Nouveau In Linux 2.6.36 Has NVIDIA Fermi Mode-Setting

[jmcharron]

Stealing work, wtf are you talking about? They are writing their *own* driver for hardware NVidia has refused to release docs. There's no theft in that. If you think otherwise, perhaps you should contact NVidia and tell them about the 'theft' that's going on.

Stealing may have been too strong of a word...But the License For Customer Use of NVIDIA Software 2.1.3 Limitations clearly states "No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code."

Taking something "without" permission is stealing... Plain and Simple. most of Nouveau's work hinges directly on peeking in on the work Nvidia has already done.

All I'm saying is that if you want "opensource support" buy/support ATI's and Intel's hardware, Nvidia is NOT FOR YOU

[pingufunkybeat]

I do not think that they are disassembling the driver, but intercepting the bit streams going between the driver and the hardware, which cannot possibly be made illegal.

The Nouveau people know what they are doing and are careful about legal issues.

That said, I see it as legacy support for people who are unfortunate enough to be stuck with closed user-hostile undocumented hardware and can't use their computer as a result.

Like you say, if you value open source, you should buy hardware with specs and open source drivers.

[pingufunkybeat]

most of Nouveau's work hinges directly on peeking in on the work Nvidia has already done.

Let them release specs, and there will be no problem.

What do you expect them to do when Nvidia intentionally makes it difficult to program the hardware they produce?

[deanjo]

Stealing may have been too strong of a word...But the License For Customer Use of NVIDIA Software 2.1.3 Limitations clearly states "No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code."

That clause is only applicable in some countries. Other countries do allow reverse engineering rendering that clause useless. It's even legal in the US.

To quote wikipedia (ya, ya I know)

In the United States and many other countries, even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets, reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful as long as it is obtained legitimately. Patents, on the other hand, need a public disclosure of an invention, and therefore, patented items do not necessarily have to be reverse-engineered to be studied. One common motivation of reverse engineers is to determine whether a competitor's product contains patent infringements or copyright infringements.
Reverse engineering software or hardware systems which is done for the purposes of interoperability (for example, to support undocumented file formats or undocumented hardware peripherals) is mostly believed to be legal, though patent owners often contest this and attempt to stifle any reverse engineering of their products for any reason.

[DeepDayze]

Possibly they could RE the Windows driver somehow?

I am sure that's possible...much like the forcedeth Ethernet driver was RE'd from the Windows driver.

[pingufunkybeat]

Forcedeth itself was an interesting story: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/0...rcedeth-story/

If people care about the open source drivers and keep using them, maybe Nvidia will end up helping in some way. Even specs under an NDA would be a great start.

[nanonyme]

Forcedeth itself was an interesting story: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/0...rcedeth-story/

If people care about the open source drivers and keep using them, maybe Nvidia will end up helping in some way. Even specs under an NDA would be a great start.

Specs and NDA are pain, means the developer has to push all his code through review to see that he's not violating the NDA...

[DeepDayze]

Forcedeth itself was an interesting story: http://liquidat.wordpress.com/2007/0...rcedeth-story/

If people care about the open source drivers and keep using them, maybe Nvidia will end up helping in some way. Even specs under an NDA would be a great start.

I read that article...and it is an interesting one indeed. The forcedeth devs worked from the closed linux nvnet driver. Nice to see that nvidia dropped their own driver in favor of the forcedeth one so in the same vein, would be nice if the nvidia devs would actually help nouveau if it was as good as their blob?

Even specs under NDA would be great indeed, and devs would need to be careful not to use any of that code anywhere else....as devs leave the group they'd still be bound by that NDA and new devs need to sign the NDA to work with those closed specs. Definitely a hassle.