Why does Intel keep saying they're open source friendly?

[n0cmonkey]

Heh.

Looks like the message got forwarded on to at least a debian mailing list.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Because most linux servers use intel CPUs?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Because most linux servers use intel CPUs?

And yet documentation and distribution rights still aren't available. They're half assing it, and don't deserve the privilege of being considered open source friendly.

 

[nweaver]

look at it from the perspective of wireless drivers...compared to broadcom

 

[Nothinman]

look at it from the perspective of wireless drivers...compared to broadcom

That whole thread is about wifi drivers and Intel's inability to release the specs for the chips and make the firmware freely redistributable. Yes, Intel has done a little bit better than some other companies but that doesn't make them actually good. Atlhough the wifi stuff might just be the worst example from them, I don't know anyone who's complained about OSS drivers not being available for their ethernet cards for example.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: nweaver
look at it from the perspective of wireless drivers...compared to broadcom

I don't see Intel releasing documentation and firmware redistribution rights either. So they're practically the same.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

look at it from the perspective of wireless drivers...compared to broadcom

That whole thread is about wifi drivers and Intel's inability to release the specs for the chips and make the firmware freely redistributable. Yes, Intel has done a little bit better than some other companies but that doesn't make them actually good. Atlhough the wifi stuff might just be the worst example from them, I don't know anyone who's complained about OSS drivers not being available for their ethernet cards for example.

I have seen plenty of complaints about lack of documentation for ethernet chipsets, so getting the FreeBSD drivers to work better with OpenBSD is difficult.

 

[Nothinman]

I have seen plenty of complaints about lack of documentation for ethernet chipsets, so getting the FreeBSD drivers to work better with OpenBSD is difficult.

I guess on the Linux side it's a bit easier since Intel usually puts out GPL'd drivers for us.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I have seen plenty of complaints about lack of documentation for ethernet chipsets, so getting the FreeBSD drivers to work better with OpenBSD is difficult.

I guess on the Linux side it's a bit easier since Intel usually puts out GPL'd drivers for us.

And BSD licensed drivers for FreeBSD. But the kernel interfaces are different enough that there is some work that needs to be done to port the driver. Documentation would help that effort, and probably help make the em cards worth using.

 

[Nothinman]

And BSD licensed drivers for FreeBSD. But the kernel interfaces are different enough that there is some work that needs to be done to port the driver. Documentation would help that effort, and probably help make the em cards worth using.

As a user I feel they're worth using now. As a user I'd rather use good drivers with bad documentation than bad drivers with good documentation.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

And BSD licensed drivers for FreeBSD. But the kernel interfaces are different enough that there is some work that needs to be done to port the driver. Documentation would help that effort, and probably help make the em cards worth using.

As a user I feel they're worth using now. As a user I'd rather use good drivers with bad documentation than bad drivers with good documentation.

The Linux drivers must be better than the BSD ones then. sk (syskonnect/marvell) cards are better with better drivers under OpenBSD. Of course, now that Marvell is releasing them documentation is getting harder to find...

 

[Nothinman]

The Linux drivers must be better than the BSD ones then. sk (syskonnect/marvell) cards are better with better drivers under OpenBSD. Of course, now that Marvell is releasing them documentation is getting harder to find...

And I've definitely seen Linux people complaining about the skge driver causing them problems on AMD64, since that's where I assume they're the most popular, but AFAIK the e100 and e1000 drivers work fine for just about everyone.

 

[drag]

It is because Intel IS open source friendly.

They are very open source friendly. I can go get a relatively new Intel motherboard and setup a relatively new Linux distribution and it will work well out of the box. All the drive controllers. power management. sensors, ethernet, audio, 2d/3d acceleration.

Can't realy do that with other popular chipsets, Nvidia or ATI makes that have taken over the AMD market.

Your confusion arises from the fact that:
Open Source Software != Free Software.

Intel is not Free Software friendly. They like the DRM. They like vendor lock-in. They are only going to support Linux and Free software as long as it's financially benificial to them.

 

[Nothinman]

And what's funny about that is that Linus has just said in the recent GPLv3 thread on lkml that Linux was never about Free Software in the FSF's definition, it was always about Open Source and giving back when you take something.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
It is because Intel IS open source friendly.

They are very open source friendly. I can go get a relatively new Intel motherboard and setup a relatively new Linux distribution and it will work well out of the box. All the drive controllers. power management. sensors, ethernet, audio, 2d/3d acceleration.

Please link the documentation for the chipsets. Thanks!

Can't realy do that with other popular chipsets, Nvidia or ATI makes that have taken over the AMD market.

Your confusion arises from the fact that:
Open Source Software != Free Software.

Intel is not Free Software friendly. They like the DRM. They like vendor lock-in. They are only going to support Linux and Free software as long as it's financially benificial to them.

And one of the reasons free software is losing the hardware battle is because people spend too much time nit picking and fighting over silly ****** and not enough time demanding at least the minimum from hardware manufacturers.

 

[n0cmonkey]

undeadly.org article, mostly rehashing Theo's email. It's got a couple of things to think about though.
I like this quote:

Don't ever forget that you paid for their hardware; you don't owe them anything. However, they owe you a working product.

OReillynet article linking to undeadly post.
He reminds us that it isn't just about Intel's unwillingness to release documentation on their hardware, but also:

This isn?t about releasing source code, it?s about allowing redistribution of the binary firmware which runs on the card itself to make it work.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: drag
It is because Intel IS open source friendly.

