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Here's a quote from another hn user robert_foss from the discussion on the Apple / Imagination Technologies thread. 'In the GPU space it is impossible to not i
by orik 10y ago
Here's a quote from another hn user robert_foss from the discussion on the Apple / Imagination Technologies thread.
'In the GPU space it is impossible to not infringe on the IP of other vendors.
In fact it is the major reason GPU vendors give for not having an open source driver. I have spoken to the CTO (Jem Davies) of ARM about the GPU drivers and open sourcing them more than once. And every time I've gotten the reply: "No, we can't, it opens us up to IP infringement suits."'
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021299 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021299
- xorcist 10y agoIntel GPU drivers are completely open source, are they not? That clearly makes it not impossible, if they cared enough.
- true_religion 10y agoIntel is #1 in the chip technology field though. They are in a special position where it would be suicidal to sue them.
- thomastjeffery 10y agoAbsolutely. AMD is moving strongly in that direction too. This is just one of many sad excuses to continue a moronic, and frankly harmful practice.
- kimixa 10y agoBoth AMD's and Intel's OSS drivers are 'clean room' separate codebases to their internal closed drivers. It may be that they are specifically avoiding some features/rewriting possibly infringing code in these cases. As far as I know, we have yet to have an open driver to get the same performance as their closed windows ones in all cases. There may be reasons behind that.