The ati petition

[Hamie]

Alex Deucher wrote:

>On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:04:30 +0100, Hamie <hamish at travellingkiwi.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>Alex Deucher wrote:
>>
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>>
>>>On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 11:20:56 +0100, Hamie <hamish at travellingkiwi.com> wrote:
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>>>
[deleted]

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>>It's not power management that's required for this particular problem...
>>It's recovery from suspend/resume...
>>
>>Well, OK. Power management really is required, if only to have the damn
>>fan not run 100% of the time on my laptop, but just managing to not
>>crash & burn on resume (Or even when returning from text mode) would be
>>nice... Heck if they managed that I could use the fglrx drivers &
>>probably wouldn't even care so much. But unlike the Open Source
>>solution, there's nothing I can do beyond filling out a form on their
>>site that gets completely ignored... I know it gets ignored, because
>>I've filled it out for EVERY release they've made in the last 6 months
>>since I got my r50p. And they've never fixed a single problem. Nor have
>>they even acknowledged it.
>>    
>>
>
>Their drivers use the X infrastructure.  
>X has weak power management support.  
>their drivers have weak power management support.
>
>They don't have to provide you with a driver. you could be stuck with
>windows only.
>  
>

Well... They have to provide something to someone... Or else who is 
going to buy their chips... Personally I'd prefer the docs than binaries 
only.

[deleted]

>>>>        
>>>>
>>>I too would like to see full open source drivers for the 3d component
>>>of current chips, but whether we have specs are not there are still
>>>quite a few infrastructural changes that need to happen to X in order
>>>to fully utilize every feature of the chips.  Plus even if they
>>>released they specs, who'd write the driver?  Writing a 3D driver is
>>>no trivial task.  Most developers work on X part time.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
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>>Well... There's Vladimir Dergachev for a start. Or are you implying that
>>only people employed by ATI would ever have the smarts or time to doit?
>>Well heck, the same goes for an OS I guess Linus has been wasting his
>>time hasn't he?
>>    
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>
>I'm not implying that only ATI empyees can write driver code.  I've
>written quite a bit of code for radeon.  the problem is I have to work
>a regular job all day, eat, sleep and have a life.  that doesn't
>always leave a lot of time for coding.  MOST other x developers fall
>into this camp as well.   I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's a
>lot of work. there are databooks available for quite a few cards out
>there and yet no one has written driver for them.  Why? lack of time,
>lack of hardware, etc.  just because the specs open up does not mean
>we'll magically have perfect drivers shortly there after.
>  
>

And I never said we'd magically have them. But people who really care & 
wanted them, could at least do something about it. That's my whole 
point. In fact that's the whole point of open source really isn't it. 
The freedom to do what you like with it...

>  
>
>>I'm a little confused... Why do you think I should be grateful to ATI
>>for NOT supporting the 3D open source drivers?
>>    
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>
>They do support opensource 3d drivers, just not yet for your chip. 
>I'd like to hope one day they will, but right now they don't.  Bad
>mouthing them is no going to help our cause.  Why should they even
>provide a binary driver, much less full specs if all you are going to
>do is bitch about it.
>  
>

Well, they don't leave a lot of room to do anything else do they? Why 
are you defending them? I never bad mouthed them. I stated nothing 
except the truth. They provide binary only drivers that don't work 
properly. They have a feedback page that gets ignored, and have never 
fixed or even acknowledged anything that's been sent to them on it.

Why should they provide a spec or driver that works? Because they got ££ 
from me when I bought a computer with one of their products in it. Why 
else? I'm not asking for state secrets or how many times the CEO has 
slept with his (Or her) secretary. I'm not even asking them to support 
Linux etc, except to the extent of providing the information necessary 
to use the advertised features of their products. I'm asking for 
information to be able to use the hardware I have purchased to it's full 
extent. Do you find that unreasonable? Personally I think ATI make good 
graphics chips. I just want to be able to use it.


Hamish.