Jason Ekstrand, a name that many big Linux fans will know, who previously worked at Intel until very recently has announced today the move to open source consulting firm Collabora. Writing in a blog post, Ekstrand goes through some fun background on the decision to move and how it happened.
Ekstrand has worked on a lot of different parts of Mesa, the set of open source graphics drivers that powers AMD GPUs, Intel, ARM and more. Thankfully, Mesa work will continue with the new posting at Collabora and with plenty of freedom to choose the work too:
So what did Collabora finally offer me that no one else has? Total autonomy. In my new role at Collabora, my mandate consists of two things: invest in and mentor the Collabora 3D graphics team and invest in upstream Linux and open-source graphics however I see fit.
Sounds like an offer you can't refuse…
Having someone with so much knowledge of open source graphics drivers continue doing it - awesome. Ekstrand continues to mention their work will likely jump between a bit of everything like Panfrost (ARM Mali GPUs), Ray Tracing for RADV (AMD Vulkan driver), OpenCL upgrades and the list goes on. Collabora is also a Khronos Group member (who oversee OpenGL, Vulkan and many other standards) and so they will continue to be involved there directly too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Sounds like an offer you can't refuse…Collabora held a gun to his head, and assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the Signed-off-by line in git...
PublicNuisance Jan 17, 2022
Sounds like an offer you can't refuse…Collabora held a gun to his head, and assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the Signed-off-by line in git...
Godfather done nerd style !
Having a Vega64, and using only the CPU to render any scene... :(
Good for us though in the end.
TheRiddick Jan 18, 2022
I think RT with AMD cards atm if it doesn't STACK your entire computer, only delivers very low double digit framerates. I tried it a while back on my 6800xt but kept getting a entire system crash!
rustybroomhandle Jan 18, 2022
I think RT with AMD cards atm if it doesn't STACK your entire computer, only delivers very low double digit framerates. I tried it a while back on my 6800xt but kept getting a entire system crash!
Radv didn't implement all needed ray tracing extensions yet (VK_KHR_ray_query is missing). Plus what is implemented is just first revision and isn't optimized. And AMD's ray tracing ASICs in their cards are first iteration too, so overall, both software and hardware have room to improve by a lot.
Last edited by Shmerl on 18 January 2022 at 8:55 pm UTC
This is the sort of move that makes me want to switch to AMD, but so far all comparable AMD cards to my current setup has been more expensive. I always thought AMD was supposed to be the cheaper brand.
Prices today have nothing to do with brand, but rather with lack of supply and cryptocurrency rates.
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