> The new Exynos chip for laptops will use the graphics processing unit (GPU) jointly developed with US semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) to offer improved graphical technology, according to the sources.
AMD said part of the reason why they partner with Samsung was because they dont compete in Mobile Phone. Which is a valid point. But now Samsung is competing directly in Laptop and PC using these tech. As a tech enthusiast of course I want to see this ARM / AMD Graphics combination. But as an investor I am thinking If we were mislead in a way.
And if this true does it mean AMD is open to license AMD graphics IP?
This is not the first time this happens. There was an Intel CPU with AMD's GPU.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/130411/...
The situation has changed somewhat recently, but basically only after the reverse engineering efforts succeeded & were fully operational.
You are probably conflating vendors like Broadcom who license the ARM ISA and processor IP but add their own (closed) GPU to SoCs they produce, like those used in the Raspberry Pi.
Remember ARM is just a company that license and sell an ISA and chip design. It's up to system integrators to turn those designs into physical chips, and sadly we have seen many of them don't value making their designs available to open source, etc. The solution to this is to not support those vendors, not to complain at ARM.
I don't think anyone was claiming it isn't. I think GP's (and his GP) point is that ARM /usually/ makes the information needed to develop high quality open source drivers available where as Nvidia tends to do the opposite.
Whether these technologies are proprietary or not is orthogonal to this issue.
The Debian drivers you cite are the Panfrost Lima drivers, which are the reverse engineering works everyone else did in the dark with no help from ARM, until very very recently.
I am not conflating anything. ARM has provided no documentation no support to help folks make drivers. I stand by my original post entirely, and disagree deeply. ARM's gpu chip design is stamped out into countless chips, verbatim or close to verbatim. Even if individual chip makers did want to support their chips, I suspect it is in fact ARM who would block them from releasing open source drivers, from documenting the chips they make: ARM's desire has been to protect it's IP, and to help the various embedded support partners that do know how to work with their chips and their IP in a secure fashion. ARM has been a bad player in the Linux world, has worked against allowing Linux support. The problem is absolutely ARM, not those vendors.
I was under the impression that in order to protect IP, one has to either patent it or copyright it, thus some form of publication must be made. If ARM does publish technical documentation (1), ARM has a way to prove infrigement or prior art whenever someone else tries to use their IP without their approval. If ARM doesn't, how can they prove anything?
(1) Obviously, if they publish the tech. docs, they might as well help driver implementors, might they not?