ATI to provide specs (was: Re: SMedia 3362)

[Steve]

Harald Welte wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 01, 2007 at 05:19:22PM +0100, Giles Jones wrote:
>> On 1 Sep 2007, at 17:11, Mikko Rauhala wrote:
>>> You're implying there are better choices...
>> I wouldn't know since I've not looked into such things. But ATI have mobile 
>> GPUs and are open sourcing desktop drivers, maybe they would do the same 
>> for their mobile devices?
> 
> Why do you think we have spent many weeks, if not months to meet with
> each and every graphics chip vendor?  We're not that stupid, eh.
> 
> It was a very painful and long process to finally find one company that
> was not fundamentally opposed to free software drivers. one in the
> entire industry.

I sympathize with you.  I'm tired of finding no datasheets or worse, the
1 page "datasheet" when I go to look at potential components.  I wonder
how many sales these companies have lost because someone couldn't even
tell what their component does?

The point of this post is to bring attention to the news that ATI/AMD
appears to be planning to actually release documentation, at least for
their desktop chips anyway.  I've heard rumblings about this sort of
thing in the past, and always thought: "Yeah right, I'll believe it when
I see it."  But it appears to actually be happening, open source 2D
drivers from ATI by the end of the year with documentation for the
community to write 3D drivers to follow.

It may be worth talking with ATI again.  Since this announcement, I
don't think it is too far fetched to at least get the same deal you
currently have with SMedia.  I wouldn't be surprised if the people you
were talking to had no idea this sort of thing was being planned.  ATI
may even allow the release documentation at some point in the future.

I realize you are probably already aware of this, and that it is much to
late to show up in the GTA02, I just wanted to make sure you knew about
it. (and I'd love to hear about it if its on the mysterious road map)


Some links: (in no particular order)

Ars Technica:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2007/09/05/amd-to-deliver-better-ati-drivers-open-specifications
Beyon3d: http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/458
ZDNet: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6206581.html
CNet: http://news.com.com/8301-13580_3-9772788-39.html

Google news search:
http://news.google.com/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&tab=wn&ie=ISO-8859-1&ncl=1120354742

ATI's phone processor page: http://ati.amd.com/products/handheld.html

-Steve