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AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

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Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#101

Post by davrosthedalek »

jorvi wrote: post #94
ajross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only mean that their Linux user base is growing, ie. more commercial operators are turning to Linux. Well, more correctly that they think the commercial base has grown, and that there's revenue on the table by forcing their standard-edition-using commercial Linux users into contracts. Maybe the thinking is that the Linux users are more sophisticated and able to self-support than windows shops, and so they're…

What is really interesting about Linux users is that they cost an enormous amount in support. I think it was a dev of the reboot of Planetary Annihilation that said their Linux users / build made up a few percent of the sales but over 90 percent of all support tickets (!). Mind you that this was before Valve's Proton. Edit: It was https://xcancel.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760

Yes, and I think a free-version user might produce more support requests than a commercial user for two reasons: 1) commercial/professional users might feel more entitled to support, but typically have a better understanding of linux and more versed in fixing stuff themselves. -- and more importantly -- 2) They probably have a dedicated setup where they can run the AMD-blessed distro

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#102

Post by HumanOstrich »

jorvi wrote: post #94
ajross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only mean that their Linux user base is growing, ie. more commercial operators are turning to Linux. Well, more correctly that they think the commercial base has grown, and that there's revenue on the table by forcing their standard-edition-using commercial Linux users into contracts. Maybe the thinking is that the Linux users are more sophisticated and able to self-support than windows shops, and so they're…

What is really interesting about Linux users is that they cost an enormous amount in support. I think it was a dev of the reboot of Planetary Annihilation that said their Linux users / build made up a few percent of the sales but over 90 percent of all support tickets (!). Mind you that this was before Valve's Proton. Edit: It was https://xcancel.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760

I don't think gaming on Linux is comparable here.

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#103

Post by Hinrik »

jorvi wrote: post #94
ajross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only mean that their Linux user base is growing, ie. more commercial operators are turning to Linux. Well, more correctly that they think the commercial base has grown, and that there's revenue on the table by forcing their standard-edition-using commercial Linux users into contracts. Maybe the thinking is that the Linux users are more sophisticated and able to self-support than windows shops, and so they're…

What is really interesting about Linux users is that they cost an enormous amount in support. I think it was a dev of the reboot of Planetary Annihilation that said their Linux users / build made up a few percent of the sales but over 90 percent of all support tickets (!). Mind you that this was before Valve's Proton. Edit: It was https://xcancel.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760

If those bugs are only present in the Linux port, then yeah, Linux users cost more to support. But if a significant amount of these bugs affect all platforms, then you could argue that a Linux user is much more valuable to them than a non-Linux user because they provide better feedback. Assuming they actually care about fixing their product.

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#105

Post by bravetraveler »

bigfishrunning wrote: post #54
bravetraveler wrote: post #4

Incredible, behaving as if they want another CUDA situation.

They want their *own* CUDA situation. if you're doing FPGA stuff, the Xilinx hardware is good and Vivaldi is really the only way to use it. AFAIK the open-source fpga situation is pretty far behind it (please correct me if I'm wrong, I work in a place that uses Xilinx FPGAs)

> They want their *own* CUDA situation

What better way to do that than decrease availability, I ask, both rhetorically and sarcastically! CUDA-proper did well, at least partially, because it was put in front of everyone. This is taking an exclusivity angle that doesn't make much sense for ecosystem development, IMO.

I suspect this goes to show how much influence/priority B2B carries, my point is it's a mistake they've made before. The maintenance/support costs I believe they're trying to remove have paid dividends for CUDA and countless others. Anyway, a play on the tagline before I go: "Together we advance... licensing and removal of [positive] feedback loops over product development"

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#106

Post by nicoburns »

Hinrik wrote: post #103
jorvi wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is really interesting about Linux users is that they cost an enormous amount in support. I think it was a dev of the reboot of Planetary Annihilation that said their Linux users / build made up a few percent of the sales but over 90 percent of all support tickets (!). Mind you that this was before Valve's Proton. Edit: It was https://xcancel.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760

If those bugs are only present in the Linux port, then yeah, Linux users cost more to support. But if a significant amount of these bugs affect all platforms, then you could argue that a Linux user is much more valuable to them than a non-Linux user because they provide better feedback. Assuming they actually care about fixing their product.

Part of the problem is that Linux isn't really one platform, it's 10 different ones of varying popularity (e.g. supporting Gnome on Debian with Wayland doesn't mean that KDE on Nix with X will work). And it costs somewhere in that 1-10x range to support it because of that.

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#107

Post by rebolek »

jorvi wrote: post #94
ajross wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It can only mean that their Linux user base is growing, ie. more commercial operators are turning to Linux. Well, more correctly that they think the commercial base has grown, and that there's revenue on the table by forcing their standard-edition-using commercial Linux users into contracts. Maybe the thinking is that the Linux users are more sophisticated and able to self-support than windows shops, and so they're…

What is really interesting about Linux users is that they cost an enormous amount in support. I think it was a dev of the reboot of Planetary Annihilation that said their Linux users / build made up a few percent of the sales but over 90 percent of all support tickets (!). Mind you that this was before Valve's Proton. Edit: It was https://xcancel.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760

20% of auto-reported crashes. So it's not like Linux users were writing more tickets but the game crashing on Linux more (because of gfx drivers).

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#108

Post by Aurornis »

sheepscreek wrote: post #74

> “Until now, it has been available for free on both Windows and Linux” If it’s any consolation, it wasn’t and still isn’t available on macOS. Also the part about Linux having a “small user base” made me chuckle. That’s the opposite of what I’m observing. If they wanted to save costs, they would have dropped Linux support altogether. But instead, they are making it a paid benefit. It can only mean that their Linux us…

There’s a lot of misinformation in this thread from people who didn’t know about Vivado until this controversy.

> But instead, they are making it a paid benefit. It can only mean that their Linux user base is growing, ie. more commercial operators are turning to Linux.

Vivado has always been primarily a paid product, including on Linux. The free tier has been a limited version useful for small projects or as a trial, which can support a limited set of FPGAs. The paid tier licenses have price tags in the thousands.

They aren’t making new paid products for a growing user base. They are continuing to support their paid Linux user base.

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#109

Post by ekidd »

dgacmu wrote: post #13

Large company again makes local decision without considering the effects outside that single product line. I wonder how many Linux GPU sales their decision to penalize Linux on their FPGA line will cost them.

I mean, over the years, I have purchased (or advised other people to purchase) multiple Nvidia GPUs for compute workloads.

And the reason pretty much always came down to good integration between various open source software and proprietary CUDA drivers. And the assumption is that this support will continue for many years.

So, yeah, burning their existing FPGA users is a strong signal never to invest real money in their GPUs for compute workloads.

Re: AMD pulls a bait-and-switch on Linux users with Vivado licensing changes

#110

Post by Aurornis »

dgacmu wrote: post #13

Large company again makes local decision without considering the effects outside that single product line. I wonder how many Linux GPU sales their decision to penalize Linux on their FPGA line will cost them.

> I wonder how many Linux GPU sales their decision to penalize Linux on their FPGA line will cost them

Honestly? I bet the number is in the hundreds of units total.

Most people do not care that a software package they don’t use and possibly never heard of before today no longer has a free tier on Linux.

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