They are very open source friendly. I can go get a relatively new Intel motherboard and setup a relatively new Linux distribution and it will work well out of the box. All the drive controllers. power management. sensors, ethernet, audio, 2d/3d acceleration.

Please link the documentation for the chipsets. Thanks!

See below.

Were in the term 'Open Source' is ever documentation mentioned? In my mind 'Software' includes not only the binaries, but the source code, and documentation to use it.

'Open Source' is just about providing the source code. Some people even charge extra for the documentation.

And what's funny about that is that Linus has just said in the recent GPLv3 thread on lkml that Linux was never about Free Software in the FSF's definition, it was always about Open Source and giving back when you take something.

Exactly.

Thats why they (the Linux devs in general) feels that there is nothing wrong with a hardware maker using DRM to enforce specific kernel versions and specific versions of software on the end users. All they care about is along those hardware makers contribute their code and improvements back into the main kernel.

Of course they would much prefer to have documentation for hardware, but as long as there is somebody who can read it documentation and provides support for it then it's fine.

This was always the fundamental difference between 'Open Source' and 'Free Software'.

Free software is political. It's always about ensuring that not only developers have their freedom to recompile, but also the freedoms of lay people, the end users. Documentation is part of it.

Now on the other hand Open Source is just about having the source code to make development cheaper and easier.

Can't realy do that with other popular chipsets, Nvidia or ATI makes that have taken over the AMD market.

Your confusion arises from the fact that:
Open Source Software != Free Software.

Intel is not Free Software friendly. They like the DRM. They like vendor lock-in. They are only going to support Linux and Free software as long as it's financially benificial to them.

And one of the reasons free software is losing the hardware battle is because people spend too much time nit picking and fighting over silly ****** and not enough time demanding at least the minimum from hardware manufacturers.[/quote]

DRM is core to the reasons (at least it seems to me) why Intel isn't going to release specs to their hardware. For instance with the video cards they are not going to release documentation because as a add-on for their video card drivers they provide a binary-only *.so file to provide DRM features for their video cards. Stuff like Macrovision and such.

Cross licensing for DRM-like restrictions and other things such as patent cross-licensing deals with other companies probably has a lot to do with the lack of documentation coming out of other companies also. I don't think it's a coincidence that both Nvidia and ATI completely cut themselves off from free/open source developers when they both won their respective contracts for Xbox and Xbox 360.

Such things are why, by practical reality, stuff like DRM are fundamentally incompatable to truly Free software. BSD included. They (DRM and related 'IP' issues) require closed hardware to work well, but Free software requires open hardware to work well.

'Open Source' doesn't have such problems. As long as the source code is open and people are allowed to use it with only a few restrictions then it's happy.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: drag
See below.

Were in the term 'Open Source' is ever documentation mentioned? In my mind 'Software' includes not only the binaries, but the source code, and documentation to use it.

'Open Source' is just about providing the source code. Some people even charge extra for the documentation.

Exactly.

Thats why they (the Linux devs in general) feels that there is nothing wrong with a hardware maker using DRM to enforce specific kernel versions and specific versions of software on the end users. All they care about is along those hardware makers contribute their code and improvements back into the main kernel.

Of course they would much prefer to have documentation for hardware, but as long as there is somebody who can read it documentation and provides support for it then it's fine.

This was always the fundamental difference between 'Open Source' and 'Free Software'.

Free software is political. It's always about ensuring that not only developers have their freedom to recompile, but also the freedoms of lay people, the end users. Documentation is part of it.

Now on the other hand Open Source is just about having the source code to make development cheaper and easier.

DRM is core to the reasons (at least it seems to me) why Intel isn't going to release specs to their hardware. For instance with the video cards they are not going to release documentation because as a add-on for their video card drivers they provide a binary-only *.so file to provide DRM features for their video cards. Stuff like Macrovision and such.

Cross licensing for DRM-like restrictions and other things such as patent cross-licensing deals with other companies probably has a lot to do with the lack of documentation coming out of other companies also. I don't think it's a coincidence that both Nvidia and ATI completely cut themselves off from free/open source developers when they both won their respective contracts for Xbox and Xbox 360.

Such things are why, by practical reality, stuff like DRM are fundamentally incompatable to truly Free software. BSD included. They (DRM and related 'IP' issues) require closed hardware to work well, but Free software requires open hardware to work well.

'Open Source' doesn't have such problems. As long as the source code is open and people are allowed to use it with only a few restrictions then it's happy.

DRM doesn't matter. We could have basic functionality for video cards without having to worry about DRM unless you want DRM. They should be able to easily segregate the functions DRM provides out so that all someone would have to do is install a kernel module and they'd be set.

But none of this matters when it comes to networking equipment. Wireless cards (AFAIK) won't be playing DRM protected videos, and ethernet cards generally don't worry about someone sharing an mp3.

In this instance Intel provides neither source nor documentation. Unless you're Linux of FreeBSD.

Free Software vs. Open Source doesn't matter in this instance. Neither can be easily created because the documentation is hidden behind a team of lawyers. Both are screwed because of some silly notion that the hardware/software interface should be secret.

Bad (but ever-present ) car analogy: What if you bought a car but instead of a steering wheel and the familiar gauges you are presented with a proprietary interface whose documentation is quite secret? Do you let them tell you "we're friendly towards you, but we can't let you use your car"?

Not only is Intel not free software and open source friendly (since neither can be written for Intel hardware) but they are also not consumer friendly. Any Open Source or Free Software user that uses Intel hardware by choice without making Intel aware of its hypocricy is actively working against those communities that gave them the software they use.