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Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

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Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#31

Post by mort96 »

rvz wrote: post #23

How is it sustainable for AMD to maintain their software on Linux for free? Would you maintain your own Linux software (and its distros) for $0? I see no problem with monetizing Linux users. If I am monetizing Windows and macOS users, there should be no exceptions towards Linux especially as Linux support is always ill defined (there are hundreds of distros to support and test.)

So much wrong with your comment.

1: The software is not free. There is what essentially amounts to a free trial. This free trial used to support Windows and Linux. Now the free version only supports Windows, only the paid tiers work on Linux.

2: The software is what amounts to a hardware-specific compiler/IDE. AMD sells the hardware, with healthy margins. Asking "how is it sustainable for AMD to maintain [Vivado] .. for free" is the same as asking, "how is it sustainable for AMD to maintain their OpenGL drivers for free". They have a solid revenue stream from hardware sales that's enabled by the software.

3: Maintaining a free Linux version is close to 0 additional cost. They already need to maintain a free tier because they provide that to Windows, they already need to maintain Linux support because they provide that for the paid tiers. The only extra maintenance would be whatever edge case bugs occur only on the free tier and only when compiled for Linux.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#32

Post by Matumio »

rvz wrote: post #23

How is it sustainable for AMD to maintain their software on Linux for free? Would you maintain your own Linux software (and its distros) for $0? I see no problem with monetizing Linux users. If I am monetizing Windows and macOS users, there should be no exceptions towards Linux especially as Linux support is always ill defined (there are hundreds of distros to support and test.)

They are selling hardware.

You'd think removing friction on the software side for someone who already bought their hardware would be in their interest. Especially for students and hobbyists, who will want use what they already know once they enter the industry.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#33

Post by mort96 »

akarambir wrote: post #2

The official replies are addressing questions that nobody has asked. The main issue is why Linux support is being removed from the Basic tier while Windows is still allowed. To grow the ecosystem, AMD needs more people working on their hardware. Restricting Linux will only alienates students, hobbyists, and devs who want to adopt AMD tech. - From long term AMD user

The official replies started off by addressing ... the "unacceptable abusive behavior towards AMD". The most important thing here is obviously to ask people not to use such hurtful words as "disgraceful" towards poor little AMD...

Answering the actual question seems not a high priority

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#34

Post by formerly_proven »

duskwuff wrote: post #17
amaterasu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way they buried the “we are no longer supporting an entire operating system” in a small missing tick, half way down the page…

Oh, no, it's sillier than that. They do still support Linux... but only if you give them money.

You don't 2.5x your stock price in two months by underextracting value.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#35

Post by adrian_b »

fleventynine wrote: post #4

I wonder how good LLM agents are at reverse engineering FPGA bitstreams... I want a robust open-source ecosystem where anyone can take my hardware projects and modify them without needing to deal with licensing friction.

For reverse engineering, you still need access to the FPGA tools provided by the vendor, to see what changes in the bitstream when you change the design.

If the bitstream is encrypted, you will not see the changes, so the only way is to reverse engineer the Vivado executables.

You do not need only the bitstream, but you also need a huge amount of timing parameters. In theory, they could be obtained by fuzzing, but that would require a huge amount of executions of the Vivado tools. So again the most plausible method is to reverse engineer the Vivado executables, to get the timing parameter database.

In some countries that should be legal, as such reverse engineering might become the only way to use the AMD FPGAs that one buys legally.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#36

Post by rvz »

einrealist wrote: post #27
rvz wrote: post #23

How is it sustainable for AMD to maintain their software on Linux for free? Would you maintain your own Linux software (and its distros) for $0? I see no problem with monetizing Linux users. If I am monetizing Windows and macOS users, there should be no exceptions towards Linux especially as Linux support is always ill defined (there are hundreds of distros to support and test.)

Maintaining support for Windows is free?

"free" as in what? Time?

