NVIDIA Wants To Be A Better Linux Patron

[entropy]

Lol, buying stuff for review sites doesn't in any way help the Linux community or the Linux user.

Michael begs to differ, I guess.

[schmidtbag]

What really surprises me is why some people care so much about something being open source. Lets say nvidia did open source their drivers and just completely dropped it on the community and said "here you go, have at it". considering the sheer size of these drivers, i don't know anyone in their right mind who would just go ahead and pick up on a few things there and there that the drivers don't include. seriously, even with the nouveau drivers, how many companies or just average joes actually make contributions? hell even the intel drivers, which are compared to the nvidia blob, are dauntingly gigantic for just anybody to join in.

My point is, some people just want things to be open source just for the sake of it whether there would be any benefit to it at all, with the 1 exception of compiling the software on another platform. Maybe making little tweaks here and there to make a particular program slightly more compatible would be nice too, but 99% of people wouldn't bother doing such a thing on their own time.



From what I gather, the only thing the closed source nvidia drivers need to do is to be perfectly compatible with the kernel, X, wayland, and all other software in the same way that the open source drivers are. I haven't used the nvidia drivers in almost a year but last time I checked, they require their own kernel headers, supply their own glx libraries, and probably more I can't think of. I understand why nvidia is doing this, but for people like linus to be more accepting of nvidia, they need to stop acting like their method is the 1 and only way to get things done. linus doesn't seem to have an issue if someone wants to create closed source software, what he seems to dislike is how it hinders the development of everything else.

[oliver]

What really surprises me is why some people care so much about something being open source. Lets say nvidia did open source their drivers and just completely dropped it on the community and said "here you go, have at it". considering the sheer size of these drivers, i don't know anyone in their right mind who would just go ahead and pick up on a few things there and there that the drivers don't include. seriously, even with the nouveau drivers, how many companies or just average joes actually make contributions? hell even the intel drivers, which are compared to the nvidia blob, are dauntingly gigantic for just anybody to join in.

My point is, some people just want things to be open source just for the sake of it whether there would be any benefit to it at all, with the 1 exception of compiling the software on another platform. Maybe making little tweaks here and there to make a particular program slightly more compatible would be nice too, but 99% of people wouldn't bother doing such a thing on their own time.



From what I gather, the only thing the closed source nvidia drivers need to do is to be perfectly compatible with the kernel, X, wayland, and all other software in the same way that the open source drivers are. I haven't used the nvidia drivers in almost a year but last time I checked, they require their own kernel headers, supply their own glx libraries, and probably more I can't think of. I understand why nvidia is doing this, but for people like linus to be more accepting of nvidia, they need to stop acting like their method is the 1 and only way to get things done. linus doesn't seem to have an issue if someone wants to create closed source software, what he seems to dislike is how it hinders the development of everything else.

I don't think any OSS advocate wants the source of their blob. Nor do we really want catalyst opened up. What we want is that the open source drivers, are properly supported (r600g/nouveau) by the companies themselves. Why? Because we want the driver to be included in the mainline kernel. It would ease maintenance etc.

The source to the blob may help people reverse engineering the thing, but it's extremely unlikely the freed blob would 'just get included'.

[birdie]

Divide Linux driver into a completely open kernel part and a user space part which communicates with the kernel driver.

That way:
1) Your driver will always be compatible with new kernel releases and we won't have to wait for new drivers releases 'cause Linus has once again broken the kernel APIs/ABIs.
2) NVIDIA driver won't be able to make system crash or freeze.
3) You will be able to easily support KMS and implement Optimus.

[entropy]

Divide Linux driver into a completely open kernel part and a user space part which communicates with the kernel driver.

That way:
1) Your driver will always be compatible with new kernel releases and we won't have to wait for new drivers releases 'cause Linus has once again broken the kernel APIs/ABIs.
2) NVIDIA driver won't be able to make system crash or freeze.
3) You will be able to easily support KMS and implement Optimus.

That's actually what Matthew Garrett suggested in his reply:

Stop working on the nvidia kernel driver. The things that you consider
trade secrets are almost entirely in your 3D engine. Move your 3D driver
to userspace and use nouveau for command submission. It'd still somewhat
suck having a closed 3D driver, but it'd be far better than the current
situation of having two drivers for the same hardware.

http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pi...ne/000336.html

[garegin]

What really surprises me is why some people care so much about something being open source. Lets say nvidia did open source their drivers and just completely dropped it on the community and said "here you go, have at it". considering the sheer size of these drivers, i don't know anyone in their right mind who would just go ahead and pick up on a few things there and there that the drivers don't include. seriously, even with the nouveau drivers, how many companies or just average joes actually make contributions? hell even the intel drivers, which are compared to the nvidia blob, are dauntingly gigantic for just anybody to join in.

My point is, some people just want things to be open source just for the sake of it whether there would be any benefit to it at all, with the 1 exception of compiling the software on another platform. Maybe making little tweaks here and there to make a particular program slightly more compatible would be nice too, but 99% of people wouldn't bother doing such a thing on their own time.



