AMD (Xilinx) is Excluding Linux From the Free Tier For Its FPGA Dev Tool (amd.com) 6
Long-time Slashdot reader Sun writes:
AMD has announced a change to the way they are licensing Vivado, their FPGA development tool... Hidden between the lines of the announcement [of a new model starting with the 2026.1 release] is the change to the free of charge tier. AMD is adding more devices to be supported in this tier, which is supposedly the carrot. The stick, however, is the removal of certain debug features.
The thing that's likely to hit the hobbist community the worst, however, is that the free tier will now not be available on Linux.
AMD are saying that old licenses are still in effect, so it appears that if you hurry to install Vivado now, you'd still be able to use it moving forward. It is not clear, however, whether it'll still be possible to install Vivado 2025.2 after Vivado 2026.1 becomes available.
"Almost all our surveys show... close to 70% of the customers are still using Windows," explained AMD senior product application engineer Anatoli Curran on the tool's support forum. "Vivado ML Standard Edition v2025.2 is going to be officially supported (I mean if there are any bugs found, these can be fixed) until v2026.3 release... Any release older than the current 3 released versions of Vivado then becomes unsupported (meaning no bugs will be fixed with Vivado Standard Edition v2025.2 after Vivado v2026.3).
"However, users can continue using V2025.2 forever, if they wish to do so... Also, Vivado ML Standard Edition v2025.2 is license-free... Users only need to obtain and use any IP Core related licenses, or Vivado Model Composer (for SysGen)."
The thing that's likely to hit the hobbist community the worst, however, is that the free tier will now not be available on Linux.
AMD are saying that old licenses are still in effect, so it appears that if you hurry to install Vivado now, you'd still be able to use it moving forward. It is not clear, however, whether it'll still be possible to install Vivado 2025.2 after Vivado 2026.1 becomes available.
"Almost all our surveys show... close to 70% of the customers are still using Windows," explained AMD senior product application engineer Anatoli Curran on the tool's support forum. "Vivado ML Standard Edition v2025.2 is going to be officially supported (I mean if there are any bugs found, these can be fixed) until v2026.3 release... Any release older than the current 3 released versions of Vivado then becomes unsupported (meaning no bugs will be fixed with Vivado Standard Edition v2025.2 after Vivado v2026.3).
"However, users can continue using V2025.2 forever, if they wish to do so... Also, Vivado ML Standard Edition v2025.2 is license-free... Users only need to obtain and use any IP Core related licenses, or Vivado Model Composer (for SysGen)."
Hold my beer and watch this! (Score:1)
"Hi! I'm AMD Knoxville! Welcome to Jackass!"
*Minutemen - Corona (Jackass opening theme) ensues*
Keeping free tier internal costs lower ... (Score:1)
The thing that's likely to hit the hobbist community the worst, however, is that the free tier will now not be available on Linux.
It seems they want to keep the internal costs of the free tier as low as possible. Supported OS of all paid tiers:
Windows: 10, 11
Linux: Red Hat, SUSE, Ubuntu, Alma, Rocky
macOS: none
Given the amount of dual booting, I'm not sure the hobbyist community will be hit that hard.
Re: (Score:3)
There are good alternatives too now, like GOWIN. I know it's not always an option, you might need Xilinx features, you might be familiar with them already, but I find it's often worth the effort to move if you can.
Re: (Score:2)
Given the amount of dual booting, I'm not sure the hobbyist community will be hit that hard.
Not everyone chooses (or wants) to dual boot (some do not even have a Windows license). Perhaps AMD wants to push Linux FPGA hobbyists towards Altera (where, last I knew, the starter (lite) development tools were still available for free for Linux). For both Xilinx and Altera the more advanced tooling capabilities do require additional license fees, but not everyone requires those types of capabilities.
Re: (Score:1)
Not a problem (Score:2)
The reason I choose hardware is that they support open source. No or unfavourable support means I won't even consider it even if it's intended to run Windows.