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AMD response about Debian x86-64 port

Hi,

I've talked to AMDs Open Source Relation Engineer, Marc Miller about a
possible Debian x86-64 port, see his (quite positive, IMHO) answer
below. AFAIK, single developers accepted NDAs for porting purposes in
the past, am I mistaken? I'd hope such an NDA would be time limited,
e.g. until the Opteron is officially available. Another issue would be
hosting a possible hardware loan, I've heard on irc that Brainfood might
be able to do it in a way acceptable to AMD.

I am definetly lacking the knowledge, experience and time to do a port,
but I guess/hope there are couple of us who would be interested in
working on a x86-64 port, even under an NDA? Marco d'Itri already said
he would generally be interested. It might be wise to form a porting
team and strategy before everybody bombs Marc with individual requests.

I'd suspect that AMD would be more willing to share/give away hardware
if they knew that we were strongly committed to a port. Anyway, we could
use the time being without access to hardware to discuss matters about
the port, e.g. if a mixed x86/x86-64 userspace is feasable or even
possible or if we could cross-compile some important toolchain stuff
in the meantime.

thank you for your attention,

Michael
--- Begin Message --- 
Michael,

AMD would love to support Debian.  Debian is my favorite Linux flavor,
and all of us at AMD recognize the importance of Debian in the
community.  

The problem is really a legal one (as Debian is not a corporate entity
which is easily dealt with for NDA purposes) and a resource issue.  AMD
has one technical Linux alliances person (me) and one business Linux
alliances person.  To field questions and requests, track systems, and
link you in with existing discussions about x86-64 open source
development happening behind closed doors is more than we're able to
handle at this time.  We would really need a group of developers all
covered by one NDA and reachable through one project lead.

There's also the problem of hardware... there just aren't that many
systems out there that we could spare a few.  Some of our closest
partners are sharing systems over remote connections.

Nothing would please me more than to give you and other Debian
developers access to hardware, it's just not something we can do right
now.  But soon, I hope.

At the moment, all open source development work we've contracted
companies to do is being pushed into the official Linux repositories.
It is my belief (and my hope) that when AMD 64-bit technology-based
systems are shipping publicly that recompiling that source code is all
that's required to make a Debian distribution for x86-64 architecture.

--- End Message ---

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