What is Digg?26 Comments
- sirmikester, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17I think it would be a good idea if ATI kept XGI separate and allowed it to become a totally open source driver-based 3D card company... if needed XGI could release cards with features that are a few years old and leave the new, proprietary stuff to the cutting-edge ATI cards... I think many in the Linux world would buy a card like that.
- Simon80, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Yes we are! if more games were released with native Linux ports, I'd buy them. UT2004 gets old when it's one of the select few games you can play.
- chrono13, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It is about money. Or, more specifically, the company (ATI) making more of it.
In fact, they said *exactly* why the spent the money to purchase this company:
From the article:
"It's for people and location," he told Reuters in an interview. "Shanghai has far and away the largest talent pool in China and is the ideal springboard of commercial opportunity in mainland China."
Don't get me wrong - I would love for ATI to have spent a boatload of money to improve their Linux drivers, but clearly this isn't the primary goal.
This could improve their Linux drivers, or their Linux support in general - but that would be an unintended side effect. The goal is to make more money. There is more money in China. - towsonu2003, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6considering ATI's approach to linux graphics, this looks like an "expand and cut the L off even further" move...
- noneloud, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like that idea, except does that mean that linux machines will be getting cards that are always a few years behind the curve?
- volcompimp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ya like you guys have really bought or are considering buying an XGI card. Get real, ATI is buying the company in order to better it's own linux drivers which are terrible by the way.
- Bleek-II, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3old and a dupe.
http://digg.com/hardware/ATI_acquires_XGI - Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree to a point, wouldnt like outdated cards, however at the same time I dont like the idea of a monopoly.
- eightysix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hopefully, this is ATI's way of saying "sorry for all terrible Linux support" and they'll finally get their asses in to gear when it comes to OSS drivers for their hardware.
- volcompimp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1demagogue:
Obviously you don't know much about the state of ATI vs Nvidia on the linux platform. ATI is badly losing and claims it's doing a lot to catch up. It may not be a huge priority to them but they have to do it in order to stay competative with Nvidia. The worse their support for linux is, the users will switch to Nvidia. In my case specificly, I'm a Windows user who has in the past been a full time linux user and would like to on my current laptop, but it's a pain in the ass to get the X Windows System running without my screen getting pixelated because of my ATI card. Years ago I became an Nvidia fan until things started to heat up (no pun intended) between ATI and Nvidia and ATI started to look like a better choice since the high end Nvidia cards were taking up 2 slots and were being outperformed. It's been some time since then and the only reason for me to consider one over the other is linux support. Next time I build a PC, whether I plan on using linux part time, full time or not at all, linux support will be high on my list of reasons to consider one over the other. - leszek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i thought ATI was buying XGL ... huh ?
- Uzd4ce, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Please excuse a semi-off topic post, but I've been looking for months for a Linux driver for the XGI Volari XP-5 in my laptop. (VESA driver doesn't display properly at bootup, then gets me 800x600 at best.) Will any of this mean that I can finally use Linux on that machine?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Possibly, but best not to hold your breath :(
- Drizzit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No this will improve Linux driver support. First the company is in Shanghai and they said they bought them for access to the Chinese market. A market that is mandated to be Open Source per the Chinese government. Which means if they want access to the Chinese government's funds for computers then they better make a video card that works with Linux and do it well.
- geminitojanus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's not like ATi is purposely trying to keep a brotha down (beat up Linux), it IS that ATi's driver development team is pathetically underfunded and pathetically small. If you don't believe me, look at how bad their Windows drivers are.
nVidia is a much larger company with a whole lot more resources to pour towards driver development. As such, their drivers are better across the board.
Meanwhile, companies like Apple and Nintendo got it right; Sign the NDA, get the specs, write your own driver, release the driver. If only someone in the Open Source community started a business to do the same thing... (of course, everyone would cry foul because it's not an Open Source driver, but at this point in time, when graphics drivers are already horrible for Linux, Free is better than Non-existant). - cube3x3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1XGL is not a thing that can be bought, its a open source software that is developed within the comunity. Have u ever heard that 'Microsoft is buying Linx (even if they want to then also they can't)'. That's the power of open source.
- Mysidia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is an acquisition move. Open Source Support from hardware companies is a matter of philosophy, either they embrace OSS, ignore it, or reject it outright (depending), and until ATI itself is convinced that there is money to be made in providing solid support for Open Source Operating Systems, it may not be that great.
As for releasing drivers themselves as Open Source, that requires what many hardware makers seem to think is a bad concession to make to the public ... (risk of opening too much information about their product that might be used by competitors to undercut it in the market).
I doubt think this acquisition sways ATI's philosophy too strongly into making concessions towards Open Source OS users, it seems like there's at least a 50/50 chance that the acquisition really means ATI engulfs XGI, and not much of the latter remains... the combination could fail to preserve XGI's current level of OSS driver support.
Meaning for instance, that they still release drivers for Linux, but release binary-only drivers. - Mysidia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1OSS itself can't be "bought and stopped" per se in quite the same way as other products; however, the development effort sometimes could, and a project left without its sponsor could cause it to die.
A worst-case scenario might be for MS to buy up a bunch of the the big players producing Linux distributions, take control, stomps over development, shut down "community distributions" by the vendor, then make a new version release, or specifically: taking up the development agenda and putting out a buggy release of Linux with a self-deprecating description such as a "Linux: the hobbyist OS" offering.
There's little to stop something like that, at least until there is someday required certification for a Linux release -- requiring extensive testing before marketing a product with the name.
The resulting reputation of a buggy release would work against OSS adoption, if people associate issues with one release with Linux as a whole.
Something like that could set back the OS: sure, development could continue elsewhere, but it would not be the same.
(Except MS might not like to do it themselves, since they're already a monopoly, and it could in theory backfire, there might be nasty repurcussions against a recognized monopoly for anticompetitive practice as buying out their major potential competitors and killing their offerings) - Hayman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Dam right.
And if you wanna talk about OSS drives aso. fine, but the news about ATI buying XGI is old and not frontpage worthy - mdshort, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ah crap, now I gotta find an opensource version..
- sedd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Apple got it right? You've obviously never tried to do any OpenGL programing on a mac.
- Demagogue, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Do you really think a graphics card company's priority is linux? Get real, how many linux boxes are there vs. windows boxes?
- ByteGuerilla, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yes, it does, but most Linux users aren't trying to run BF2 or F.E.A.R.
I'd be very happy with that. - Gaiden, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2argh hit the wrong button on someone else's comment. I thought it was really good...
sirmikester comment :
I think it would be a good idea if ATI kept XGI separate and allowed it to become a totally open source driver-based 3D card company... if needed XGI could release cards with features that are a few years old and leave the new, proprietary stuff to the cutting-edge ATI cards... I think many in the Linux world would buy a card like that. - Cglass, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Do you seriously think that Apple will stop making ipods?
- Erroneus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1ehm like OLD and dupe...
Mon Mar 6, 2006 5:22 PM ET...
wake up people, old news.
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