There is always someone paying. Linux should be no different.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#37

Post by t_mahmood »

akarambir wrote: post #2

The official replies are addressing questions that nobody has asked. The main issue is why Linux support is being removed from the Basic tier while Windows is still allowed. To grow the ecosystem, AMD needs more people working on their hardware. Restricting Linux will only alienates students, hobbyists, and devs who want to adopt AMD tech. - From long term AMD user

When they do not have any justifiable answer, or don't want to answer, but need to keep the facade on, they'll sidestep and tell you how hard they are working on something, and how many unrelated things they've archived.

- A regular tactic used by our former autocratic ruler, or most corrupted people

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#38

Post by adrian_b »

mort96 wrote: post #33
akarambir wrote: post #2

The official replies are addressing questions that nobody has asked. The main issue is why Linux support is being removed from the Basic tier while Windows is still allowed. To grow the ecosystem, AMD needs more people working on their hardware. Restricting Linux will only alienates students, hobbyists, and devs who want to adopt AMD tech. - From long term AMD user

The official replies started off by addressing ... the "unacceptable abusive behavior towards AMD". The most important thing here is obviously to ask people not to use such hurtful words as "disgraceful" towards poor little AMD... Answering the actual question seems not a high priority

Some people, including the management of most big corporations, claim that verbal insults, which do no actual physical harm to anyone, are "unacceptable abusive behavior", while the actions that do physical harm to others, e.g. by tricking or forcing them to pay an extra part of their hard-earned money for things that should not have been paid, because they had already been paid in another form, instead of using that money for worthy purposes, are not "unacceptable abusive behavior".

Obviously, I believe that a decision like that made by AMD now is a much more "unacceptable abusive behavior" than any kind of verbal insult ever known to mankind.

This kind of decision is a masked price rise of the AMD FPGAs that applies only to small businesses and individuals, while the big quasi-monopolistic companies are not affected, which will make competing with them even more difficult.

What annoys me most about this kind of policies aimed to hurt small businesses and individuals and favor big companies, which have become more and more frequent, is that in most cases they do not provide any financial benefit whatsoever to the company that enacts them, because they limit competition not in the market where that company activates, but in related markets.

However such policies are very beneficial for the entire class of people who are major shareholders, board members or executives in big companies, by ensuring that all markets are eventually dominated by few, which has happened especially after the end of the nineties of the past century, resulting in the current unhealthy economies of the Western countries and especially of USA.

This success of the quasi-monopolies has been caused by the lack of truly adequate consumer protection laws.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#39

Post by robinsonb5 »

rvz wrote: post #23

How is it sustainable for AMD to maintain their software on Linux for free? Would you maintain your own Linux software (and its distros) for $0? I see no problem with monetizing Linux users. If I am monetizing Windows and macOS users, there should be no exceptions towards Linux especially as Linux support is always ill defined (there are hundreds of distros to support and test.)

> I see no problem with monetizing Linux users. If I am monetizing Windows and macOS users, there should be no exceptions towards Linux

Here I agree with you - Linux users shouldn't expect any special privileges here. But we're not asking for special treatment, we're asking that we continue to be given the same options as Windows users, just as we were for all previous versions of the software.

What people are objecting to is that for the latest version (and future versions) of the software an existing free tier has been withdrawn from Linux users - and only from Linux users.

Re: Why is Vivado 2026.1 dropping Linux support for free tier?

#40

Post by Drakim »

adrian_b wrote: post #38
mort96 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The official replies started off by addressing ... the "unacceptable abusive behavior towards AMD". The most important thing here is obviously to ask people not to use such hurtful words as "disgraceful" towards poor little AMD... Answering the actual question seems not a high priority

Some people, including the management of most big corporations, claim that verbal insults, which do no actual physical harm to anyone, are "unacceptable abusive behavior", while the actions that do physical harm to others, e.g. by tricking or forcing them to pay an extra part of their hard-earned money for things that should not have been paid, because they had already been paid in another form, instead of using that…

I agree with your point (that AMD does a lot more harm than what they are indignant about) but not the way you go there. If emotional abusive behavior is not "physical harm" because it's just emotions, then financial abusive behavior is not "physical harm" either because it's just numbers. When you consider what incredible harm being emotionally unwell can lead to, I don't think it deserves to be dismissed.

AMD is clearly just putting on a performance here though, using the backlash they get as a weapon.

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