Bickering Continues About NVIDIA Using DMA-BUF

[crazycheese]

NVidia is the only graphics vendor who puts so much effort in bringing proper drivers to the platform. I don't know their reasons, though - perhaps Linux is still being used for content creation somewhere in CAD industry which had relied on Unix since SGI times, and they have to support that. Either way, without NVidia, Linux gaming is stillborn. Linux as a desktop OS will be dead for me as well. Probably I'm a minority though... Maybe I need to create an online petition asking Alan Cox to stop blocking proper NVidia Linux drivers (binary or not) to gather more support...

Linux kernel devs need to get pragmatic - the IT industry is no more Wild West it used to be. CPUs with open documentation are becoming thing of the past and soon you'll need to sign an NDA to get CPU docs, because CPU will be integrated with GPUs. R&D is more and more expensive and technology needs to be guarded from competition by all means necessary (lawsuits being the most reliable), opensourcing it just because a bunch of hobbyists wants to be able to tinker with that is not a smart move as competition will get your costly research for free...

And as much as I hate that situation (being hobbyist myself), I kind of agree with that... This is the natural path followed by established industries (ever tried to get Coca-Cola open-source its recipe? And are you taking only "open-source" medicines?) so I predict IT to become the same as it matures. GPL hinders progress by effectively eliminating competition between "licensees" who are forced to act as if they had a single goal, and thus it is counter-innovative. Either you need exceptions from it or you are following the HURD path to obscurity.

Coca cola exposed recipe in 1970.
I am taking ONLY open source medicine. Because, I am not an idiot.
The newer hardware is opensource (ARM, Loongson).
The open drivers are progressing very good.
We see rise in open technology (OpenMP, 0MQ, HTML5) and decline of the proprietary.
Recent lawsuits are not due to NDAs, but due to patents. Patents are all "open-source" in patent registry.
Its Linux that made a revolution in mobile and ebook market.
Its BSD who was rightfully mis-used to create MacOSX from ashes.
HURD still recieves attention, but its was developed at slow rate since its start; mainly because Linux was THE kernel for GNU from version 0.1 and saw major development.

Intel currently lacks raw GPU power and has no plans to go past mid-range chip (if we believe them). Otherwise, 99% of Linux users would be using Intel. Not 50% as of now.
For those using Windows, I don't care. They have different viewpoints.

But open technology is on the rise, definitely not on decline.
For example, the Windows clone-OS ReactOS is on serious decline, due almost no one to use it. These people use either Linux now or returned to windows. This only proves that open technology has proven itself and is not cloning anyone, but living on its own now.

[Vadi]

I hope the kernel developers will come up with a solution that proprietary and open-source drivers can use to cooperate for the mixed architectures, instead of just denying any efforts by the nVidia team to make a better consumer experience on Linux happen.

[D0pamine]

NVidia is the only graphics vendor who puts so much effort in bringing proper drivers to the platform. I don't know their reasons, though - perhaps Linux is still being used for content creation somewhere in CAD industry which had relied on Unix since SGI times, and they have to support that. Either way, without NVidia, Linux gaming is stillborn. Linux as a desktop OS will be dead for me as well. Probably I'm a minority though... Maybe I need to create an online petition asking Alan Cox to stop blocking proper NVidia Linux drivers (binary or not) to gather more support...

Linux kernel devs need to get pragmatic - the IT industry is no more Wild West it used to be. CPUs with open documentation are becoming thing of the past and soon you'll need to sign an NDA to get CPU docs, because CPU will be integrated with GPUs. R&D is more and more expensive and technology needs to be guarded from competition by all means necessary (lawsuits being the most reliable), opensourcing it just because a bunch of hobbyists wants to be able to tinker with that is not a smart move as competition will get your costly research for free...

And as much as I hate that situation (being hobbyist myself), I kind of agree with that... This is the natural path followed by established industries (ever tried to get Coca-Cola open-source its recipe? And are you taking only "open-source" medicines?) so I predict IT to become the same as it matures. GPL hinders progress by effectively eliminating competition between "licensees" who are forced to act as if they had a single goal, and thus it is counter-innovative. Either you need exceptions from it or you are following the HURD path to obscurity.

proper drivers? module taints kernel!!!!! GNU/Linux gaming is stillborn? i play games no problem!!!! pragmatic? why does X,Y,Z developer have to bend over for a corporation!!! hobbyist? go on say 'Desktop market share' i dare you :P

[asdx]

NVidia is the only graphics vendor who puts so much effort in bringing proper drivers to the platform. I don't know their reasons, though - perhaps Linux is still being used for content creation somewhere in CAD industry which had relied on Unix since SGI times, and they have to support that. Either way, without NVidia, Linux gaming is stillborn. Linux as a desktop OS will be dead for me as well. Probably I'm a minority though... Maybe I need to create an online petition asking Alan Cox to stop blocking proper NVidia Linux drivers (binary or not) to gather more support...

