Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 19:05:32 +0200
From: Tobias Diedrich <ranma@tdiedrich.de>
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable?
Message-ID: <20041022170531.GA449@melchior.yamamaya.is-a-geek.org>
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	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
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Kendall Bennett wrote:

> Wrong. Companies *have* tried to go down the Open Source route and it did 
> not work out for them. ATI in particular. At one point ATI released all 
> the register level information and in fact released sample 3D driver 
> source code to the community for the early Radeon chipsets. Unfortunately 
> the Linux and Open Source community never stepped up to the plate to 
> support ATI in this effort. There are solid business reasons that ATI has 
> explained to me for why ATI decided to give up on the Open Source 
> approach and go back to proprietary 3D drivers for Linux. 

Really?
AFAICS you have to register as a developer with ATI and "The acceptance
of Developer by ATI [...] is subject to approval by ATI in its sole
discretion".  At least I don't see any downloadable hardware level
documentation at http://www.ati.com/developer/.
Maybe I just didn't look hard enough?  BTW, I'd be mainly interested in
how to access 2D Accelerator functions, video overlay and DMA, so if you
could give me some pointer on how to obtain documentation on that for
radeon 8500 or rage128 pro class cards, it would be very nice.
I have to admit I did not try registering yet, because it seemed to much
of a hassle for "I just like to have the documentation for my hardware"
and to me it seems doubtfull I would be accepted just for that reason.

-- 
Tobias						PGP: http://9ac7e0bc.uguu.de
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
  -- Rich Kulawiec
np: Tales of Symphonia Original Soundtrack: Memories of Sylvarant

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