Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 16th Nov 2007 19:49 UTC, submitted by Michael Larabel
"The leading question most of you are likely wondering is why there hasn't been anymore ATI GPU specifications released in over two months. Well, as we have shared in earlier articles, AMD has had limited staff devoted to sanitizing the documentation and getting it cleared by their legal department for release. However, that is about to change. AMD's John Bridgman has confirmed that they are in the process of hiring new people to do all of the planned documentation and support work that will help the open-source community. Within a couple weeks, these new AMD employees will begin this crusade."
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Member since:2005-07-06
I bet this will put some pressure over nVidia and will help hardware manufacturers to focus on free software. I'd like to have good graphics card support ... I still miss the days when my ATI Rage was the best card at framebuffer text mode :-) so it is time to catch the pass of time.
I'd love to see nVidia open too; and go a step further, dedicate a large number of programmers to writing a clean opensource driver which works with the opensource community.
The great thing; this will also improve things in the operating system world - imagine being able to go and upgrade your Mac's graphics card without needing to wait for a "Mac version" - if the specifications are open, someone also has the ability to hopefully write an EFI firmware so that its just a flash away.
All operating systems will benefit, both open and closed source; Microsoft will have all the specifications in their hands, all operating systems will be able to operate on a level playing field when it comes to hardware compatibility.
What I would love to see is this go beyond graphics cards, I want to see all hardware open; Realtek provides specifications for their hardware to those who ask - maybe its time for OEM's to step up and demand that hardware companies open up their specifications fully or lose their OEM contract. This will not only help operating system vendors but also help OEM vendors by virtue of the operating system vendors being able to properly support hardware and thus reduce the technical support calls.
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2007-02-17
Only when they will have lost sales to AMD which means that first we need a superior free software driver for AMD boards and this will take some time.
Not that long. There is already the start of a 2D driver:
http://ppa.launchpad.net/tormodvolden/ubuntu/pool/main/x/xserver-xo...
(this basically works, but it is still pre-beta).
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjE4Ng
There is already a software implementation of 3D:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_3D
http://www.mesa3d.org/
There is a new Mesa device driver architecture called Gallium3D being worked on:
http://www.tungstengraphics.com/wiki/index.php/Gallium3D
There is some help coming in terms of support by the Linux kernel:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=18928
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1385306974;fp;2;fpid;2
There is existing 3D open source drivers for earlier ATI chipsets:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=700&num=1
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver
... and now (with this announcement) ATI are working towards the rlease of 3D specifications for their newer chipsets.
Perhaps by mid-year next year it will all start to come together.
Edited 2007-11-19 00:54
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Member since:
2006-07-26
I bet this will put some pressure over nVidia and will help hardware manufacturers to focus on free software. I'd like to have good graphics card support ... I still miss the days when my ATI Rage was the best card at framebuffer text mode :-) so it is time to catch the pass of time.