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"Hemmann, Volker Armin" <volker.armin.hemmann@××××××××××××.de> posted |
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200608130038.56469.volker.armin.hemmann@××××××××××××.de, excerpted below, |
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on Sun, 13 Aug 2006 00:38:56 +0200: |
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|
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> On Sunday 13 August 2006 00:34, Antoine Martin wrote: |
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>> |
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>> I can't wait for ATI to open-source their crappy slaveryware drivers. |
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>> |
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> you can wait for a long, long time. heise.de reported today, that ATI |
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> will NOT opensource any drivers. They asked them and got a big fat NO as |
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> an answer. |
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|
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Of course, it's all speculation at this point, but while they got no for |
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an answer, some of the discussion I've seen has pointed out that's exactly |
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what you'd expect folks from the ATI camp to say at this time -- before |
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the deal is closed and in fact before the shareholders have even voted on |
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it. Not saying it will happen, not saying it won't, but simply that in |
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such a situation, spokespeople tend to keep saying the same thing until |
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they are told to say something different, because that's exactly what they |
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are getting paid to do. At this point, it's not unreasonable that the |
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spokespeople simply don't know, in part because it's their job /not/ to |
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know some things at this point. |
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|
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So I still have hope... |
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|
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Meanwhile, if AMD's intent is to be able to sell the whole solution, cpu |
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and mobo chipset in some cases with integrated video, in ordered to better |
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compete with Intel, they'll pretty much /have/ to open-spec it at least to |
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a point, because Intel has. To /not/ do so will leave them in a |
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competitive hole, with at least one segment of their market, and an often |
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early adopter one at that (Linux rolled out AMD64 support well before MS |
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did, and for some time, Linux was the primary market for it, something AMD |
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is well aware of, I'm sure). |
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|
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Fortunately for me, I'm not planning on a hardware platform upgrade for at |
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least a couple more years (I'm dual Opteron 242 w/ 8 gig memory currently, |
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in a $400 Tyan dual-dual-core capable board I bought a couple years ago, |
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and will be upgrading to dual-core Opteron 270 or 272s later this year |
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after the upgrades drop the prices on socket 940s), and my Radeon 9200 AGP |
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driving dual 21" monitors with xorg's native drivers seems to work |
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relatively well, all things considered. |
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|
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By the time I'm looking for a platform upgrade in 2-4 years (I figure back |
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to a single CPU again by then, but quad-core, maybe even octi-core), |
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AMD/ATI should have open sourced if they are going to. If they haven't, I |
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could well be buying Intel for the first time since my 486SX-25 w/ an |
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incredible 4 MB of RAM! However, given all I've read about AMD's goals |
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and reasons for doing this merger, I still consider this the best chance |
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we've yet seen for AMD/ATI to release at least enough specs to allow |
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reasonable 3D, even if it they do reserve some of the best stuff as |
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closed, so I really do expect I'll still have a choice, and it won't be |
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Baked Intel or Fried Intel or Intel on bread or ... (xref Monty Python, |
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SPAM). |
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|
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Of course, by then, we should have a bit better data on whether the OGP |
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(Open Graphics Project, google or wikipedia it if necessary) FPGA board |
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got enough buyers to allow them to launch the regular chip version, and |
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have at least some fix on how far off that might be if it did. Depending |
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on how the timing all works out, it's just possible I'll be buying the |
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mobo/cpu platform with an OGP card in mind. OTOH, if AMD opens their |
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video specs/drivers as Intel has, it's just possible it could roll NVidia |
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as well, and the OGP may end up not having a market, as everything else is |
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open speced at least to /some/ degree anyway. |
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|
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |
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|
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-- |
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