[Xorg-driver-geode] xf86-video-geode seeking new upstream maintainer

[Martin-Éric Racine]

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Michael <auslands-kv at gmx.de> wrote:
> I have a strange memory corruption problem.
>
> I use a Geode LX based system running mostly Debian Lenny on kernel
> 2.6.31.4.
[...]
> I have tried the following things without success:
> - updating geode video driver to 2.11.6 (this version needed more video
> memory, 32MB instead of 8MB, and it segfaultet when not providing EDID
> information, but otherwise no difference)

Thanks for reporting this, Michael.

Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that Geode users will have to get
used to the lesser performances of the VESA driver, because nobody has
been willing to put any real effort towards properly maintaining
xf86-video-geode, as a result of which its usability has slowly
diminished e.g. corrupted handling of pixmaps, double of the previous
memory consumption, broken support on GX2 hardware, long gone GX1 and
SC hardware support, etc. to the point that it's no longer usable even
on fairly recent LX hardware.

Back when AMD had their own paid staff maintaining this driver, things
worked extremely well, but after nearly the whole embedded department
was laid off, including Jordan Cruise, who had contributed most of the
xf86-video-geode code, this driver has been falling into rapid decay.

Initially, the idea was for myself to pick up where Jordan left and
act as the release manager, with contributions from Chris Ball and
Mart Raudsepp to keep the code at least remotely in sync with X server
core releases. I'm afraid to report that this strategy has failed, now
that the OLPC and Artec have moved on to other hardware platforms.
These days, we only get occasional maintenance script updates by
Gaetan Nadon and minor GX2 fixes by Otavio Salvador. This is clearly
not enough to keep this driver remotely usable so, unless we get new
contributors to jump in and help us maintain this xf86-video-geode,
I'm gonna have to inform the X.org development team that our driver is
hereby deprecated and should no longer ship with any distribution.

Best Regards,
Martin-Éric