Linus Torvalds Calls NVIDIA The Worst Company Ever

[JanC]

Where are the keys to my brand new Mercedes Optimus? And how come they never gave me the keys to the trunk for my BMW Geforce?
Oh crap, I thought my car analogy was spot on... both cars and computers have Windows (tm) right?

Well, a BMW actually runs on linux... at least to some degree.

[D0pamine]

does this settle the nvidia/amd war that has raged on these forums for so long?


on a plus - there was an interesting thread on getting hdmi audio using the radeon driver on north island amd gpus... and only slightly hijacked by fanbois

[johnc]

Looks like a Steve Ballmer moment to be honest. Slightly embarrassing, to say the least.

Earlier in the talk somebody asked him why Linux had never taken off on the desktop. He completely misses the answer of course. The "open-source-only" religious fanatics had dominated the Linux community for 15+ years and pretty much relegated it to nothing more than a cheap alternative to other UNIX-like OSes (i.e., for the server / workstation markets). Even Google had to go heavy on non-GPL licenses to make Android successful.

Of course, without NVIDIA's current efforts, Linux as a mainstream desktop is an absolute non-starter.

[Qaridarium]

does this settle the nvidia/amd war that has raged on these forums for so long?
on a plus - there was an interesting thread on getting hdmi audio using the radeon driver on north island amd gpus... and only slightly hijacked by fanbois

Really? i didn't know that thank you very much for the call.

[patrik]

This has to do wtih what people perceive as freedom. Someone that knows nothing about computer programming or FOSS will not care in a way if the code is closed etc. He feels free by using the product the way he wants. But thats another subject alltogether and we ll get off topic.

Sorry but I have to get slightly off topic here

Even if you're not aware of the problem, you will still suffer the consequences. I'd say it's our obligation as computer-literate people to bring these issues to the surface. I wouldn't want the climate researches say: "Hey there is no way my mother can understand the complicated process of global warming, so let's not make a big fuss about it". Stability, security, performance and openness might not be top priority right now but it's just a matter of time. People are getting more and more dependent on technology and in a few generations it will be a necessity in order to function properly within a society. Education, Health care, taxes, news, entertainment, research, communication, etc. will all depend on companies like Nvidia unless they are forced to change. It is unlikely they will give that opportunity up freely.

With that said I realize I need to grow a beard and start eating stuff from my feet

What you ask for -and i don't disagree that it would make things better for everyone- is quite impossible with the GPU companies we have now. Either for IP reasons, business practices etc etc. No company is willing to write and maintain a FOSS driver for all three OSes.

IMHO they should be forced to release the specs. I'd consider that nothing but fair.

[D0pamine]

Looks like a Steve Ballmer moment to be honest. Slightly embarrassing, to say the least.

Earlier in the talk somebody asked him why Linux had never taken off on the desktop. He completely misses the answer of course. The "open-source-only" religious fanatics had dominated the Linux community for 15+ years and pretty much relegated it to nothing more than a cheap alternative to other UNIX-like OSes (i.e., for the server / workstation markets). Even Google had to go heavy on non-GPL licenses to make Android successful.

Of course, without NVIDIA's current efforts, Linux as a mainstream desktop is an absolute non-starter.

Funny that , it took off on my desktop back in 99 .... you can always spot us religious fanatics as we refer to what you refer to as "Linux" as "GNU/Linux".
Don't equate popularity with quality either most software is forced down peoples throats - android is popular because it comes on your new shiny telephone. Note the salesman never offers a blank phone or even a custom rom option...

Nvidia has never really played ball with the community I remember the forceware-fiasco and the dreaded blob - of which you nor the maintainers of your distro have control of... security issue?? nvidia has to fix it... not the community which ofcourse leaves large chunks of the community under the control of a singular entity namely nvidia...

i agree - go fsck yourselves nvidia

[soupbowl]

No company has a reason to "care for Linux." What a company should care for is customer support.

Corporate is a capitalist entity, not a charity. It's a business. I leave "care for Linux" to non-profit organizations, not to AMD or NVidia. They don't "care" for Linux or Windows or any other OS. They provide working drivers for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and other systems not because they care for the well being of those systems, but for their customers being able to buy their hardware and use it on those platforms.

IMO, NVidia could reply in kind with "fuck you, Linus, for trying to upset our business model." If they want to have a closed-source model, it's their damn right. This isn't North Korea where you can force others to follow your own philosophies. If Linux can't accommodate such models (no driver ABI), it's a Linux shortcoming, not an NVidia one.

I totally agree.

[asdx]

No company has a reason to "care for Linux." What a company should care for is customer support.

Corporate is a capitalist entity, not a charity. It's a business. I leave "care for Linux" to non-profit organizations, not to AMD or NVidia. They don't "care" for Linux or Windows or any other OS. They provide working drivers for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and other systems not because they care for the well being of those systems, but for their customers being able to buy their hardware and use it on those platforms.

IMO, NVidia could reply in kind with "fuck you, Linus, for trying to upset our business model." If they want to have a closed-source model, it's their damn right. This isn't North Korea where you can force others to follow your own philosophies. If Linux can't accommodate such models (no driver ABI), it's a Linux shortcoming, not an NVidia one.

I disagree, and I think you are failing to realize how binary blobs affect our system in a negative way and the negative consequences they have in our system.

Linux not having a stable driver ABI is not a Linux shortcoming but an advantage that prevents and protects us from corporations exploiting Linux with inferior blobs like the nvidia one.

I for one am glad that Linus Torvalds humiliated NVIDIA this way in public, they deserve it for not playing well with others.

I think they have 2 choices: They either adapt and play well with us, by our rules, or they go and fuck themselves in bankrupcy, because we are going to break their blob beyond repair and to the point of no return.

Freedom or death.

Fuck you NVIDIA!

[smitty3268]

Of course, without NVIDIA's current efforts, Linux as a mainstream desktop is an absolute non-starter.

I'm not sure why'd you say that, considering that the vast majority of desktops just run with Intel graphics. Nvidia doesn't have much of anything to do with that. What do they have, 20% market share?

[allquixotic]

I disagree, and I think you are failing to realize how binary blobs affect our system in a negative way and the negative consequences they have in our system.

Linux not having a stable driver ABI is not a Linux shortcoming but an advantage that prevents and protects us from corporations exploiting Linux with inferior blobs like the nvidia one.

I for one am glad that Linus Torvalds humiliated NVIDIA this way in public, they deserve it for not playing well with others.

I think they have 2 choices: They either adapt and play well with us or they go, fuck themselves and die in bankrupcy. We are going to break their blob beyond repair.

Freedom or death.

It's even simpler than that. Linux is coming everywhere whether you like it or not, and the companies that don't adapt to the new business model are going to lose out even with the old capitalistic system. It's simple: when Dell or System76 or whoever has to choose what hardware to ship on their OEM Linux boxes (which are coming eventually), they're going to choose the hardware with the best graphics drivers. If you don't have KMS or Wayland or Optimus or current-enough drivers to run on recent kernels or proper mode-switching support, you are going to get passed up. The same applies to Android, but replace KMS/Wayland/Optimus with whatever the latest craze is on ARM SoC graphics. Power saving? Open source drivers so that manufacturers can fix bugs themselves? Support for the latest OpenGL ES? Clearly there are more factors in selecting a well-working chip with a well-working driver than sheer performance.

Nvidia doesn't need Linus Torvalds to tell them fuck you. They are fucking themselves just plenty on their own. Linus was just trying to wake them up so that maybe in the coming revolution they might survive, but if they don't, nobody -- absolutely nobody -- is going to miss them.