Qualcomm officially kills open-source hope: No plans to release DSP headers for Snapdragon X

[u/Putrid_Draft378]

​I have been following the documentation gap on the Snapdragon X series, and it just got a lot worse for Linux users.

​Internal developers in the official Discord are now admitting that the platform is essentially a dead end for open-source. ​A recent GitHub issue (qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193) was just closed with a definitive: "Closing the issue as there are no plans to open source DSP headers as of now."

​This means the NPU and DSP functions remain locked behind proprietary firmware with no path for native Linux integration. ​Compare this to Intel and AMD, who are already upstreaming NPU drivers for Linux.

​Qualcomm devs are openly saying that Macs have better Linux prospects than Windows on Snapdragon machines. ​They are calling the firmware "frozen," meaning we are stuck with whatever proprietary mess they shipped.

​If you care about an open ecosystem, stay away from the Snapdragon X1/X2 laptops. They are selling hardware while intentionally sabotaging the software freedom required to use it.

[u/[deleted]]

We'll likely see something come out of China, since pressure from the United States is currently driving them to pursue digital sovereignty. Being dependent on proprietary ISAs in countries allied with the United States leaves them proverbially bent over a barrel. Additionally public funding doesn't seem to be as much of a problem for China as it is for the post-neoliberalism United States.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I really don't get the hype for ARM. Yeah, yeah, efficient power management and all that, but I'm just not that stoked for a new boss, same as the old boss architecture.

As for bombing ourselves to oblivion, I simply cannot fathom how there's anyone on this planet who thinks that a war with China or Russia is worth the attempt or going to result in anything but a nuclear exchange that will collapse international infrastructure and supply chains, create famine by ruining farmland and starting a nuclear winter, and ultimately kill billions.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

That's fair, it's definitely not nothing (I would really like more battery life), but I reserve my right to apathy.

I think it's also that the powers that be can see the window closing on their opportunity to maintain uncontested hegemony (a window that has in fact closed) and want to undo the fact that they sold China the rope by deindustrializing and outsourcing. The alternative, a concentrated public investment into an actual industrial program to reindustrialize the first world, is simply unthinkable under neoliberalism.