12.20.09

Gemini version available ♊︎

“DRM is Probably 70% of the Complication in Supporting Open Source”

Posted in Bill Gates, DRM, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Hardware, Kernel, Microsoft at 7:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

ATi X800 Pro Core
ATi X800 Pro Core

Summary: RadeonHD driver suffers from Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) which Microsoft and the copyright cartel push into GPUs

“Security as a lock-in” is a famous antitrust exhibit/memo from Bill Gates. It also seems to manifest itself in DRM/TPM, which are not concepts that Gates was ever against (back when he ran Microsoft). He was in favour of them.

“Gates made it explicit that he wanted to screw Linux with undocumented ACPI extensions and software patents”DRM — whether Gates is responsible for it or not — is truly harming GNU/Linux in the same way that ACPI does. Gates made it explicit that he wanted to screw Linux with undocumented ACPI extensions and software patents. One person’s “security” is another person’s exclusion or “lock-in” and one thing that Gates is good at is monopolisation of markets under a thick PR blanket. He has a whole foundation of charlatans doing exactly that.

One of our readers told us this evening that “there were some interesting comments recently in #radeonhd about Digital Restrictions Management being about 60-70 percent of the reason for the hold-ups in the progress of the open radeonhd driver for AMD/ATI graphics cards.” The full conversation can be found here (for those who are interested in the finer details).

One person says, “damn DRM, screw it. I have not been using it since its introduction and I still go to live concerts and cinema. :/ I thought the reasons of concealing were lots of hours spent by technician on card design, so it does not get to “rivals” for free. But DRM.. damn. :///”

Bridgman, who is apparently a graphics driver developer, replies with: “DRM is probably 70% of the complication in supporting open source, 3rd party IP is 20%, competitive stuff is maybe 10%”

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

5 Comments

  1. Yuhong Bao said,

    December 21, 2009 at 2:25 am

    Gravatar

    “DRM — whether Gates is responsible for it or not — is truly harming GNU/Linux in the same way that ACPI does. ”
    Not exactly, but one MS-specific ACPI extension I know of is ACPI WMI, supported in Vista and later.

  2. Dennis Murczak said,

    December 21, 2009 at 11:46 am

    Gravatar

    John Bridgman is an AMD employee working in their drivers division. He is also a regular at the Phoronix forums. Just FYI :-)

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    It is funny — although not surprising — that even AMD employees whine about DRM.

    DRM: waste of CPU (carbon emissions), waste of development time (slower scientific progress).

    Dennis Murczak Reply:

    Dunno, I was Linux-only long before DRM became widespread, but I can surely imagine more worthwhile uses of development manpower than enforcing counterproductive industry paranoia ;-)

    Roy Schestowitz Reply:

    Which is not effective either, as proven time after time after time.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 07/06/2023: Reddit Layoffs and OpenGL 3.1 in Asahi Linux

    Links for the day



  2. Gemini Links 07/06/2023: Jukka Charting Geminispace

    Links for the day



  3. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 06, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, June 06, 2023



  4. NOW LIVE: Working for the Public — Universities, Software and Freedom - a Talk by Richard Stallman at Università di Pisa (Italy)

    As noted a few hours ago, Richard Stallman is delivering a talk at Università di Pisa this morning



  5. Richard Stallman's Talk is in Two Hours and There's a BigBlueButton Livestream

    Dr. Stallman is in Italy to give talks at universities this week; he will soon give a live talk, accessible in his site or directly at the source



  6. Links 06/06/2023: Angie 1.2.0, New EasyOS and EndeavourOS Released

    Links for the day



  7. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: OpenKuBSD, GrapheneOS, and More

    Links for the day



  8. Links 06/06/2023: OpenSUSE Plans for Leap

    Links for the day



  9. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Bubble 4.0, Neutral News, and Older Bits

    Links for the day



  10. IBM's War on Open (Look at the Pattern of Layoffs at Red Hat)

    By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)



  11. Links 06/06/2023: IceWM 3.4.0 and Liveslak 1.7.0

    Links for the day



  12. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Apple Might Kill VR, Tea Tea Deluxe 1.2.7 and Tea Land

    Links for the day



  13. IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 05, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, June 05, 2023



  14. Links 05/06/2023: Debian 12 Almost Ready, Hong Kong 'Cannot' Remember Tiananmen Massacre

    Links for the day



  15. Gemini Links 05/06/2023: New Ship in Cosmic Voyage, Stack Overflow Moderator Strike

    Links for the day



  16. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 04, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, June 04, 2023



  17. Links 04/06/2023: Unifont 15.0.05 and PCLinuxOS Stuff

    Links for the day



  18. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge

    Links for the day



  19. StatCounter: GNU/Linux (Including ChromeOS) Grows to 8% Market Share Worldwide

    This month’s numbers from StatCounter are good for GNU/Linux (including ChromeOS, which technically has both GNU and Linux); the firm assesses logs from 3 million sites and shows Windows down to 66% in desktops/laptops (a decade ago it was above 90%) with modest growth for GNU/Linux, which is at an all-time high, even if one does not count ChromeOS that isn’t freedom- or privacy-respecting



  20. Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

    We’re reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown — an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds



  21. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already



  22. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day



  23. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day



  24. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023



  25. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day



  26. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day



  27. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day



  28. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day



  29. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day



  30. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts