so when the AMD patch was refused, it was refused for this LTS version of the kernel? that's gotta be a huge blow against AMD, no?
The merge window for 4.9 closed long before this recent spate of publicity. The AMDGPU patch would have been on track for more like 4.11.
A few days ago the author those changes are listed under (Dave Airlie) was on the HN frontpage for his comments on an AMD RFC[1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Rendering_Manager
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13136426