• axEl7fB5@lemmy.cafe
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    2 days ago

    wdym layoffs? intel people who maintain the drivers got fired? why can’t contributors just maintain it?

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Who do you think the contributors are?

      Companies pay people to work on Linux. That’s not to say that there aren’t any volunteer contributors but most of the work is paid.

    • Unattributed@feddit.online
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      2 days ago

      I don’t know if you were joking or not… But in case you weren’t: the Intel guys typically have information about upcoming / unreleased products before the details are out in the open. Yes, the drivers can be maintained by the community when the information is available… But, day one driver support won’t be there (since they are generally developed in-house by Intel, and then pushed up to the kernel for release), and community development would (likely) take significantly longer…

      And on the Enterprise customer side, there might be some hesitation about adopting newer Intel products that don’t have drivers officially supported by the company…at least in environments where Linux would be the (logical) choice… That might lead Enterprises to look at Windows instead of Linux.

      • Neshura@bookwyr.me
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        2 days ago

        Realistically lt will lead to enterprises using AMD instead, Windows just simply isn’t even an option for many enterprise uses (mainly server applications)

        • frongt@lemmy.zip
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          2 days ago

          This isn’t going to affect Intel usage in the near future. Companies generally buy whatever is cheap and available. Dell, HP, etc rarely offer AMD as an option. And this is just ancillary Linux drivers, not a major make or break component.

          • Neshura@bookwyr.me
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            2 days ago

            This isn’t going to affect Intel usage in the near future.

            True, it won’t significantly shift the downtrend Intel is experiencing but it’s one more reason why that downtrend exists. Corporations are already switching over to AMD’s EPYC for their server platforms and Intel is as entrenched as ever in the Laptop side of corporate business (which runs Windows anyway)

            Companies generally buy whatever is cheap and available

            Not quite true, they buy what makes them the most money for the cheapest price and due to that context Intel has been on the way out for a while now.

            Dell, HP, etc rarely offer AMD as an option.

            While there are a lot more systems available with an Intel chip saying they rarely offer AMD is stretching it a bit. Dell has listing for 51 Intel and 12 AMD laptop options, HP ~190 Intel and ~90 AMD, there is an imbalance there but if you are a corporate customer looking for something you will find an AMD alternative there. And in the server space Intel has been/is being gradually reduced to the second choice option with AMD EPYC being chosen for the premium products.

            And this is just ancillary Linux drivers, not a major make or break component.

            Might be ancillary to you and me but to a corporation this is a piece of liability they now would take on when buying new Intel CPUs for servers. Not by a lot but likely by enough to upsell them to the product using AMD instead.