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AMD doesn't have "gross profit in the $1 - 2 billion range". They have about $1B in revenue per quarter and have had negative profits (i.e. they lose money) for

AMD doesn't have "gross profit in the $1 - 2 billion range". They have about $1B in revenue per quarter and have had negative profits (i.e. they lose money) for quite some time now. They were on the verge of bankrupcy about a year ago. Maybe Zen can turn their fortunes around, but they're correct in that they don't have the resources for a dedicated development team right now.

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Dylan16807 10y ago
Writing the software that makes your hardware work is much more of a revenue-based issue than a profit-based issue. Even if you're losing money you need to balance your development budget, and not cut any segment too far.
- AlphaSite 10y ago
  Their revenue is from Windows, Apple and Cknsoles, not from Linux.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    It's impossible whether to tell if it'd be better if their drivers sucked less. It's certainly a massive barrier to Linux being usable.
- tw04 10y ago
  Yes, AMD should definitely dedicate an entire team to focusing on writing drivers for desktop Linux. An OS that currently captures less than 1% of the overall desktop gaming market[1]. In other news, McDonald's should really start tailoring their marketing and in-store experience to people making over $10 million/year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Market_share_vs._installed_base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Market_share_vs._...
  - quetzthecoatl 10y ago
    Isn't it because the high end hardware becoming useless because of the very lack of drivers? Nobody wants to spend lot of money on hardware and don't get to use it optimally. Driver support on platform -> Games released on platform -> Gamers using the platform.
    - notalaser 10y ago
      Linux drivers on the nVidia side are OK. I've had excellent performance, and no trouble with them for what I think are already 10 years now, if not more. Lack of driver support is not what's stopping people from releasing Linux games.
      - Certhas 10y ago
        And they are closed source. AMD tried to go open source and upstream and found out that that is not viable, because they would need to duplicate a lot of work in order to avoid putting abstractions in the kernel. The upshot is, kernel developers have been complaining about nVidia lots for the route they took. When I install Linux on a reasonably recent desktop I still have to fiddle with boot options and/or blacklist the nouveau driver for some nVidia cards. And now nVidias approach has been completely vindicated.
        hashhar 10y ago
        This. Exactly this. The treatment AMD got from LKML was slightly deserved but doing that they alienated a hardware partner and indirectly set the precedent for doing closed source binary releases that use HAL anyway. It sucks for the consumers and that's what drives the installed base of Linux.
        anonbanker 10y ago
        > slightly deserved ATi was legendary for their terrible drivers. The fglrx drivers took literally 5 years to not suck on first-generation radeon cards. By "not suck", I mean that the system would not have kernel panics at least once a day due to them. While they were piling on support for newer drivers in their proprietary stack, they were leaving triaged bugs open for years. When AMD bought them out, they didn't fire every developer they had and replace them with better talent, which is why we're seeing this LKML thread today. I attempted to use ATi/AMD video cards in systems every time they'd make a big linux announcement, to attempt to support them for their decisions. Every time, I would have new linux converts telling me they were going back to windows due to how unstable their linux systems were, all thanks to these terrible