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Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

(rosenzweig.io)
838 points alsetmusic | 13 comments | 27 Aug 25 01:44 UTC | HN request time: 0.414s | source | bottom
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syntaxing ◴[27 Aug 25 02:06 UTC] No.45034679[source]▶
What an end to an era. It's crazy to think she started this journey at 18 and now finished 5 years later. Not many people believed they would be able to make the GPU work in Asahi linux. Kinda curious what her "Onto the next challenge!" link means. Is she working for Intel Xe-HPG next?
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kccqzy ◴[27 Aug 25 02:18 UTC] No.45034754[source]▶
Yes I think so. Her resume says she started working for Intel on open source graphics driver this month.
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xiphias2 ◴[27 Aug 25 06:23 UTC] No.45036050[source]▶
Too bad it was not Apple who hired her for M4, but in business leaders are always the most closed ones.
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1. homebrewer ◴[27 Aug 25 08:30 UTC] No.45036897[source]▶
Thanks Jesus it's Intel and not Apple, Intel has been extremely good at working upstream and has immense contributions in the Linux kernel, mesa, and elsewhere. Wasting such talent on Apple would make the world worse for us all.
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2. MangoToupe ◴[27 Aug 25 13:02 UTC] No.45039080[source]▶
I don't see a future for intel, frankly, but I'm very happy she found a good paying job.
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3. tlamponi ◴[27 Aug 25 15:00 UTC] No.45040650[source]▶
There was a time when people said that about AMD.

Don't get me wrong, Intel's outlook is IMO currently indeed rather bleak, but I would not completely write it off just yet.

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4. koakuma-chan ◴[27 Aug 25 15:04 UTC] No.45040721[source]▶
Why? Apple makes good products. It seems, unlike Intel.
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5. CharlesW ◴[27 Aug 25 15:08 UTC] No.45040776{3}[source]▶
> There was a time when people said that about AMD.

And Apple, to complete the circle.

6. jandrese ◴[27 Aug 25 15:31 UTC] No.45041077[source]▶
Apple doesn’t contribute back to the community.
7. kccqzy ◴[27 Aug 25 15:31 UTC] No.45041085[source]▶
Apple doesn't have any contributions to the Linux kernel or other parts of the Linux graphics stack. They are unlikely to hire someone who wants to work on open source.
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8. dylan604 ◴[27 Aug 25 16:10 UTC] No.45041580[source]▶
Apple hiring her would essentially prevent her from doing it again on other models keeping the moat intact
9. qingcharles ◴[27 Aug 25 19:04 UTC] No.45043664[source]▶
Intel seem to be pretty good in the .Net framework too, pushing a bunch of performance upgrades.
10. jajuuka ◴[27 Aug 25 20:19 UTC] No.45044652{3}[source]▶
To be fair they don't have anything to do with Linux so there is nothing to contribute back towards. They use BSD licensed software for a reason.

Apple does have open source projects. https://opensource.apple.com But the scope is rather limited. For someone of Alyssa's skillset there really isn't anything there.

11. MangoToupe ◴[27 Aug 25 23:48 UTC] No.45046690{3}[source]▶
AMD is equally fucked. Building off of IP-locked architectures is just a graveyard. Even apple will hit a wall one day.
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12. MangoToupe ◴[27 Aug 25 23:50 UTC] No.45046696{3}[source]▶
Sure but linux isn't necessary. Legacy software can be virtualized
13. Incipient ◴[28 Aug 25 03:55 UTC] No.45048213{4}[source]▶
There are a myriad of companies that have thrived in "IP locked" environments, a host that have failed too. Equally there are heaps that have thrived and failed in "IP open" environments.

I think at best you could say it's more challenging or perhaps risky being a bit restricted with IP, but I'd call it miles away from a "graveyard".

You can hardly call Intel/amd/qualcomm etc all struggling due to the architectures being locked down.

Look at powerpc/Isa. It's (entirely?) open and hasn't really done any better than x86.

Fundamentally you're going to be tied to backwards compatibility to some extent. You're limited to evolution, not revolution. And I don't think x86 had failed to evolve? (eg avx10 is very new)