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Every time I read an article like this it seems that the implied consensus is that companies with millions of dollars in yearly revenue are unable to hire good

by talmand 14y ago

Every time I read an article like this it seems that the implied consensus is that companies with millions of dollars in yearly revenue are unable to hire good talent when it comes to hardware programming and all the "good" ones are open-source people who may or may not have worked for one of these companies in the past. With all these "this thing is bad" articles it just seems like no hardware company has ever been able to write good drivers and are completely unable to hire the right people to do the job. This is implied in all of the history of electronics. But they also almost always come across as more opinions than facts. Does the Pi GPU driver suck? I don't know because this article says so but doesn't explain why exactly. As someone else pointed out, this article is pointing out that the company simply did not create certain things the way the community wanted. I'm not a hardware programmer so I don't much about such things, but what do these people actually expect out of a piece of hardware that costs around $25-50 US? What exactly are the goals these people want that require the type of access they are asking for? What goals are they failing to achieve that makes them decide the hardware and/or drivers suck? That's all I ask when one of these "this thing is bad" type of article.

jotux 14y ago
>I don't know because this article says so but doesn't explain why exactly. I think it's pretty clear. What broadcom released was a binary file and and code to interface with it. It's not that the driver functionality is any different than what's already available it's that all the important functionality is in the binary file that was provided without any source code. They made a big deal about the first open source ARM gpu driver but, for the most part, it's still a black box and it's not really useful to developers looking to change/improve the gpu performance.
- talmand 14y ago
  I get what you're saying, but that doesn't really say the hardware or its drivers suck. It just tells me that the community doesn't have the access they would like. Complaining that the GPU isn't open is one thing and I totally understand that, saying it sucks is completely different to me. Saying it sucks implies that there is something wrong with the hardware and/or its drivers. It would be similar to claiming that a Macbook Pro sucks because you can't swap the battery yourself. Now, if someone can show where the binary file has a flaw in it so that it could be said to be defective in some way, then sure, let the accusations of suckage begin. Especially if the flaw prevents usage of the device as described and it remains closed so the community cannot fix it. But then if they don't fix it themselves nor allow the community access to fix it then the platform will die anyway. So, back to my comment, I don't understand the point of the article and others like it.
  - polymatter 14y ago
    If the Macbook Pro was advertised as a laptop you can customise and play with and then you find out you can't swap the battery yourself, then it would not be surprising if some people who bought it for that reason would say it "sucks". Similarly, the Raspberry Pi was advertised as a computer you can customise and play with. It was built for educational use, and yet part of it is hidden away from study. This is annoying some people who expected more than they reasonably should have.
    - talmand 14y ago
      Again, I get that, but the target of the accusation is wrong to me. You can say the people suck at keeping their promises, or the company sucks at marketing things that are not true. But those things have little or nothing to do with the hardware that customers have in hand right now. What I read in that article is that the underlying hardware, to some even the whole concept, sucks because its graphics driver model is not as open as some would like. There's been no indication that the hardware itself, the chips on the board, nor the driver do not PERFORM as expected. If the Macbook Pro was advertised in such a way that was not true in the end, yes indeed that "situation" would suck, but the computer itself would still be a good computer.

by talmand 14y ago

jotux 14y ago

>I don't know because this article says so but doesn't explain why exactly. I think it's pretty clear. What broadcom released was a binary file and and code to interface with it. It's not that the driver functionality is any different than what's already available it's that all the important functionality is in the binary file that was provided without any source code. They made a big deal about the first open source ARM gpu driver but, for the most part, it's still a black box and it's not really useful to developers looking to change/improve the gpu performance.

talmand 14y ago
I get what you're saying, but that doesn't really say the hardware or its drivers suck. It just tells me that the community doesn't have the access they would like. Complaining that the GPU isn't open is one thing and I totally understand that, saying it sucks is completely different to me. Saying it sucks implies that there is something wrong with the hardware and/or its drivers. It would be similar to claiming that a Macbook Pro sucks because you can't swap the battery yourself. Now, if someone can show where the binary file has a flaw in it so that it could be said to be defective in some way, then sure, let the accusations of suckage begin. Especially if the flaw prevents usage of the device as described and it remains closed so the community cannot fix it. But then if they don't fix it themselves nor allow the community access to fix it then the platform will die anyway. So, back to my comment, I don't understand the point of the article and others like it.
- polymatter 14y ago
  If the Macbook Pro was advertised as a laptop you can customise and play with and then you find out you can't swap the battery yourself, then it would not be surprising if some people who bought it for that reason would say it "sucks". Similarly, the Raspberry Pi was advertised as a computer you can customise and play with. It was built for educational use, and yet part of it is hidden away from study. This is annoying some people who expected more than they reasonably should have.
  - talmand 14y ago
    Again, I get that, but the target of the accusation is wrong to me. You can say the people suck at keeping their promises, or the company sucks at marketing things that are not true. But those things have little or nothing to do with the hardware that customers have in hand right now. What I read in that article is that the underlying hardware, to some even the whole concept, sucks because its graphics driver model is not as open as some would like. There's been no indication that the hardware itself, the chips on the board, nor the driver do not PERFORM as expected. If the Macbook Pro was advertised in such a way that was not true in the end, yes indeed that "situation" would suck, but the computer itself would still be a good computer.