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AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

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Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#41

Post by izacus »

fapjacks wrote: post #35
zie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, really. Many vendors keep their own in-house patches to the mainline tree, that never make it upstream for various reasons(See Android's kernel for instance). There is nothing stopping a vendor or anyone else, from publishing their own linux tree that is a fork of mainline with this AMD patch applied. Linus maintains the 'mainline' tree, just because of the history and because most kernel hackers bel…

Right. And this is an indicator that the Good King and his generals have done an exemplary job keeping it solid: Everyone uses their product.

Except the largest deployment of Linux in the world: Android devices.

Which are running a severely modified kernel because the process of going through mainline to get it mobile ready would be far too painful.

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#42

Post by serge2k »

izacus wrote: post #37
plorkyeran wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not "We can't accept this, let's talk about how to make us both happy". He gave them that answer 6 months ago, and they ignored it. This was not an abrupt rejection out of nowhere.

The "answer" 6 months ago was "Yeah, you'll have to write a full Linux driver yourself and maintain it." type deal. It was unreasonable then as it is now. If I tell you "You need to rewrite your product in Brainfuck or I'll kick you out in 6 months.", the fact that I told you that doesn't make it any less insane.

> I can respect your technical points and if you kept it to that, I'd be fine with it and we could have a technical discussion starting there.

Why is that so unreasonable?

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#43

Post by serge2k »

izacus wrote: post #27
pja wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From his point of view the AMD guys were told that this code wouldn’t be merged as is six months ago and now they come back with a massive code drop and very effectively put him in the position of having to be the bad guy. I think we’d all have some sharp words we’d like to use in that situation even if the better part of our natures might counsel us to keep them to ourselves.

The kernel essentially demanded they drop the idea of cross-platform driver (which is what makes nVidia drivers work so well on Linux and is keeping them in lockstep with Windows releases) and maintain a full separate copy with a small team. It was unrealistic six months ago as it is now. And yet, I still don't see a constructive debate from Linux (or AMD) side on how to sync the goals. All I see is Linux people post…

why does AMD need to be in the kernel? Why can't they release the way nVidia does?

or open source it, develop along with upstream but don't make it part of upstream.

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#45

Post by matt4077 »

izacus wrote: post #31

I think this is a great situation to quote Linus on Linux supporters inside companies (not 100% same, but I think related): (on litigation against companies that contribute) > Anyone in the company that pushed to use Linux is now seen as "wrong" and instantly is pissed off that external people just messed up their employment future. > - Anyone in the company that resisted the use of Linux (possibly in ways that cause…

That argument is too broad, because it could be used against /any/ effort to get code into the kernel by a large corp.

Linux is no longer in the weak position it once was. It has won the war for server market share (at least to a degree where using it has nothing to do with being a "hippy" programmer), and it has lost the desktop war so thoroughly that at this point it really doesn't matter anymore.

In this position, Linux can live without AMD drivers, probably more so than AMD can.

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#46

Post by this-dang-guy »

fapjacks wrote: post #33
imaginenore wrote: post #3

What I don't get is how one kernel maintainer can make such a massive decision that affects all of Linux. That's some near-totalitarian level of power. After reading the arguments, I'm kind of on AMD's side. I get what Dave wants, but it seems extremely idealistic.

The Good King is how Linux has come to run the world's servers. I am perfectly fine missing out on some incidental functionality here or there in order to keep this power structure which had protected the Linux kernel thus far. It seems to work extremely well.

I'd prefer to see NVidia style drivers, personally. I don't give a rat's beans if optimized video card, nic, etc drivers are open.

I just want a system that will work properly without them. Not 60FPS on Ultra settings in work, I mean boot and function as a normal user's desktop.

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#47

Post by vacri »

Spivak wrote: post #23

I really don't understand why AMD cares so much about getting their driver upstreamed. If their code doesn't meet the kernel standards and they don't want to fix it then just package it up as kernel module and ship it like Nvidia does. Distributions will package it using DKMS and other than some occasional troubleshooting they wont even notice. It's really no difference than Windows in that respect. His arguments see…

You missed the bit where AMD chides kernel maintainer for attacking AMD's corporate culture rather than technical merits, and then goes on to chide maintainer culture in the same paragraph.

And it's not even true what AMD says - that to commit to the kernel you need to be a funky part-time hacker or an immense behemoth. There are tons of small hardware shops out there with drivers in the kernel, written by paid developers. True, a graphics card is much more complex than any other appliance, but the characterisation is extremely wrong - the most active part of the kernel is the drivers, and they're not written by "redhat + movie-style hackers", but largely by the companies that make the hardware.

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#48

Post by matt4077 »

imaginenore wrote: post #3

What I don't get is how one kernel maintainer can make such a massive decision that affects all of Linux. That's some near-totalitarian level of power. After reading the arguments, I'm kind of on AMD's side. I get what Dave wants, but it seems extremely idealistic.

Why don't you try to get some code merged into the Windows kernel and tell us how that goes?

> After reading the arguments, I'm kind of on AMD's side.

And that's why stuff like this doesn't get put to a vote.

Re: AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch

#49

Post by [deleted] »

vacri wrote: post #47
Spivak wrote: post #23

I really don't understand why AMD cares so much about getting their driver upstreamed. If their code doesn't meet the kernel standards and they don't want to fix it then just package it up as kernel module and ship it like Nvidia does. Distributions will package it using DKMS and other than some occasional troubleshooting they wont even notice. It's really no difference than Windows in that respect. His arguments see…

You missed the bit where AMD chides kernel maintainer for attacking AMD's corporate culture rather than technical merits, and then goes on to chide maintainer culture in the same paragraph. And it's not even true what AMD says - that to commit to the kernel you need to be a funky part-time hacker or an immense behemoth. There are tons of small hardware shops out there with drivers in the kernel, written by paid devel…

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