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Linux 6.6 To Better Protect Against The Illicit Behavior Of NVIDIA's Proprietary Driver
(www.phoronix.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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From my closed-source corporate perspective, Nvidia is trying to improve performance and the Linux kernel maintainers are trying to stop them. I don't see why I would be annoyed at Nvidia in these circumstances.
From a legal perspective, nvidia has been illegally bypassing a software license by exploiting a loophole. Linux devs fixed the loophole.
I don't see why I would be annoyed at Linux devs in these circumstances.
Because they're breaking the law while taking advantage of open source software.
Via breaking the law. Which in a reasonable system would push people away from participating
I did say that I get why the Linux folks are doing this. The problem is that Nvidia drivers that obey these restrictions and as a result have significantly worse performance than Nvidia drivers on other operating systems aren't the solution either. Anyone who does serious GPU computing will still have to switch away from Linux.
(IMO Nvidia would be insane to open-source their drivers. Like sue-corporate-officers-for-breach-of-duty level insane. So they can't do more than what they're already doing: coming up with workarounds.)
AMD's doing pretty well with their open source drivers, I suppose its up to nvidia if they want to offer a worse product simply so they can keep as much profits as possible.
But leveraging other peoples work via open source code, to improve their product - then still not donating nor contributing back to the source? Not only illegal but scummy as hell.
We may not be as offended as the kernel devs, but theyre the ones whos work is being stolen, so I wouldn't be so quick to tell them what to do
I wouldn't say AMD is doing pretty well - it isn't a serious competitor to Nvidia in the GPU computing market.
No idea why you’re getting downvoted. Outside of the increasingly small desktop gpu market AMD is completely irrelevant in professional GPU use. They’re not even remotely close to being a competitor
I mean theyre both extending to the portable desktop a la steam deck and investing in mobile GPUs... And with a massive monopoly against then, I'd say theyre doing pretty good - so much so Intel is inspired to do similar with their arc gpus
Would they though? They sell their hardware, not their drivers, or am I misunderstanding something about Nvidia?
Is it possible that by revealing their drivers they would also reveal something about their industry designs?
I mean, just building the hardware and letting the community do all the work on drivers for free would be better, if they don't do it there must be a valid reason I think.
I mean, they make money of selling the hardware from what I understand. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, and that's the problem. Maybe they make money off the driver's too.
Their drivers were already leaked, any secrets they were trying to hide are out in the wild, so that point is moot.
Of course I can't know for sure because the driver is closed-source, but I'd bet that a lot of what makes Nvidia hardware work fast is actually in the driver rather than the hardware itself. Plus, a proprietary driver lets them lock people in to buying their hardware. The company where I work doesn't use Nvidia software because it buys Nvidia GPUs. It buys Nvidia GPUs because it uses Nvidia software.
I don't believe that even for a second. Software doesn't make hardware run faster. It can certainly slow it down. But it doesn't make it run better.
Of course software can't exceed the physical limits of the hardware but reaching the physical limits of the hardware is non-trivial, especially for hardware as complex as a modern GPU.
Not really that difficult to use 100% of GPU resources. I'm developing a game right now. It's not well optimized and uses 100% of GPU resources depending on what I'm doing in the game.
Reaching 100% utilization is simple and entirely under the control of the user. Optimized drivers are for giving that user more computation at 100% utilization.
Oh yes sure, the software make nvidia gpu better, something that probably most of the hundred if not thousand of contributor to the mesa driver and in the list we have amd, intel, collabora, redhat, nouveau, google, valve and many others didn't see, they were the only one in the entire silicon valley to find this secret sauce to make gpus better with software.
Yes? I'm not saying Mesa as a whole is bad, but Mesa+Nouveau for Nvidia cards is terrible.
(It doesn't help that Nvidia isn't exactly cooperative when it comes to supporting open-source developers, but my point that driver development is non-trivial stands.)
Mesa+Nouveau is bad only thanks to nvidia and their signature lock implemented since the 900 series, as even stated by me before:
You've convinced me. I still think that secret optimizations are a possibility, but I must concede that there might very well be this sort of lock-in bullshit and nothing else.
You can always make your own kernel and enforce whatever stupid laws you want on it then.
From a corporate perspective you should be VERY worried about this, GPL is infectious, so if NVIDIA drivers are using GPL only parts of the kernel they become GPL, and because NVIDIA doesn't offer GPL only endpoint the license applies to everything, meaning that if your company is using the NVIDIA driver in any way shape or form anything you produce becomes GPL as well. NVIDIA has enough lawyers to delay the enforcing of this, which is why they'll never get sued, does YOUR company has enough lawyers to keep FSF at bay? If not you should be very annoyed at NVIDIA for not providing a license term for their GPL driver (and legally their driver IS GPL if it uses those endpoints).
And here's the thing, for a home user not updating the kernel is good enough, for a company it's not because this is a bug fix, not new implementation, NVIDIA is already in breach of license.
Nvidia could choose to improve performance using non-illegal tactics.
They haven't.
I'm happy to live in a society wherev we support those upholding the law.