AMD's New Gambit: Open Source Video Drivers
by Ryan Smith on September 25, 2007 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Closing Thoughts
With the negatives of AMD's open source efforts out of the way, let's talk about the positives.
First and foremost, once these drivers are in a usable state, this will be a massive boon to most if not all of the Linux distributions. Virtually all of the major distributions do not include binary drivers in to their distributions due to legal and philosophical reasons. With an open source driver available for ATI's video cards these distributions will be able to include this driver out of the box, making Linux installations easier for users who previously would have needed to go about more convoluted methods of installing the binary drivers. Make no mistake, binary drivers while workable are not easy to use under Linux, and having a major open source driver like this will further the goal of many Linux distributions of making themselves easier to install and maintain.
Simultaneously, an open source driver alleviates the problems posed by the unstable driver API. Currently any changes to the driver API that break the binary drivers supplied by AMD and NVIDIA require that those drivers be fixed by the appropriate party and only the appropriate party, which can take more time than some people want to wait or may never come if it's for depreciated hardware. With an open source driver, the open source community (the same one that made the API changes that broke the driver in the first place) can quickly make the changes in the driver to work with the new API. Admittedly, the Linux driver API does not change so frequently that this is a major issue, but never the less it does occur enough that it's a nuisance.
There are also some lesser benefits in terms of security and stability. One particular set of concerns within the open source community in dealing with binary drivers is that the operating system is giving the black box full access to the system, hoping and praying that it's doing what it's supposed to do and nothing else. Bad drivers causing system crashes have long been a gripe among the Windows community, and the open source community likes it even less when an open source driver would allow them to fix the offending bug. This further extends to security concerns, as drivers can introduce weaknesses that can be exploited, something that has happened with NVIDIA's Linux drivers in 2006, and ATI's Windows Vista drivers in 2007. Open source drivers may or may not be inherently more secure depending on whose rhetoric you believe, but open source drivers can be patched a great deal sooner, reducing the risk earlier.
Finally, there is the feedback effect that this could have on hardware manufacturers. We of course are hinting towards NVIDIA, whom has faced very little of a threat from ATI due to their superior drivers. If the open source AMD video driver does end up evolving in to a driver capable of delivering Windows-like performance, AMD will have little trouble sweeping the Linux graphics market with the combination of powerful hardware and drivers that are both technically and philosophically superior. This of course would be bad for NVIDIA, who would need to consider their own full feature open source driver to keep the balance of power with AMD on Linux. This would bring all of the previously mentioned benefits to Linux users with NVIDIA cards.
With that said however, it's important not to lose sight of the present. What AMD has begun is a remarkable plan to bring in to the world open source drivers for their entire range of video cards, but it's something that we believe is a significant risk for them. We are not convinced that this is something AMD completely wants to do as a result, and remain skeptical about how far this will go. We hope that our skepticism is misplaced, but it's too soon to tell.
The only immediate unfortunate result of AMD's open source efforts here are that they will not be directly contributing code from their current drivers for the open source drivers. We understand the reasons for this, but it also means that the open source driver is starting from scratch and has a lot of ground to cover. A good video card driver will take years to develop and while we're talking about what can be, by the time this driver is finished and we can test our predictions and its effects the R600 won't even be AMD's leading GPU series.
This is the start of a long process, not the end of it, but never the less we can't wait to see how things turn out.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
34 Comments
View All Comments
gochichi - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
Truth be told, I think Linux should be budging and not the other way around.I've gotten strong results from my Radeon 8500, Geforce 6200, and only decent results from an ATI X800. Miserable results from Nvidia 8600GT... though I think it's also my motherboard.
There is something really cool about recompiling the Linux kernel with the NVIDIA driver though.
The thing that is really interesting here, is opening the full feature set of ATI graphics cards while not doing it themselves, is that it would allow for a pretty serious Media Center style Linux. It would also allow for some not-quite legal uses (thinking playing HD DVDs Bluray, etc.) I think it would, could be wrong.
I don't think that NVIDIA would have to see their hand forced into releasing open source drivers if they didn't want to. I get the sense that NVIDIA could do so at the drop of a hat if they chose to though. NVIDIA already has a pretty good gig going with Linux, and all they would have to do is provide more of the same to compete with ATI.
Another thing that gets me going about this is that Mac OS X is very similar to UNIX ... in a lot of ways including how Open GL is the main deal. So maybe this is ATI merely letting others clean up their driver mess at no cost to them.
One more thing... they may be comfortable with opening their "secrets" to NVIDIA because NVIDIA has better hardware anyway, but I wonder if this doesn't ensure that NVIDIA always has the edge. (I imagine, that it's not really much of a secret and that neither company is far more knowledgeable than the other.)
ATI is making a big bid with opensource stuff. They do a lot of advertising for LINUX, and yet, when I think good LINUX rig I think intel/NVIDIA... or just plain intel since they've had open source drivers for their graphics for a while now.
2 years seems like way too long a development cycle for these drivers. They've been long teasing about a completely redone driver for LINUX, I can't imagine why you'd need two years to release a LINUX driver. I think that undermines the skills of the LINUX community. Heck LINUX users can make ATI hardware work with ATI's crappy driver, I can only imagine what LINUX developers can do.
