It looks like AMD has finally decided to go the open-source route, announcing that more Radeon resources will be openly available to the community.
AMD Plans On Making More Of Its Radeon GPU Assets Open-Source, Fueling Development & Optimizations
AMD has previously disclosed that they are working on getting the MES (Micro-Engine Scheduler) documentation and its respective code open-sourced, and it looks like several more assets are likely to follow.
The company reiterated its commitment in a recent post on X, claiming that the MES is on track to be open-sourced by May and revealing that additional parts of the Radeon stack will follow the same approach later this year.
We appreciate the open source interest in Radeon. We’re on track to release MES documentation late May followed by source code. Additional parts of the Radeon stack to be open sourced throughout the year. GitHub has the latest on fixes, release dates. https://t.co/IwIJm4zNQY
— AMD Radeon (@amdradeon) April 22, 2024
In addition, the firm has also posted the link to their nod-ai GitHub repository, where it’s most likely they will release the anticipated files. If you don’t remember, Nod.AI is an open-source AI company acquired by AMD a few months ago in an attempt to bolster its software ecosystem. So choosing their repository seems like a good move, considering the fact that it has remained inactive for quite some time now.
Open sourcing wasn’t in the books of AMD, but recently, the firm decided to implement a change, likely for the better. We recently witnessed the AMD-tiny corp fiasco, where the AI startup demanded Team Red to open-source some of its assets for their TinyBox AI machine. Still, AMD refused to do so despite intervention from the company’s CEO, Lisa Su. If AMD wants a more robust community, it’s necessary to opt for the open-sourcing route, considering that it accelerates progression, along with adequate social involvement from developers.
It will be interesting to see what’s next from AMD’s open-source camp, whether the firm plans on releasing firmware documentation or something much bigger.
News Source: Phoronix