From what I gather, the only thing the closed source nvidia drivers need to do is to be perfectly compatible with the kernel, X, wayland, and all other software in the same way that the open source drivers are. I haven't used the nvidia drivers in almost a year but last time I checked, they require their own kernel headers, supply their own glx libraries, and probably more I can't think of. I understand why nvidia is doing this, but for people like linus to be more accepting of nvidia, they need to stop acting like their method is the 1 and only way to get things done. linus doesn't seem to have an issue if someone wants to create closed source software, what he seems to dislike is how it hinders the development of everything else.

bingo. i hate using propritary drivers because they break the OS and don't mesh well.

[FuturePilot]

What really surprises me is why some people care so much about something being open source. Lets say nvidia did open source their drivers and just completely dropped it on the community and said "here you go, have at it". considering the sheer size of these drivers, i don't know anyone in their right mind who would just go ahead and pick up on a few things there and there that the drivers don't include. seriously, even with the nouveau drivers, how many companies or just average joes actually make contributions? hell even the intel drivers, which are compared to the nvidia blob, are dauntingly gigantic for just anybody to join in.

My point is, some people just want things to be open source just for the sake of it whether there would be any benefit to it at all, with the 1 exception of compiling the software on another platform. Maybe making little tweaks here and there to make a particular program slightly more compatible would be nice too, but 99% of people wouldn't bother doing such a thing on their own time.

Thank you. Finally some logic around here. Reading through the other threads about this topic I'm just shocked at some of the knee-jerk immature comments like "LOL FUK U 2 NVIDIA". I've been thinking of this same scenario of what if Nvidia just said "fine here's the code, good luck" or just completely drop Linux support without releasing any code or specs. There goes a very large chuck of Linux users. Linux isn't going to go anywhere on the desktop without a good graphics stack. Oh and Steam? Yeah you can probably forget about that too. You FOSS zealots are going to have to realize that there's going to have to be compromises if you want Linux to go anywhere. Only in a perfect world would everything be open source. And IMO this type of fanaticism is just going to drive hardware manufacturers away from Linux. Are you people going to jump all over Valve because they won't release the source of their client or the Source engine? Nobody is going to want to touch Linux because of the outrageous reactions from its user base if something isn't open source. All these FOSS fanatics are going to drive Linux on the desktop straight into the ground all in the sake of demanding the source code for everything.

Does anyone remember what happened with Creative and the X-Fi driver? They eventually thew their hands up and said here's the specs, you write the code. And the last time I checked X-Fi support was still shoddy on Linux. And that was how many years ago? Anyway, I'm sure I just poked a hornet's nest now. Go on and flame away.

[M1kkko]

That's actually what Matthew Garrett suggested in his reply:

http://lists.linux-foundation.org/pi...ne/000336.html

Seems like exciting times ahead for an Nvidia user if this ends up becoming a reality.

[DeepDayze]

Having said what I said earlier, I do have an answer to the Stephen's query.

It is my understanding(and I hope others around here will clarify this) that the proprietary Nvidia driver is not just the driver itself. The proprietary driver actually replaces parts of xorg and it's graphics stack, and other portions of software that clearly isn't necessarily covered under super secret hardware specifications.

I do not mean deprecate all of these parts at once.

Contribute to xorg whatever features are hidden within the proprietary stack, and when the co-responding OSS software package is capable of doing what the proprietary driver replaces, deprecate it's "replacement" that exists within the proprietary stack and make the proprietary driver more friendly with OSS components.

Move on to the next re-written software item. Rinse and repeat. Contribute to whatever the OSS software package is, when the OSS software item is fully capable according to Nvidia's standards, deprecate the next part of the proprietary stack.

The Nvidia driver should be made as small as possible, and designed to cover as little as possible.(hardware only, in other words) Leave the rest up to us.

We have good software out here in OSS. Nvidia should stop re-inventing our wheel, and just patch the tire instead.

Sounds like a good plan...nvidia should write a reference driver that just exposes the base features of the hardware and the OSS community can then flesh it out and add the other features to make a driver that's solid and does the job well


Nvidia should follow AMD's lead and provide the programming docs so that OSS driver devs can write a complete driver that covers a wide range of nvidia's hardware

[asdx]

Thank you. Finally some logic around here. Reading through the other threads about this topic I'm just shocked at some of the knee-jerk immature comments like "LOL FUK U 2 NVIDIA". I've been thinking of this same scenario of what if Nvidia just said "fine here's the code, good luck" or just completely drop Linux support without releasing any code or specs. There goes a very large chuck of Linux users. Linux isn't going to go anywhere on the desktop without a good graphics stack. Oh and Steam? Yeah you can probably forget about that too. You FOSS zealots are going to have to realize that there's going to have to be compromises if you want Linux to go anywhere. Only in a perfect world would everything be open source. And IMO this type of fanaticism is just going to drive hardware manufacturers away from Linux. Are you people going to jump all over Valve because they won't release the source of their client or the Source engine? Nobody is going to want to touch Linux because of the outrageous reactions from its user base if something isn't open source. All these FOSS fanatics are going to drive Linux on the desktop straight into the ground all in the sake of demanding the source code for everything.

Does anyone remember what happened with Creative and the X-Fi driver? They eventually thew their hands up and said here's the specs, you write the code. And the last time I checked X-Fi support was still shoddy on Linux. And that was how many years ago? Anyway, I'm sure I just poked a hornet's nest now. Go on and flame away.

Fuck off and die.