12.20.09

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“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

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%” █

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5 Comments

Yuhong Bao said,

December 21, 2009 at 2:25 am

“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.
Dennis Murczak said,

December 21, 2009 at 11:46 am

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:
December 21st, 2009 at 1:14 pm
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:
December 21st, 2009 at 7:20 pm
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:
December 21st, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Which is not effective either, as proven time after time after time.