Amd Announces That It Will Open Up Its Drivers...

[mtnbluet 0]

to be created by Open Source. AMD will provide the skeleton for the drivers and then watch out. The drivers can then be created by opensourcers. (I think I just created a new word) That is, programmers can create drivers that are no longer proprietary. This means that AMD will really be giving Intel a run for its money. Even though some people believe Intel to be faster, they just might consider switching over to AMD. This means that the competition will heat up and that is a good thing. To read more about this announcement click here on AMD Open Source Drivers

[dserban 0]

From now on a Linux upgrade won't involve 5 hours of ATI headache.
It is now only a matter of time before you can get full use out of your $430 video card with the OS of your choice.
The community made this happen - people who sent emails to AMD's PR department to get at least a binary blob driver from AMD.
This announcement will make transitioning between Windows and Linux that much smoother, and proves that in the hardware industry the entire ball game can change in an instant. It opens the way for Linux driver programmers to write better drivers for the 2900XT than those available in Windows.
ATI is one of the companies responsible for blocking widespread adoption of Linux, so this could really be a major turning point for Linux. It could lead to Nvidia also releasing an open-source driver, and maybe even hardware manufacturers in general starting to at least release specs.
This will also benefit other open source operating systems which lack even binary drivers, and put AMD cards right beside Intel cards in terms of open-source friendliness. I suspect the current binary drivers will not be freed because of licensing restrictions/agreements with other companies. But going forward I suspect they'll probably either refrain from using 3rd party code in their drivers, or make sure to have explicit terms in the contract which allow for open sourcing the drivers.
This can in no way be bad news for open source enthusiasts, and now the ball is in NVidia's court. Hopefully it will kick them into doing the same. We need good competition to drive those prices down.
More information on their binary announcement is through:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=821&num=1
At phoronix.com they claim that "once our embargo expires (or we're otherwise permitted to talk about it) we will be covering what's up with ATI's open-source side as well."
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=newsm&px=NjAzMw
Maybe Dell was in on the conversation. Maybe Dell is thinking of a future where they can sell hardware without needing another corporation to make them actually run.
With more open source drivers, there will be more computer vendors throwing open source pre-installed on their hardware. And I guess that is a good excuse for game developers to start doing their job for all their users who aren't their users on GNU/Linux, but wish they were. A lot of people would like to get rid of the dual booting, only for gaming.
At least those with an open mind can - if they want - share some knowledge as well as take some from the community.
Edit:
AMD will be providing NDA specifications, an open-source library, and there is a new open-source graphics driver as a result. AMD will continue producing a closed-source proprietary driver; however, they are opening the source-code to a critical library with accompanying GPU specifications for X.Org developers.
Link to article:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=artim=826&num=1
Ummmm ... translation?
"We can't write decent drivers or even try to compete with Nvidia, but maybe someone else can do our work for us."
Open source code, good. Specs under an NDA, bad ... AMD's going to have to do better than that if Intel's upcoming GPU-ish Larrabee becomes competitive.
Let's see how fast the open source version catches up with AMD's binary version. It's like chasing a turtle.
Will this really be enough for the open source crowd? You give the open source crowd your first born and they respond with "What about the rest of your children?"
Link to article "Mark Shuttleworth Talks On ATI's New Linux Drivers":
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=artim=827&num=1
Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth talks about the new ATI fglrx Linux driver and AMD's new open-source work. He is pleased by AMD moves and leadership. The new fglrx driver will be available as an update in Gutsy Gibbon but will be integrated with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.

Edited September 7, 2007 by dserban (see edit history)

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I never had any problems with using proprietary drivers. I have yet to see why people complain so. It's just not practical to complain about it. Just use it, if it works, don't fix it.xboxrulz

[wutske 0]

mtnbluet, your talking about Intel while the real competitor is nVidia (AMD opens their graphics drivers, not their cpu drivers and tools).