Linux kernel devs need to get pragmatic - the IT industry is no more Wild West it used to be. CPUs with open documentation are becoming thing of the past and soon you'll need to sign an NDA to get CPU docs, because CPU will be integrated with GPUs. R&D is more and more expensive and technology needs to be guarded from competition by all means necessary (lawsuits being the most reliable), opensourcing it just because a bunch of hobbyists wants to be able to tinker with that is not a smart move as competition will get your costly research for free...

And as much as I hate that situation (being hobbyist myself), I kind of agree with that... This is the natural path followed by established industries (ever tried to get Coca-Cola open-source its recipe? And are you taking only "open-source" medicines?) so I predict IT to become the same as it matures. GPL hinders progress by effectively eliminating competition between "licensees" who are forced to act as if they had a single goal, and thus it is counter-innovative. Either you need exceptions from it or you are following the HURD path to obscurity.

I disagree, we need to respect the GPL license Linux is licensed under. Also, one of the strength of Linux has always been hardware support, built-in drivers for most (if not all hardware), and I don't want to deviate from this. If nvidia doesn't want to play fair it's their problem, not ours.

[D0pamine]

this is a legal issue - its most definitely good troll bait though :P

[efikkan]

This is actually a situation where GPL is indirectly restricting freedom, and the end result might be Nvidia ending up creating another non-free module.

[yogi_berra]

I hope the kernel developers will come up with a solution that proprietary and open-source drivers can use to cooperate for the mixed architectures, instead of just denying any efforts by the nVidia team to make a better consumer experience on Linux happen.

Do you expect a neckbeard like Alan to work with anyone?



If so, I've got a bridge to sell you.

[D0pamine]

This is actually a situation where GPL is indirectly restricting freedom, and the end result might be Nvidia ending up creating another non-free module.

it might restrict nvidias freedom to pervert the opengl specifications and dominate the gpu market but it in no way restricts my freedom

[efikkan]

it might restrict nvidias freedom to pervert the opengl specifications and dominate the gpu market but it in no way restricts my freedom

Get your facts straight, Nvidia has the best OpenGL implementation and is in no way perverting the specifications.

[jrch2k8]

NVidia is the only graphics vendor who puts so much effort in bringing proper drivers to the platform. I don't know their reasons, though - perhaps Linux is still being used for content creation somewhere in CAD industry which had relied on Unix since SGI times, and they have to support that. Either way, without NVidia, Linux gaming is stillborn. Linux as a desktop OS will be dead for me as well. Probably I'm a minority though... Maybe I need to create an online petition asking Alan Cox to stop blocking proper NVidia Linux drivers (binary or not) to gather more support...

Linux kernel devs need to get pragmatic - the IT industry is no more Wild West it used to be. CPUs with open documentation are becoming thing of the past and soon you'll need to sign an NDA to get CPU docs, because CPU will be integrated with GPUs. R&D is more and more expensive and technology needs to be guarded from competition by all means necessary (lawsuits being the most reliable), opensourcing it just because a bunch of hobbyists wants to be able to tinker with that is not a smart move as competition will get your costly research for free...

And as much as I hate that situation (being hobbyist myself), I kind of agree with that... This is the natural path followed by established industries (ever tried to get Coca-Cola open-source its recipe? And are you taking only "open-source" medicines?) so I predict IT to become the same as it matures. GPL hinders progress by effectively eliminating competition between "licensees" who are forced to act as if they had a single goal, and thus it is counter-innovative. Either you need exceptions from it or you are following the HURD path to obscurity.

wrong wrong wrong another lazy to read post

1.) PLZ READ THE MAILING LIST, alan cox is not stopping anything he is pointing out a legal conflict that need to be legally solved by lawyers
2.) Linux kernel devs need to get pragmatic part : NO what the hell ?? since you ovbiously don't know anything about hardware ill explain open documentation means document hardware entry points to be used by any software not the frigging electronic schematics and there is no way in hell to reverse engeneer the hardware schematics from a set of registers.
3.) R&D again NO intel/AMD/NVIDIA secret sauce is inside the silicon not the registers and GPU technologies are INDUSTRY STANDARDS open to anyone, there is no such thing as intel only secret sauce OpenGL that same applies to CPU X86 ASM is an STANDARD. all that means intel/AMD dont need to give me their CPU schematics to support X86/SIMD they just tell me XMM registers are x,y,z and take A,B as parameter so my compiler will know that when you ask to put data in XMM he will send A,B values to the register x,y,z instead of d,f,g which is for an AMD cpus, in the case of GPU is the same the docs provide an huge amount of registers that do certain things[inside the blackbox silicon] next i download the OpenGL standard and try to do what the standard asks getting creative in combine those registers in a way that do the asked by the standard fast enough
4.) nvidia cant open their current code not because of the blatanly wrong things you mentioned since their driver don't do anything magical or mythical but they have loads of external to nvidia code and probably unresolved patent issues that will be exposed for lawyers sue them for the next 20 years and many other legally complicated things.

so no open documentation won't damage them in any way at all in 90% of the gpu functions[UVD/VDPAU gpu parts require MPAA combo autorization or they loose the license but no because loss of R&D or internal secrets]