[wolfgke]

The problem is: Good driver developers are not always good politicians/diplomats and vice versa. What this followup demands is that developers are suddenly supposed to become politicians to get their implementation accepted. I mean: Lots of developers have a deep hate for "organizational politics" (IMHO rightfully so) - and this is suddenly something that should be accepted/loved when it is about Linux? I prefer to hold up the same standards to all kinds of organisations and don't make exceptions just because it is "for the good/open source/Linux".

[tremon]

That's not how I read it. The driver developers are now acting as politicians, trying to merge their own AMD-specific worldview into an open structure and trying to convince the rest of the DRI world that that is a good thing.

DA instead is saying to the developers that they need to play ball and work with the existing Linux DRI world and not silo themselves off.

[wolfgke]

> That's not how I read it. The driver developers are now acting as politicians, trying to merge their own AMD-specific worldview into an open structure and trying to convince the rest of the DRI world that that is a good thing.

If AMD decided to simply leave their driver as closed-source blob, they would not have this problem. But all the Linux fanboys that they want AMD to open source their graphics drivers. Just to state one thing clear: AMD already released specifications beforehand such that the kernel developers could have developed an independent graphics driver if they wanted. But it is better to shitstorm companies not to develop a driver than to sully one's hands.

AMD was nice and did its job. But instead of being satisfied with the result they now want AMD to start playing the political game with them (for the protocol: IMHO the correct thing to do would be to bring the driver to the staging area and now it's part of the kernel developers to sully their hands to bring the part up to the standards they want).

NVidia simply refuses to open source their drivers and does not get into this kind of trouble. Lesson learned: Never negotiate with terrorists.

[AsyncAwait]

> But all the Linux fanboys

You already lost the argument, if you have to go with that, but I'll try my best to explain anyway; what the kernel developers want is for people to use the standard, already maintained interfaces, instead of companies developing their own and adding unnecessary complexity to the kernel, which would then need to be maintained by someone for a long time.

AMD is basically writing an abstraction layer to allow them to use their Windows driver code, the Linux maintainers are saying; why should we have an "inferior" driver, that's basically "ported" from Windows? If you want to support Linux, write code that interacts with standard Linux interfaces, follows our conventions and benefits the community as a whole.

> Lesson learned: Never negotiate with terrorists.

So not wanting to merge shitty* code into your codebase is now terrorism?

[wolfgke]

> the Linux maintainers are saying; why should we have an "inferior" driver, that's basically "ported" from Windows?

As I wrote: AMD already indulged a lot (first specifications, then even an open source Linux driver). Even after the first step the kernel developers would be able to write a Linux drivers(though it is a lot of work). I already clarified: AMD did all this to satisfy what the Linux fanboys wanted (while NVidia did nothing). But instead of saying "thanks for all the work you did, AMD. The driver is currently not up to the standards that we desire, but it still helped us to make the driver development a lot less work. We [kernel developers] will do the remaining job and lift the kernel up to the superior quality that we want.". But that is not what the kernel developers did. Instead they want AMD to dance to the kernel developer's piping.

[AsyncAwait]

> The driver is currently not up to the standards that we desire, but it still helped us to make the driver development a lot less work. We [kernel developers] will do the remaining job and lift the kernel up to the superior quality that we want.

Do you know who the elusive kernel developers that you keep referring to are? They're mostly employees of various other companies who want their code merged into the kernel and have to follow the same standards to get their code in!

Why should AMD be any different? Why should somebody else pick the slack up for AMD? Does AMD pick the slack for Intel as well? And who would them keep up with their upcoming silicon etc. (It wouldn't be AMD, since this approach makes it easier for them). Why would one company be allowed to sidestep what is required to get your code into the kernel? Is it because they showed some good will in the past? Is that why inferior code should now be allowed?

> they want AMD to dance to the kernel developer's piping.

So let me get this straight. AMD wants to merge their code into the Linux kernel, (not the other way around), but it's the kernel developers who should instead "dance to the AMD developer's piping"?

Look, It's good that they are trying and obviously, the code may be accepted at some point in the future, if it's good enough, but for now, let's not let our emotion, (AMD are the good guys), override our rational thinking.

[wolfgke]

> They're mostly employees of various other companies who want their code merged into the kernel and have to follow the same standards to get their code in!

Hardware differs a lot in complexity. GPUs are very complicated.

Independently: The job security of these people also depends on the fact that it is so politically involved to get "their" driver into the kernel. So they surely have no incentive to make it easier for other companies/developers to get their drivers in (for example by very stable internal kernel interfaces).

> AMD wants to merge their code into the Linux kernel

AMD indulged on the desire of lots of Linux users for open source drivers. They did their job. NVidia did nothing.

[htns]

There is also that the quality of the old closed source fglrx driver was just ass. It would be naive to think all code coming from AMD has acceptable quality.