In 2021, there were no Valhall devices running mainline Linux. While a lack of devices poses an obvious obstacle to device driver development, there is no better time to write drivers than before hardware reaches end-users. Developing and distributing production-quality drivers takes time, and we don’t want users to be reliant on closed source blobs. If development doesn’t start until a device hits shelves, that device could reach “end-of-life” by the time there are mature open drivers. But with a head start, we can have drivers ready by the time devices reach end users.
Amazing work.
The short version is there are only so many ways to build performant drivers and hardware. As they note the latest blind driver development against unknown hardware was against a continuation of a design not anything hugely radical. In fact if there was something hugely radical in there it would likely already have an implementation somewhere. Not always but typically on OpenGL/Vulkan as IHV’s tended to release stuff via this first than D3D. And as they note ChromeOS had a driver implementation with a small forward thinking modification for later hardware.
Written like this it sounds easy doesn’t it? Well, in some respects it is because you are not dealing with lots of wild random unknowns. The hard work which most of the article goes on about is in the details and making sure you don’t trip something nasty.
Personally I feel there is little genuine secret sauce in drivers and a large part of laziness with a fair amount of letting old hardware running on new drivers run slower due to compromised codepaths. NVidia are past masters of this. That and running their hardware hot along with marketing dirty tricks. I think there may some interesting arguments which can be poached from freedom of information and the public interest worth exploring which might get the attention of competition regulators. The EU has certainly proven it is increasingly capable of a robust and detailed view. Anyone can write to a Commissioner.
I also think Microsoft’s history of abuse with Direct3D, their monopoly buying their way into the console market, and the Activision buy out need looking at. There’s a history of bad faith and maximising of look the other way regulation. Most people miss that European abuse of power laws are different from US laws on monopolies (as they are on free speech and copyright) although the US has been aligning closer to Europe on abuse of markets over the past couple of years. Depending on history and relationships many second and third tier countries tend to rubber stamp carbon copied law as well as having arms twisted behind closed doors (or blackmailed or bullied if you’re being less kind) during trade deals which is something to consider as well.
Wonderful.