Intel Can't Ship Their Own Driver With Their MeeGo OS

Quoting:outsource the development of the software for a driver for their own hardware

That's where the problem is I suggest: That's not the case as far as I understood. The design of their hardware isn't theirs.

Basically, what happened, is that Intel failed at creating an energy efficient GPU that they could include in a System on Chip (SoC). Looking at the SoC market, they find themself struggling to keep up with their ARM competitors, and they're lagging behind. They always focused on 'performance computing', so in the embedded sector, which could be considered 'lower performance computing field', they had no clue. When it comes to GPU's, it seems the mentioned company, Imagination Technologies (IT), is walking way in front of the competition.

The interesting thing about the 'ARM ecosystem', is you can license almost any part of it in any combination. So instead of designing their own GPU, Intel simply licensed the design from IT. They only had to "glue" it to the rest of their Soc, and there, done! From what I've read about the IT-designs, they offer incredible power. One of their upcoming GPU-designs to be included on SoC's (for portable devices, that is) can draw the same number of polygons per second as an XBox 360. Now, imagine XBox360-like games on a tablet, and you'll understand that's something which Intel wants. They can't risk the market just because they want to design their own GPU, which would be inferior.

So far, so good. However, the drivers from Imagination Technologies are not open source, while the Intel drivers are. That's the dilemma Intel is facing: If they design their own GPU and open source their driver, they'll loose the SoC-battle - which TI, FreeScale, Qualcomm etc. would certainly win. If they include the same GPU as TI, FreeScale Qualcomm and the rest of their competition, at least they're sure their 'solutions' will have about the same performance.

So what needs to happen (and probably IS happening, right now as we type) is, Intel kicks IT in the *** to open source their drivers. However, open sourcing software takes time, because of legal reasons and because normally a company wants to 'unmess' and document their source before releasing it to a large audience.