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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

#51

Post by mattnewton »

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…

Nvidia also doesn't merge into the kernel. "Nvidia does it" is not a good argument IMO.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by fbreduc »

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…

> They don't have the resources to do it right.

Honestly I hear this quite often from big companies and it always is the biggest load of BS ever..

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

#54

Post by charonn0 »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #14
wyldfire wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus delegates authority to people he trusts. And in this case, Dave is likely representing well what Linus would do. > near-totalitarian level of power. I don't think you meant to use that word. Linus and the kernel contributors together own the copyrights on the kernel. It's not totalitarian for them to dictate its future. It's their creative work. It's downright egalitarian that they let you use the kernel howeve…

I suppose the intended notion, would be given the number of Linux distributions and use cases out there, the number of companies involved, the number of products built on top of the Linux kernel... it's amazing that one guy with little financial interest in the results or effects can make that call for everyone. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, to be honest, it's just... particularly interesting ab…

No one is being prevented from using AMD's code, it's just not going to be baked into the official kernel.

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

#55

Post by bhouston »

fbreduc wrote: post #53
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…

> They don't have the resources to do it right. Honestly I hear this quite often from big companies and it always is the biggest load of BS ever..

It is hard to get resources to do things right sometimes, even in big companies. There are a lot of competing priorities.

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

#56

Post by davidgerard »

lettergram wrote: post #7

I do feel Dave went a bit over the top in his response. If he keeps it technical it's easier to fix, people want to see their stuff merged. When he makes it personal (which he kind of did) it turns people off. That being said, I do think Dave probably made the right call, but I also think he may need to compromise on this one. That being said, AMD should strategicly try and get their GPUs supported. Couple that, with…

Dave's response: https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri-devel/2016-Decemb...

"I brought up the AMD culture because either one of two things have happened here, a) you've lost sight of what upstream kernel code looks like, or b) people in AMD aren't listening to you, and if its the latter case then it is a direct result of the AMD culture, and so far I'm not willing to believe it's the former (except maybe CGS - still on the wall whether that was a good idea or a floodgate warning)."

And, Dave's absolutely key point:

"Code doesn't trump all, I'd have merged DAL if it did. Maintainability trumps all."

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

#57

Post by lvs »

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…

The claim that AMD, a company with gross profit in the $1 - 2 billion range, does not have the resources to support a dedicated development team that can do a good job on upstream-able code is just farcical. That's a question of corporate priorities, not resources, and gets precisely to the critique of corporate culture that was in question.

> There's only so much time in the day; we'd like to make our code perfect, but we also want to get it out to customers while the hw is still relevant.

And this has always been the damn problem with AMD's drivers, even in their wheelhouse, Windows. They just have a slipshod attitude toward the software end of their core business.

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

#58

Post by EwanG »

lettergram wrote: post #7

I do feel Dave went a bit over the top in his response. If he keeps it technical it's easier to fix, people want to see their stuff merged. When he makes it personal (which he kind of did) it turns people off. That being said, I do think Dave probably made the right call, but I also think he may need to compromise on this one. That being said, AMD should strategicly try and get their GPUs supported. Couple that, with…

Just FYI, but Torch supports OpenCL - which I have played with since that "should" allow models to be worked with on either card rather than having a CUDA and an AMD version...

Or you can run CPU only - if you have an eternity to let your training loop run.

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

#59

Post by toomuchtodo »

bhouston wrote: post #55
fbreduc wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't have the resources to do it right. Honestly I hear this quite often from big companies and it always is the biggest load of BS ever..

It is hard to get resources to do things right sometimes, even in big companies. There are a lot of competing priorities.

If only there was some way to use leverage to require them to assign resources to a project.

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

#60

Post by pmelendez »

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…

> which is what makes nVidia drivers work so well on Linux

Maybe for you, every kernel upgrade I have done in the past would break my desktop for a day or two until a patch is released. Not too mention oddities and artifacts, I get from time to time. Things that I find unacceptable and embarrassing if it happens on Windows or Mac and I have to learn to live with it on Linux.

I am probably out of luck but I think I would start to see you if FreeBSD would be a good replacement for Linux

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