bug-ridden drivers. I and many other linux zealots now refuse to use ATi/AMD video cards to this day for that reason. It's clear that AMDGPU is only slightly improved from that situation, so I don't anticipate myself changing that opinion any time soon. The open radeon/radeonsi/radeonhd drivers are substantially more stable than the proprietary ones, adhere to kernel standards, and are now starting to reach feature/performance-parity with the proprietary drivers, with barely any help from ATi/AMD. The Linux kernel will be just fine without ATi's terrible code infecting the tree. Eventually, the vendors start playing ball once they realize the kernel doesn't budge on code quality/standards, as the net80211 debacle proved. If they had just released all the specs without substantial NDA's in the way, ATi could rely on the volunteer kernel hackers to produce a driver that outperformed their windows equivalents, just like how Intel is currently benefitting.
lvs 10y ago
It does, in fact, report around the gross profit I specified. Why don't you look at the financials [1]. I think many people in this thread, including you, don't know what the term "gross profit" means. [1] http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-fundIncomeA http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-fundIncomeA
- tankenmate 10y ago
  But just because they have a seemingly sufficient gross margin doesn't mean they don't have significant unavoidable costs that can't neatly be attributed to cost of sales.
- peller 10y ago
  I had to look it up. And you're right, I didn't know what the accountants think gross profit means. The thing is, gross profit doesn't include operating expenses[0]: "rent, equipment, inventory costs, marketing, payroll, insurance and funds allocated toward research and development."[1] As you can see on the page you linked, for a company like AMD, their operating expenses are huge. And that's not even including expenses from taxes and debts. So the number we really want, and what I imagine most people are thinking you meant, is net income. Which, you'll notice is sadly rather negative. [0] http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031015/what-difference-between-gross-profit-operating-profit-and-net-income.asp http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031015/what-differen... [1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operating_expense.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operating_expense.asp
- samfisher83 10y ago
  Gross profits don't include things like R&D and Sales just the Revenue - cost of goods sold. They have a negative net profit margin. They are hemorrhaging cash, and have a lot of debt. The have negative share holder equity. They are in a bad financial position. Therefore it is kind of commendable they have some one trying to improve their linux drivers. They can't just "Afford" to just throw more people at the problem because of their financial issues.
mangeletti 10y ago
Maybe this is why their net is negative; because they don't allocate money to the right things.
- c0nfused 10y ago
  In my experience supporting Linux desktop is hardly ever the right thing. Example: ubutnu cannot consistently ship a version of network manager that supports reconnecting to a wifi network suspend with out being manually restarted. I suspect that at a dollar value there is most no point but I don't have access to enough data to prove it.
  - angry_octet 10y ago
    Your example re wifi is not great, works fine for me. Dell hardware.
  - anonbanker 10y ago
    > Lennart Poettering's NetworkManager Your experience is limited, and tainted. wpa-supplicant by itself can accomplish what you desire; NetworkManager (poorly) adds three or four extra layers of abstraction on top of that. Meanwhile, Wicd and connman do exactly what you need, and don't constantly crash while doing it. Blame ubuntu for following Red Hat's lead, and using their "solutions" to the problem.

