Hi Marshall,
thank you very much for your huge elaboration. I had already given up
all hope to see public communication from AMD. That's really great to
see things change.
It's a lot to digest, I'll try to just briefly comment on my main
concern, why I called it controversial: the unclear blob situation.
On 27.01.20 21:12, Marshall Dawson wrote:
> Finally a word about blobs. Not that I think it belongs in the context of
> this discussion, but it seems to have been a source of bias against
> picasso.
Actually, that's why I started _this_ thread :)
> This is a long-standing complaint, and for legitimate reasons. I
> also get a strong sense that the industry (and I’m thinking of OCP in
> particular) is coming to accept blobs as a necessary downside to using
> modern x86 processors, but that blobs must be redistributable (and Nico, no
> ideas either on Intel’s redistribution policies or expectations). I have
> no knowledge on how discussions within AMD stack up against discussions
> within Intel, of course. I realize many of you are aware of past broken
> promises to reopen AGESA, the reverse engineering research done on the PSP,
> and many other things. However, there are very powerful and influential
> people in AMD who want both AGESA and PSP open sourced sooner vs. later.
> If we see the day come when this begins to happen, an inherently slow
> process will ensue. I think too many people assume source can simply be
> dumped onto github, but they don’t understand the extensive legal and other
> processes required leading up to that point.
That's why I always encourage people to ask for documentation instead
of code. Opening code that was developed in private is a pain for both
sides. However, I guess it could be taken as a good omen; that a silicon
vendor won't forbid open implementations.
Anyway, it's clear to me that we have to accept blobs for Picasso for
the time being. The question is more if these blobs will
a) be public, and
b) if public, generally usable for new boards (or rather product
specific).
For me (maybe for others too) this is the turning point if a platform is
worth my time. If small companies and individuals can't make use of the
supposedly free software, it obviously doesn't get much support from
them... and neither does it before this question is answered.
Nico
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