NVIDIA Gets Into Open-Source Hardware With A Ventilator Design

[bug77]

Thanks, yes looking at https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/gtc/ there is now a mention of May 14 and 19 but seeing how they released different parts at very different dates it feels like they might keep releasing small parts for some time to come so i believe that you might be right that things might not be presented at that date.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/gtc/session-catalog/

I don't think Nvidia has launched anything at GTC in years. If they announce a new architecture, it's usually followed shortly by availability of Tesla cards (June-ish). Sometime around August or September we get the xx70, xx80, but these can slip closer to the holiday season. And then xx60 comes around March next year.

But let's get back on topic. A design (almost) anyone can implement can't hurt, gg.

[andre30correia]

next thing announce a new opensource driver for linux

[bug77]

next thing announce a new opensource driver for linux

You need to realize tow things:
1. Nvidia has a lot of open source projects already. See https://developer.nvidia.com/open-source and https://github.com/NVlabs
2. For their video driver, they have invested a lot into building one driver to work on various platforms. It is how they can justify supporting platforms with single digit market share.

So they're not inherently hostile towards open source. But as much as we'd like to see an open source driver from them, that's not going to happen until it makes sense from a financial point of view. I.e. hope for such a driver, but don't hold your breath

[tildearrow]

Yeah but the ventilator will only run at the slow boot frequency. If you actually want to breathe with it, you'll have to download and install a proprietary driver.

Either driver has no warranty, effectively making it unsuitable for any real-world use



Edit: ...yep. A ventilator without warranty is a huge life threat.

[skeevy420]

Either driver has no warranty, effectively making it unsuitable for any real-world use



Edit: ...yep. A ventilator without warranty is a huge life threat.

That's the point. Why offer a warranty on a product that will likely have killed the customer if they actually needed to use the warranty?

[You-]

So they're not inherently hostile towards open source. But as much as we'd like to see an open source driver from them, that's not going to happen until it makes sense from a financial point of view. I.e. hope for such a driver, but don't hold your breath

If that was the case they wouldn't be so hostile for releasing the full firmware. That way the open source developers could develop their driver, which they were getting quite good at until nVidia started to sign their firmwares and not release them for redistribution.

[xcom]

Open source but no firmware

[bug77]

If that was the case they wouldn't be so hostile for releasing the full firmware. That way the open source developers could develop their driver, which they were getting quite good at until nVidia started to sign their firmwares and not release them for redistribution.

Yeah, I wondered about that for a while, too. Turns out they keep it locked to curb the problem of fake cards. I don't like it, but then I look at how many people have bought formerly mining cards that were flashed with all kinds of BIOSes and can't help noticing they're almost all Radeons.

Don't get me right here, I'm an engineer, I like to tinker and thus I always prefer open stuff. But you have to realize when a company doesn't do something you want them too, it's not always because of nefarious purposes.

[archsway]

Yeah, I wondered about that for a while, too. Turns out they keep it locked to curb the problem of fake cards. I don't like it, but then I look at how many people have bought formerly mining cards that were flashed with all kinds of BIOSes and can't help noticing they're almost all Radeons.

Don't get me right here, I'm an engineer, I like to tinker and thus I always prefer open stuff. But you have to realize when a company doesn't do something you want them too, it's not always because of nefarious purposes.

The Nouveau developers don't need to be able to change the firmware, just know how to interface with it and be legally allowed to redistribute it.

[esbeeb]

If this hardware actually works well, then I don't see how anyone could possibly find reason to gripe. Nvidia's Open Source respirator design beats the pants and shoes off everyone else's non-existent Open Source ventilator design.

NVidia, you just earned yourself a lifelong customer, just so long as you don't put any evil or privacy-violating secret sauce in your closed source drivers.