AMD will soon deliver open graphics drivers, said Henri Richard just a few minutes ago, and the audience at the opening keynote of the Red Hat Summit broke into applause and cheers. Richard, AMD's executive vice president of sales and marketing, promised: "I'm here to commit to you that it's going to get done." He also promised that AMD is "going to be very proactive in changing way we interface with the Linux community".
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Member since:2005-07-06
True, but I think the the problem as far as I see it, you'll only start to see it when their new CPU/GPU thing gets going - being it a completely new idea, probably unencumbered by patents, which means that one will be back to square one unfortunately with Ati support.
Unrelated to this post, for me, I'd love to see Ati/AMD succeed and give Nvidia and Intel some much needed competition. At the same time, however, I am reluctant to believe Ati - they've had a good several months to get their 'ducks in line' and they've done nothing to improve the situation.
For me, it isn't so much needing to have open source drivers - that would be a perk, but not a necessity, the issued I have is their lack of updating their binary drivers and maintain them.
Having open source drivers won't fix that; if there is a massive delay between the product launch, specifications being made available, and updating of the source, you're still back at square one in regards to support - whether the drivers are open or closed source, you're still at the mercy of AMD/Ati.
ps. Remember, this isn't the first time they promised improved drivers.
Edited 2007-05-13 21:53
Member since:2005-08-11
"however, I am reluctant to believe Ati - they've had a good several months to get their 'ducks in line' and they've done nothing to improve the situation. "
Integrating 2 separate companies is not an easy task, there are various duplicate components (ie: accounting, human resources) that need to be integrated, networks to integrate, business practices, corporate culture, it's not an easy task. To expect AMD to just buy ATI and then change the entire company on a dime is unrealistic. I for one am pretty happy about this, and think the timing is perfect.
Member since:2005-07-08
Especially since, if you really read what the AMD guy said versus what the blogger wrote, it isn't entirely clear that AMD actually promised open source anything. He promised that AMD would work more closely with the Linux community, and he promised to make their drivers work better with Vista as well.
Basically, he admitted that their drivers are awful no matter which modern OS you're running, and that they're going to try their best not to suck so much in the future. Still no DirectX 10 part (not that I personally care), no viable competition to nVidia on the high end, and no reasonable comparison to Intel in their commitment to free software. I'm been an AMD fan in the not-so-distant past, but I've lost most of my confidence in their ability to execute.
Edited 2007-05-14 02:32
Member since:2007-04-30
RE[2]: I'll believe it when I can use them
RE: I'll believe it when I can use them - butters
Member since:
2006-05-09
but having said that, I'd very much welcome better drivers after just having bought a ATi powered Thinkpad T60 (which otherwise has stellar Linux support)