSP mods released under CC-BY-ND. It makes it so others can't publicly update abandoned mods that have publicly available sources. CC-BY-ND is a crappy, crappy license.

[L_A_G]

GPL is toxic, and bad for FOSS software... Sometimes, having private specialized branches or extensions, is needed...

If a company doesn't want to contribute back to the project, is it's use of the project actually good for it? Because the idea behind open source is to spur collaboration and companies just taking other peoples' work and not contributing anything back only benefits said greedy company. These kinds of companies really are just freeloading off the work of other much more generous people.

[cen1]

At least they're contributing back to the community rather than using open source as something they can use, but don't have to contribute a cent or line of code back to even when licenses say they have to. Back in the PS3 days their official development toolchain used GCC with in-house developed Cell support, but they never released a single line of code to the public even thou GCC is very obviously licensed under GPL. The FSF probably never took action because the GPL hadn't been found to be legally enforceable back then.

With the PS4 they started actively avoiding GPL-style licenses with pretty much all of the open source components, of which they used even more of, using BSD and Apache style "Sure, just use and modify to your own use case. No need to contribute anything back to the project"-licenses.

You clearly have no idea what GPL even means. If they made their in-house changes for their own internal use they don't have to contribute anything.

[skeevy420]

If a company doesn't want to contribute back to the project, is it's use of the project actually good for it? Because the idea behind open source is to spur collaboration and companies just taking other peoples' work and not contributing anything back only benefits said greedy company. These kinds of companies really are just freeloading off the work of other much more generous people.

Sometimes it's not about contributing back, but about not having to worry about legal ramifications with test releases, etc. Take Sony, they could tweak something and release an updated version of their OS or drivers, realize that didn't work for a few games because they were in a hurry, revert it on their next update, and then re-implement it better a few releases down the line when it finally works correctly everywhere and they're in a state to actually share their changes with everyone...but they can't actually do that with the GPL projects without risking GPL violations.

[Guest]

If a company doesn't want to contribute back to the project, is it's use of the project actually good for it? Because the idea behind open source is to spur collaboration and companies just taking other peoples' work and not contributing anything back only benefits said greedy company. These kinds of companies really are just freeloading off the work of other much more generous people.

On the other side,.. Is it good, if some company invests many months into development of product with software, and then different pure HW company just copies the product design and ships open-source software, which was developed and fine-tuned for months?

This mandatory open-source requirement for changes cuts both ways... Sometimes, it makes it easier for competitors to clone product with need to do research and development,. That would undermine prices, which generate profit from products sold, by company doing R&D, and that profit is also used for future R&D,... without money for R&D, there will be no more advancement... There are lots of scam companies, which cut-off costs of R&D, because they just steal designs. And, forced FOSS would allow them to do it completely legally.

So, that's why I'm biased towards FOSS platforms, allowing freedom of companies to protect their specific R&D, and generate funds for future R&D.

In the end, many companies won't put product into such risk,.. So, they would develop everything from scratch, to not be limited by GPL, which is horrible for ecosystem completely... So, having shared common base platform, which doesn't require open-sourcing changes is much better for eco-system.

[skeevy420]

You clearly have no idea what GPL even means. If they made their in-house changes for their own internal use they don't have to contribute anything.

It also means they can't run public beta tests with unreleased & modified GPL code.

[cen1]

It also means they can't run public beta tests with unreleased & modified GPL code.

GPL applies to distribution of software, not to SaaS. Also, GCC was obviously not shipped to end customers so it was not distributed anywhere.

The only scenario I can think of where Sony would have to provide the modified GCC code is to developers/studios if they gave/sold them the modified GCC.