For your specific question: Why is Linux not supported in the BASIC tier?
This is AMD’s marketing decision.
Kind Regards, Anatoli Curran, Xilinx/AMD Forum Moderator
Translation, we looked at the books and thought this could make us more money.
I honestly think this is it, and it’s not arbitrary. I think it’s because really any build server will be running Linux (either natively or via Docker). AMD/Xilinx probably thinks “Build Servers are an advanced use case, so not covered under the free license”
I don’t know the exact reason but yeah. “Marketing” departments don’t get to just make fundamental product decisions in any company I’ve ever interacted with.
IMO it’s fair to read this as an NSA/eyes move. AMD is embedded in the western global mass surveillance architecture and by closed sourcing they can hide NSA back doors more easily.
Fact is the west is locking down all computing and doesn’t want there to be anywhere to flee for hobbyists or the Chinese. This also prevents the Chinese from benefiting from these tools if they slap sanctions on.
I would like to preface this with the fact that I hate this new change. As a professional FPGA Engineer, who has exclusively used Xilinx parts for most of my career, I figured I’d offer my two cents.
Vivado was never open source to begin with. So I don’t see how this would allow more back doors to be in the program, and I’m also not sure what you mean by a back door in this context. Do you mean making Vivado install back doors into the bitstreams themselves? If so, this would be difficult to do given there are independent tools out there that allow you to verify what is in the compiled netlist (which is an intermediate step in a design) vs the HDL (Hardware Description Language, the type of Language that is used to program FPGAs, main ones are VHDL and Verilog). There’s also some new tools coming out do compare the bitstream against the net list. With these tools, you can all but guarantee there aren’t any back doors or Trojans in the design.
Vivado is also already export controlled IIRC. At the very least, you’ve always had to input your country/address/etc due to controls on it. I’m in the USA, so it’s never been a problem, so I don’t really know what happens for people in, say, China. It might just be for logging/tracking purposes, and then in the future it could get locked down, so you may be right on that count.
Dealing with this kind of shit was one of the reasons we completely dropped xilinx. Apart from that they were very unhelpful and unfriendly.
What do you use instead ? As a student, the new prices are completely unaffordable, and I am not going to use Windows 😓
We switched the whole line to Efinix. One disadvantage though: They don’t supply a simulator.
That’s what you get when it’s not open source…
As someone who had the misfortune to work with Vivado before. I really hope that this might drive a new company/independent dev team to make something better and we get something good out of this.
I mean it is a huge loss for FOSS since it is one of the only “IDEs” (* if you can even call this buggy bullshit that*) that is free. But it really is shit.
I really liked Verilog but I could never work with it for longer than an hour before some new Vivado bug needed a restart or I got sick from interacting with the interface.
Read the entire article, despite not having heard about Vivado previously. I wouldn’t be surprised if a certain company ending in
softslop is somehow involved.The thing that makes sense to me (purely speculative, no real info to back this) is that Microslop isn’t happy about losing money and the user base, so they are pushing their hardware partners to force users back to the platform.
Redis did exactly this back in March 2024, dropping its long-standing BSD license for the more restrictive dual licensing model, and the blowback was severe enough that the community forked it into Valkey almost immediately.
Sounds like this is probably the best approach and outcome for the Vivado community and software. The end of the article recommends either joining in the discussion on AMD’s forums (which only seems to be getting stonewalled) or joining the growing number of people on hacker news.
That’s the second-best approach. The best approach is for it to be copyleft instead of permissively-licensed to begin with.
I don’t disagree, I meant given the current situation. Obviously copyleft would be preferred and should be encouraged.
OP is clickbaiting FUD again. Classic.
What part is FUD? FTA:
Starting with the 2026.1 release, AMD is switching to a tiered licensing model. The free Basic tier covers entry-level devices but is restricted to Windows only. Linux support does not show up until the “Core” tier, which costs somewhere between $1,200-$1,800 per year.
…
When pushed for a real answer, Anatoli pointed unhappy users toward Vivado 2025.2, suggesting they simply stick with it if they did not want to pay. He did mention that 2025.2 loses official support once Vivado 2026.3 ships, but that detail was buried in a thread reply, leaving users with little more than a dead-end recommendation.
They’re removing the free product they offered for Linux and are sticking it behind a $100+/mo license, and the alternative option for not paying is using unsupported software and being left with any security problems unless you pay an ongoing license.
Read the commends at https://lemy.lol/post/66119615
You didn’t link a specific comment, so your reply isn’t worth much. The first ‘substantive’ response I ran across was pretty dumb, effectively saying the Linux app was costing AMD money while offering windows for free and Linux behind a paywall. I didn’t care to keep reading.
So, again, what part of it is FUD?
The part in the OP that is influencing perception by disseminating negative and dubious information about AMD when AMDs actions are actually justified.
when AMDs actions are actually justified.
Yeah, this is the part we’re disagreeing on, because so far I haven’t seen a real justification for why the same app is fine on windows but not Linux and is only accessible on linux through a subscription. What part of Linux specifically costs them money that doesn’t on windows?
Also, just because you don’t like the info doesn’t make it dubious. And ironically, your defense of them is dubious by providing vague responses and unsupported accusations of spreading FUD.
K
If anyone had any doubts, you’ve effectively admitted you’re wrong. You can’t even respond to basic questions about the “FUD” anyone is spreading, especially your own.
Maybe try to shill in places that don’t know how to ask basic follow up questions, you’ll probably get farther.