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deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Dylan16807 10y ago

Writing the software that makes your hardware work is much more of a revenue-based issue than a profit-based issue. Even if you're losing money you need to balance your development budget, and not cut any segment too far.

AlphaSite 10y ago
Their revenue is from Windows, Apple and Cknsoles, not from Linux.
- duaneb 10y ago
  It's impossible whether to tell if it'd be better if their drivers sucked less. It's certainly a massive barrier to Linux being usable.
tw04 10y ago
Yes, AMD should definitely dedicate an entire team to focusing on writing drivers for desktop Linux. An OS that currently captures less than 1% of the overall desktop gaming market[1]. In other news, McDonald's should really start tailoring their marketing and in-store experience to people making over $10 million/year. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Market_share_vs._installed_base https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Market_share_vs._...
- quetzthecoatl 10y ago
  Isn't it because the high end hardware becoming useless because of the very lack of drivers? Nobody wants to spend lot of money on hardware and don't get to use it optimally. Driver support on platform -> Games released on platform -> Gamers using the platform.
  - notalaser 10y ago
    Linux drivers on the nVidia side are OK. I've had excellent performance, and no trouble with them for what I think are already 10 years now, if not more. Lack of driver support is not what's stopping people from releasing Linux games.
    - Certhas 10y ago
      And they are closed source. AMD tried to go open source and upstream and found out that that is not viable, because they would need to duplicate a lot of work in order to avoid putting abstractions in the kernel. The upshot is, kernel developers have been complaining about nVidia lots for the route they took. When I install Linux on a reasonably recent desktop I still have to fiddle with boot options and/or blacklist the nouveau driver for some nVidia cards. And now nVidias approach has been completely vindicated.
      - hashhar 10y ago
        This. Exactly this. The treatment AMD got from LKML was slightly deserved but doing that they alienated a hardware partner and indirectly set the precedent for doing closed source binary releases that use HAL anyway. It sucks for the consumers and that's what drives the installed base of Linux.
        anonbanker 10y ago
        > slightly deserved ATi was legendary for their terrible drivers. The fglrx drivers took literally 5 years to not suck on first-generation radeon cards. By "not suck", I mean that the system would not have kernel panics at least once a day due to them. While they were piling on support for newer drivers in their proprietary stack, they were leaving triaged bugs open for years. When AMD bought them out, they didn't fire every developer they had and replace them with better talent, which is why we're seeing this LKML thread today. I attempted to use ATi/AMD video cards in systems every time they'd make a big linux announcement, to attempt to support them for their decisions. Every time, I would have new linux converts telling me they were going back to windows due to how unstable their linux systems were, all thanks to these terrible bug-ridden drivers. I and many other linux zealots now refuse to use ATi/AMD video cards to this day for that reason. It's clear that AMDGPU is only slightly improved from that situation, so I don't anticipate myself changing that opinion any time soon. The open radeon/radeonsi/radeonhd drivers are substantially more stable than the proprietary ones, adhere to kernel standards, and are now starting to reach feature/performance-parity with the proprietary drivers, with barely any help from ATi/AMD. The Linux kernel will be just fine without ATi's terrible code infecting the tree. Eventually, the vendors start playing ball once they realize the kernel doesn't budge on code quality/standards, as the net80211 debacle proved. If they had just released all the specs without substantial NDA's in the way, ATi could rely on the volunteer kernel hackers to produce a driver that outperformed their windows equivalents, just like how Intel is currently benefitting.

lvs 10y ago

It does, in fact, report around the gross profit I specified. Why don't you look at the financials [1]. I think many people in this thread, including you, don't know what the term "gross profit" means. [1] http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-fundIncomeA http://ir.amd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=74093&p=irol-fundIncomeA

tankenmate 10y ago
But just because they have a seemingly sufficient gross margin doesn't mean they don't have significant unavoidable costs that can't neatly be attributed to cost of sales.
peller 10y ago
I had to look it up. And you're right, I didn't know what the accountants think gross profit means. The thing is, gross profit doesn't include operating expenses[0]: "rent, equipment, inventory costs, marketing, payroll, insurance and funds allocated toward research and development."[1] As you can see on the page you linked, for a company like AMD, their operating expenses are huge. And that's not even including expenses from taxes and debts. So the number we really want, and what I imagine most people are thinking you meant, is net income. Which, you'll notice is sadly rather negative. [0] http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031015/what-difference-between-gross-profit-operating-profit-and-net-income.asp http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/031015/what-differen... [1] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operating_expense.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/operating_expense.asp
samfisher83 10y ago
Gross profits don't include things like R&D and Sales just the Revenue - cost of goods sold. They have a negative net profit margin. They are hemorrhaging cash, and have a lot of debt. The have negative share holder equity. They are in a bad financial position. Therefore it is kind of commendable they have some one trying to improve their linux drivers. They can't just "Afford" to just throw more people at the problem because of their financial issues.

mangeletti 10y ago

Maybe this is why their net is negative; because they don't allocate money to the right things.

c0nfused 10y ago
In my experience supporting Linux desktop is hardly ever the right thing. Example: ubutnu cannot consistently ship a version of network manager that supports reconnecting to a wifi network suspend with out being manually restarted. I suspect that at a dollar value there is most no point but I don't have access to enough data to prove it.
- angry_octet 10y ago
  Your example re wifi is not great, works fine for me. Dell hardware.
- anonbanker 10y ago
  > Lennart Poettering's NetworkManager Your experience is limited, and tainted. wpa-supplicant by itself can accomplish what you desire; NetworkManager (poorly) adds three or four extra layers of abstraction on top of that. Meanwhile, Wicd and connman do exactly what you need, and don't constantly crash while doing it. Blame ubuntu for following Red Hat's lead, and using their "solutions" to the problem.