Fwd: AMD deciding _now_ what to do about Linux

Dieter freebsd at sopwith.solgatos.com
Sat Jun 16 18:32:34 UTC 2007


So who, exactly, is the best person to write to requesting
docs for AMD/ATI graphics/video chips?

We need to politely inform them that

	There are a lot of operating systems out there,
	and they all need high quality, fully functional drivers.
	FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Plan-9, Open-Solaris, ...

	We might want to add a ATI graphics/video card to a computer
	with a different CPU architecture (Alpha, Sparc, PPC, ...)

	Binary drivers are useless, because:
		Too many OSes.
		Too many CPU archs.
		Can't fix bugs.
		Can't fix security holes.
	Therefore we need documentation on how to program the chips.

	2D is not enough.  We need video decoding and 3D.

	If we can't have high quality, fully functional source code drivers
	for the OS and CPU arch of our choice, then there is no reason to
	buy the product.

Have I left out anything?


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