AMD and free and open source software

[Bridgman, John]

One suggestion that was made recently was for AMD to supply packages containing only HW microcode images for AMD GPUs... you would still be using a non-free package but you would not have to enable the entire non-free Debian package that contains both real "firmware" and HW microcode for a number of different vendors. 

Some people felt that would be a big help while others felt it would not make any difference - how do you feel about that ?

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bridgman, John
>Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 10:22 PM
>To: Huang, Ray; Frederique
>Cc: amd-gfx at lists.freedesktop.org
>Subject: RE: AMD and free and open source software
>
>Right... the microcode is part of the HW design; some vendors build the
>microcode images into the chip, while others have the BIOS or driver load
>them at start-up.
>
>The industry is generally moving to driver-loaded microcode, but I don't
>believe any vendor is planning to start opening up their hardware designs.
>
>Thanks,
>John
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: amd-gfx [mailto:amd-gfx-bounces at lists.freedesktop.org] On Behalf
>>Of Huang Rui
>>Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2016 10:15 PM
>>To: Frederique
>>Cc: amd-gfx at lists.freedesktop.org
>>Subject: Re: AMD and free and open source software
>>
>>We don't have the plan to open up firmware source.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Rui
>>
>>On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 04:16:59AM +0800, Frederique wrote:
>>> Dear Huang Rui,
>>>
>>> I recently swapped my NVIDIA Geforce 980 Ti for an AMD R9 Fury
>>> because of the devoted efforts that are being made towards a free and
>>> open source software driver.
>>>
>>> I will be sticking with AMD for as long as this effort continues and
>>> extends.
>>>
>>> I have one question however. I use Debian, and right now I am only
>>> one non-free package away from being free, this is the AMD Graphics
>>> Firmware package. Will AMD make an effort to open up the firmware
>>> bits too? If not, is there any particular reason why this is being held back?
>>>
>>> Thank you for your time.
>>>
>>> Sincerely yours,
>>> Frederique
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