4 ms·

You would think they would be more aware of very commonly used acronyms, especially those with a negative connotation.

by allenbina 4y ago

kzrdude 4y ago
DRM has been used by Direct Rendering Manager for 15 years or so, so it's itself a commonly used acronym.
- gm3dmo 4y ago
  Digital Rights Management (DRM) is what sprang to my mind.
  - notreallyserio 4y ago
    Me too, and KMS is key management system or software. But I'm more in the devops side of the industry.
- chipotle_coyote 4y ago
  I don't doubt it, but it was still a little frustrating -- as far as I can tell, DRM is never defined in the documentation on kernel.org. (I just doublechecked that by searching for "direct rendering" and nothing like "DRM (Direct Rendering Manager)" comes up.) I could tell from context that this didn't mean "digital rights management," but as someone who is not a GPU developer, I didn't have the context to figure it out. So, I really think they should take a few extra words and put this in either the introduction to the GPU Driver Developer's Guide or the first page in the section entitled "DRM Internals". They do that for KMS!
  - btdmaster 4y ago
    There used to be some documentation that explicitly mentioned it by name, but it has since been removed: https://archive.ph/20140226185421/https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/README.drm https://archive.ph/20140226185421/https://git.kernel.org/cgi...
- arka2147483647 4y ago
  No. If you are not in-the-know of linux trivia, this will be highly arcane to you.
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    It's not linux trivia - it's information anyone trying to get graphics drivers to work or looking for updates on linux might have come across.
robonerd 4y ago
'KMS' (kernel mode setting) probably disambiguates 'DRM' for most of those who are familiar with desktop Linux.
- thenewwazoo 4y ago
  I read it as “key management system” i.e. TPM, and was confused too.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    Heh, well I guess with only 26^3 TLAs to choose from, collisions are unavoidable.
    - iso1210 4y ago
      That's why the world invented ETLAs and VELTAs
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Or Key Management Services, activation method of Windows for enterprise.
amaranth 4y ago
Direct Rendering Manager has been a part of the kernel since 1999, before the 2.4 release. At that time the term Digital Rights Management as a catch-all for CSS, dongles, etc wasn't widespread.
- tremon 4y ago
  To keep with the theme of the thread: CSS = Content Scramble System, nothing to do with cascading style sheets.

You would think they would be more aware of very commonly used acronyms, especially those with a negative connotation.

kzrdude 4y ago

DRM has been used by Direct Rendering Manager for 15 years or so, so it's itself a commonly used acronym.

gm3dmo 4y ago
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is what sprang to my mind.
- notreallyserio 4y ago
  Me too, and KMS is key management system or software. But I'm more in the devops side of the industry.
chipotle_coyote 4y ago
I don't doubt it, but it was still a little frustrating -- as far as I can tell, DRM is never defined in the documentation on kernel.org. (I just doublechecked that by searching for "direct rendering" and nothing like "DRM (Direct Rendering Manager)" comes up.) I could tell from context that this didn't mean "digital rights management," but as someone who is not a GPU developer, I didn't have the context to figure it out. So, I really think they should take a few extra words and put this in either the introduction to the GPU Driver Developer's Guide or the first page in the section entitled "DRM Internals". They do that for KMS!
- btdmaster 4y ago
  There used to be some documentation that explicitly mentioned it by name, but it has since been removed: https://archive.ph/20140226185421/https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/gpu/drm/README.drm https://archive.ph/20140226185421/https://git.kernel.org/cgi...
arka2147483647 4y ago
No. If you are not in-the-know of linux trivia, this will be highly arcane to you.
- kzrdude 4y ago
  It's not linux trivia - it's information anyone trying to get graphics drivers to work or looking for updates on linux might have come across.

robonerd 4y ago

'KMS' (kernel mode setting) probably disambiguates 'DRM' for most of those who are familiar with desktop Linux.

thenewwazoo 4y ago
I read it as “key management system” i.e. TPM, and was confused too.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Heh, well I guess with only 26^3 TLAs to choose from, collisions are unavoidable.
  - iso1210 4y ago
    That's why the world invented ETLAs and VELTAs
- fomine3 4y ago
  Or Key Management Services, activation method of Windows for enterprise.

amaranth 4y ago

Direct Rendering Manager has been a part of the kernel since 1999, before the 2.4 release. At that time the term Digital Rights Management as a catch-all for CSS, dongles, etc wasn't widespread.

tremon 4y ago
To keep with the theme of the thread: CSS = Content Scramble System, nothing to do with cascading style sheets.