Open-Source Qualcomm GPU Driver Published

An anonymous reader writes "Not being content with the state of open source graphics drivers for Linux, a developer working for Texas Instruments has reverse-engineered his competitor's (Qualcomm) driver and written an open-source Snapdragon driver. With being tainted by legal documents at Texas Instruments, the developer, who is also involved with Linaro, had no other choice but to work on an open source graphics driver for his competitor in his free time. The open source Qualcomm Snapdragon/Adreno driver is called Freedreno."

a clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

fyi, this was done on my own time.. this is not sponsored/endorsed by TI.. please ready my blog post for my motivation:
http://bloggingthemonkey.blogspot.com/2012/04/fighting-back-against-binary-blobs.html

BR,
-R

Re:correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

I think my company is going to hire if he is fired or decides to leave. He is exactly the kind of individual we are after being a very open company.

Re:a clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

Alas, that was Qualcomm atheros. I suspect the main baseband and app processor group wouldn't be as enthusiastic about open sourcing their drivers. Which is unfortunate as their drivers are pretty bad compared to their competition in terms of ALU utilization and therefore, performance.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[Narishma]

Raspberry Pi has a Broadcom GPU, not Qualcomm.

Re:Raspberry Pi

[gQuigs]

That's bull.

RMS wouldn't approve the Rasperry Pi because it needs the binary blob to boot. (I think regardless of this particular reverse engineering). Yes, RMS pushs for the most free computer he can get.

Here are what the FSF actually uses (they install coreboot themselves when needed, btw), and they do actually exist:
https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/systems [fsf.org]

Re:correction:

[Anonymous Coward]

note: I did not break any NDA's.. or violate any licenses that I agreed to, etc. This is the reason that I cannot work on an open source driver for the IMG GPU in OMAP devices (which I'd love to do, but am prevented by NDA). Trust me, I'd love nothing more than to be working on an open source graphics driver for OMAP.. but if I did, *that* would be a story.

BR,
-R

Re:a clarification

[TheRaven64]

This is more or less the same technique used by the open source nVidia drivers. The important thing is that he is treating the blob as a black box. He feeds it certain inputs and looks at what it outputs. This lets him work out roughly what the blob is doing, but not how it is doing it. His implementation should do roughly the same thing as the blob, but may do it in a very different way.