AMD deciding _now_ what to do about Linux

[Sam Lawrance]

On 16/06/2007, at 6:07 AM, youshi10 at u.washington.edu wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Jun 2007, Ali Mashtizadeh wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Sun's pushing ATI/AMD to provide good drivers for Solaris, so it  
>> means they
>> will have to work on the portability issue of their drivers. It is  
>> probably
>> the best time to influence AMD's decision since they are going to  
>> do what
>> Sun tells them. Nvidia has an easier time porting their drivers  
>> since the
>> core of the driver is the same across all platforms AFAIK.  
>> Hopefully, they
>> will realize the best stratedgy is to open source their drivers,  
>> which there
>> has been some hints about it recently.
>>
>> -- 
>> Ali Mashtizadeh
>> علی مشتی زاده
>>
>> On 6/15/07, Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu at freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jun 15, 2007 at 02:03:39PM -0400, Ali Mashtizadeh wrote:
>>> >  Hey everyone,
>>> >
>>> >  This email went out on Xorg I thought it might be useful for  
>>> all of us
>>> stuck
>>> >  with ATI cards. We should all show our interest in AMD helping  
>>> out the
>>> BSD
>>> >  community as well! Just like Nvidia has been doing!
>>>
>>> "Linux strategy" -- gotta love the use of the word "strategy", like
>>> they're playing chess or Risk or Daisenryaku.  Yes, because  
>>> supporting
>>> an operating system involves "strategy".
>>>
>>> Not to sound rude, but I wouldn't hold your breath over the  
>>> statement.
>>> Yes, *absolutely* mail them and show support for the BSDs, and  
>>> tell them
>>> you'll be happy to beta test whatever they put out (as long as  
>>> they have
>>> a good feedback method for reporting those bugs; not some defunct  
>>> HTML
>>> form web page that sends submissions to /dev/null).
>>>
>>> I believe AMD/ATI cares about providing a good driver base (for  
>>> Linux
>>> and probably the BSDs), but no matter how many customers mail  
>>> them, the
>>> reality of the situation is a disappointing one: managers and  
>>> executives
>>> of sorts are who have say over all of this, who decide all of  
>>> this, and
>>> who ultimately make the statements on all of this.  As a Texan co- 
>>> worker
>>> of mine says, "too many chiefs, not enough indians".  nVidia has the
>>> same "problem", for what it's worth.
>>>
>>> --
>>> | Jeremy Chadwick                                    jdc at  
>>> parodius.com |
>>> | Parodius Networking                           http:// 
>>> www.parodius.com/ |
>>> | UNIX Systems Administrator                      Mountain View,  
>>> CA, USA |
>>> | Making life hard for others since 1977.                  PGP:  
>>> 4BD6C0CB |
>
> 1. This shouldn't have been sent to the hackers@ list, because it's  
> more of a discussion than a technical topic.
> 2. Please top post.
>
> Disregarding those 2 comments, I have a few thoughts:

I'd certainly disregard that second point.

:-)