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The genesis of this was back in 2006 when Microsoft started requiring graphics board/chip makers to keep some aspects of their design secret, to support DRM in Vista. That includes hardware details and code, i.e. open source drivers. See http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

I'm actually quite glad that adequate drivers are available, even if they're not open source. That outcome wasn't guaranteed.

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It goes further back than that. The software stack for all modern AMD GPUs is based on the original unified shader compiler for the first AMD unified shader GPU, Xenos (XBOX360) written largely by Microsoft. AMD just has a license to the code, MS still owns it.

Any sources for that software stack part? Only information I managed to find was that AMD was contracted to create Xenos core, but there was no mentions who made software (I would assume AMD) and especially no information about licensing.

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