How in the world
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tracyanne Jul 16, 2010 2:45 AM EDT |
could a large corporation like Intel, outsource the development of the software for a driver for their own hardware, and not require that they retain control of the rights to the software? Am I missing something here, or are corporate big wigs as stupid as this makes them look? words fail me. |
| jdixon Jul 16, 2010 9:06 AM EDT |
> Am I missing something here, or are corporate big wigs as stupid as this makes them look? They're as stupid as this makes them look. This type of decision making happens all the time at major corporations. :( To be fair, there are reasons why this is the case, but that discussion could rapidly devolve into non-TOS compliant matters, so it's best not to get started. |
| JaseP Jul 16, 2010 5:57 PM EDT |
The fact of the matter is that they didn't think the Atom SCH US15W/Poulsbo chipset stack would take off in netbooks,... They thought the netbook makers would go for the beefier N270 chipset instead. They thought that the SCH US15W would be used primarily in multimedia devices and high end smart phones... But when people started to realize they had a fully x86 compatible under the hood,... well,... The folks at Intel were wrong... gambled and lost, with egg on their face for their trouble. The drivers CAN be come by,... they just are 3rd party hacks from earlier binary releases... Not a pretty situation to be sure, but when they work,... They work nicely. By the time I gave up on Ubuntu for my Viliv S5, I at least had the 3D graphics running very well,... I just couldn't get the Viliv S5's touchscreen and Marvell SD8686 Wifi Chipset to work properly... The trouble was compounded by the fact that the Viliv shipped with Win XPee instead of Red Flag Linux (don't get me started on either M$ or Red Flag with their GPL non-compliance). Suffice it to say that udev implementations in modern distros do not much take into consideration that somewone MIGHT just possibly have a touchscreen attached to a ps2 serial interface,... Now I am hoping for either Android-x86 to finish being ported to the Viliv S5, or for some hackers to pick up the slack and borrow the Android-x86 Viliv S5 adaptions for a custom kernel in Meego. |
| hkwint Jul 19, 2010 2:13 PM EDT |
Quoting:outsource the development of the software for a driver for their own hardware That's where the problem is I suggest: That's not the case as far as I understood. The design of their hardware isn't theirs. Basically, what happened, is that Intel failed at creating an energy efficient GPU that they could include in a System on Chip (SoC). Looking at the SoC market, they find themself struggling to keep up with their ARM competitors, and they're lagging behind. They always focused on 'performance computing', so in the embedded sector, which could be considered 'lower performance computing field', they had no clue. When it comes to GPU's, it seems the mentioned company, Imagination Technologies (IT), is walking way in front of the competition. The interesting thing about the 'ARM ecosystem', is you can license almost any part of it in any combination. So instead of designing their own GPU, Intel simply licensed the design from IT. They only had to "glue" it to the rest of their Soc, and there, done! From what I've read about the IT-designs, they offer incredible power. One of their upcoming GPU-designs to be included on SoC's (for portable devices, that is) can draw the same number of polygons per second as an XBox 360. Now, imagine XBox360-like games on a tablet, and you'll understand that's something which Intel wants. They can't risk the market just because they want to design their own GPU, which would be inferior. So far, so good. However, the drivers from Imagination Technologies are not open source, while the Intel drivers are. That's the dilemma Intel is facing: If they design their own GPU and open source their driver, they'll loose the SoC-battle - which TI, FreeScale, Qualcomm etc. would certainly win. If they include the same GPU as TI, FreeScale Qualcomm and the rest of their competition, at least they're sure their 'solutions' will have about the same performance. So what needs to happen (and probably IS happening, right now as we type) is, Intel kicks IT in the *** to open source their drivers. However, open sourcing software takes time, because of legal reasons and because normally a company wants to 'unmess' and document their source before releasing it to a large audience. |
| chalbersma Jul 21, 2010 12:52 AM EDT |
Dell takeover of Imagination Technologies? I could see it. |
| hkwint Jul 21, 2010 7:33 AM EDT |
Not going to happen, because it wouldn't make sense.
There were rumours about Apple buying ARM, and those rumours were equally stupid: Why buy something which immediately loses all its clients (so its value) after it lost its independence, while at the same time you can license the technology far cheaper? |
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