[NEWS] NVIDIA open sources their driver (from Turin onward)

[tle]

Source: https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-releases-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/

This is BIG! Though the driver is not tested against ppc64be or ppc64le, nevertheless it is a positive move from the company that is well known for its unfriendly stance against OSS

[ClassicHasClass]

Probably 4K pages required :/

[MauryG5]

So guys, they discovered that actually Nvidia is still the same Nvidia ... Basically they made a sneaky move which is to remove the binary files from the "propietary BLOB" in the kernel and put them in the firmware of the GPU ...! The discovery was made by a certain Hector Martin, famous in the Linux environment above all! So in reality they have not made anything open that can be seen and pissed off by those who can do it, they have just moved it and so everyone is saying wow Nvidia has finally made its drivers open ... Bullshit!
Having said that I don't know what good we at Power will be able to take, it seems that even the optimization of everything will not be a great thing and therefore I have the distinct impression that in the end it will always be better for us to stay on AMD ...

[FlyingBlackbird]

A good article about how NVIDIA is "achieving" the open source driver is here (sorry, in German only, but somewhere I also saw an English article):

https://www.golem.de/news/linux-nvidias-grosse-schoene-open-source-schummelei-2205-165301.html

[ClassicHasClass]

This Ars Technica article explains it well, too. Pretty underhanded.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/05/nvidia-takes-first-step-toward-open-source-linux-gpu-drivers/

[Borley]

Basically they made a sneaky move which is to remove the binary files from the "propietary BLOB" in the kernel and put them in the firmware of the GPU ...!

Isn't that basically the same situation AMD gpus are in with firmware?

[ClassicHasClass]

Sure. In that sense it's an improvement. But it's not as momentous as others have claimed; it's merely parity with amdgpu.