Kishkumen - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
I've been a linux user for a few years now and the high quality NVidia driver has been one of the key reasons I have been able to remain as one. I use linux because I have work to get done and even the occasional game to play. And I can do it better on the GNU/Linux platform than other platforms available to me, not because I have some idealistic philosophy about how the technology world should work. I wish more of my fellow Linux users spent less time debating the minutia of GPL v3 and more time improving the user experience or offering advice on how to better utilize the already excellent tools available to them. Thus while AMD's open specification strategy is probably the best (and realistically the only) option available to them at this point to remain competitive on Linux and to meet the demands of OEMs offering Ubuntu, I think the best anyone can hope for is an adequate driver that's merely more stable than the current version, but remains vastly inferior to NVidia's binary driver. Therefore NVidia will continue to power my Linux hardware for the foreseeable future.andereandre - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
the article mentions that making their own code available would break licensing agreements.Why would that be? Would AMD via ATI not own the code? If a 3th party was involved would that not be fully payed for as there is no other use for the code? Can they not cry if they want to?
Araemo - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
Neither ATI nor nVidia own all the IP in their drivers. For example, the S3TC texture compression that is a requirement of directx, and many other games require(Such as UT2k4, even when not running under directx), is built into the drivers, and ATI/nVidia have to pay S3(or intel, or whoever owns it) licensing fees to use it, and agree not to publish the code..And that is just one straight-forward example.. there may be companies that have patented ways to recompile shader programs on the fly that ATI has to pay to use just-in-time shader recompilation... Even if ATI came up with the same algorithm in-house, if someone else patented it before they came up with it, they have to pay(and agree to licensing terms) if they want to use it.
And remember, paying for code does not imply you have ownership of the code- merely usage rights(Especially when the contract explicitly spells out what you are and aren't allowed to do with it)
weft - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
There is open source and there is free software and they are not the same thing. The free software community does not dislike AMD. AMD has always been relatively helpful with releasing information about their hardware to help develop the free bios and this is nothing new. I am glad that we will finally have good free 3D video drivers. You should really do your homework before you write an article like this.strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
I don't think they said that the free software community dislikes AMD. What they said was:Which is true, the general recommendation is to avoid the ATI/AMD video cards if possible.
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
If they're releasing enough information to build an open-source Linux driver, presumably drivers could also be created for other OSs- even Windows despite the fact official drivers already exist.It could also be a good way for them to find potential new employees. They could actively follow the development process and see who is showing the most ability and potential in developing the drivers, then offer them the chance to join the official development team and work for AMD.
In any case it is a positive step, but as you say, documents covering the rest of the chip (and indeed the other GPU cores) need to be released before we know they are serious about this.
drebo - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
Linux seems great, until the people using it grow up and realize that there's nothing Linux can do that Windows can't do better.stmok - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
*sarcasm dial turned to 100*
You're right.
(1) Windows has the ability to accumulate, retain, and spread malware across the web. We're trying to emulate that in Linux, but we seem to be failing in this regard. Its a real head scratcher! If not for Windows, our firewall logs wouldn't be filled with attempts by malware trying to infect other Windows systems. Thank god for Windows!
In another view, it's unfortunate. Because companies like Symantec, Trend Micro, Kaspersky, and all those other "security" companies won't be able to make money in the Linux market. Man! I really wanted to install third party crap just to maintain my system!
(2) The US Govt monitoring software only works on Windows. Linux users are unfortunate enough not to have this privilage. That's too bad, because we really wanted the Govt to spy on us! I seriously get turned on when someone is watching me doing things on my PC!
(3) Windows does it best with its "anti-piracy" features! Its SOOOOOOO good, that "Genuine Advantage" programs aren't found in any Linux distro! Gee, I really wish I could get to call a commercial Linux distributor just to get the OS on my system working! I really love it when I pay to get my balls grabbed like that!
(4) You know what I really missed the most about Windows? Its the regular maintenance to keep the box running! I love those wasted hours of my life! Anti-spyware, Anti-virus, Anti-rootkit, registry cleaning, defrag, etc. It really sucks that you can't do that in Linux. Its really bad because I have time to go outside!
(5) And the price! Oh man! I missed the days of getting ripped off by a mega corporation! There's nothing more orgasmic than paying for Windows that comes with a system (even though I don't need it!) Its an AWESOME feeling!
(6) Vista? Oh man! That is SOOOO cool and is under so much demand that Lenovo, Fujitsu, Dell, Toshiba, etc had to bring back WinXP to make up for the limited availability of Vista! I missed out on my copy. :(
(7) And what about MS Office 2007? Excel 2007 gives an awesome result of 100000 when you multiply 850 by 77.1! Its too bad OpenOffice's Calc can't provide the same result of 65,535.
*sarcasm dial turned to 0*
dare2savefreedom - Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - link
Where did you get that crack?Seriously, I want some.
You can have 16x16x16 desktops on windows? - what's the name of that program on windows?
You can have viruses on windows? -wait what's a virus? Complete n0o85 come and ask me for a virus scanner because ...blah.blah...blah... and I tell them it's called "GNU/linux"
You can play files without drm breathing on you? what's the name of that on windows?
On vista you play an mp3 and it throttles down your network connections - that's better than GNU.linux? I think !.
Your comment started great until you didn't realize that corporations are bending you over and calling you their byotch.
I want to keep my freedom to read and my freedom for it to be my own computer.
Windows can't do that better.
If windows has it's way you'll rent a computer and never really own it.
I hope you grow up and see the real world-
It's about corporations paying off the government to get the things they want.
m$,riaa/mpaa all own or "lobby" or bribe your government to get things like the dmca.
Did you vote for that?