NVIDIA Shares Wayland Driver Roadmap, Encourages Vulkan Wayland Compositors

[royce]

But who cares about games! The PC should be used for work, not for playing.
Buy yourself a console!
I'm not saying that games shouldn't be supported on PCs, I'm just saying that they are not the most important thing and they are not the center of the world, they are just games!

So much to unpack here.

[oiaohm]

And the politics that go on in places either irrelevant to a downstream user of the engine (the issue tracker) or not limited to a specific engine (Twitter/X) have... what to do with that?

With godot something blew up on Twitter/X then the moderators from Twitter/X banned users on Github that have never posted on Twitter/X. Yes for posts on github that predated the blow up in twitter as well. Yes well run project moderation this should not have happened. Yes this cut people who had already shipped games to end users using the godot engine and they are opening issues to attempt to fix issue the end user of that game has reported. Yes they have zero interest in political things because they are attempting to fix game issue that comes from the game engine that effecting downstream user.

Then you have how lay down with dogs catch fleas problem. That game developer dealing with issue system enforcing something can like it or not bleed into their game work and also effecting end user.

oiaohm you are not really understanding the dynamics at play here.

Who are the end users of a game engine? A game developer. The game developer, in turn, delivers a product that gamers may enjoy. Whether or not a game engine allows, or doesn't allow, "wokeness" to dictate their development model, is completely irrelevant to the end user. The only people this "controversy" has any effect on, are those that develop godot. No one else. Not the game developers, not the gamers. And it is still a flash in the pan since the effects of this drama are, at worst, a different package to download for the game devs.

This is wrong.

Some of the people blocked off of github have active games to end users. So now the bugs that their end users are suffering from have been blocked from being raised with the game engine.

The end users of game engine is the follow.
1) the game developer who makes the game.
2) All the users of the games made using that game engine.

Yes controversy blocking game developer from being able place support issues results in issues raised by the game users that have been reported to game developer not getting back to game engine developers. So now the game developer has a problem that the quality of his game to his users has been degraded.

So yes gamers are effected by this. Reality why fix Twitter/X first. Its the github that should have been fixed first because thist has the most effected users once you allow for that the game developers being blocked each represent at times over 50000 users and where paying money to godot to help with development.. Remember game developers can be planning to support there game for years. So choice of game engine is not a short term thing.

Both of you fail to see how this plays out. What godot did is really not good.

[jacob]

I've been thinking about your words. There is truth in what you say. but companies need to understand why their products have stopped being bought. but the problem is that if you don't buy just one, it won't affect anything. if you decide not to buy, then you need to say why. just don't buy and keep quiet is not the way out.

Of course, but nobody says you shouldn't say why you don't buy something. Of course you should. In the case of Nvidia, they know it very well. Everyone is complaining about the driver situation and about their policy. Linus himself famously had some choice words for them... and people still keep buying it. I don't think that's "thinking like children" to point it out. To the contrary: the bottom line is that the Linux market is crucial to them, if Linux users told them to get stuffed unless and until they provide good first class support for Linux in accordance with the OS's conventions and standards (like they do for Windows, for example), they would feel it immediately and I bet a big announcement regarding Linux drivers would follow in a matter of weeks. In the meantime no, their hardware is absolutely not irreplaceable, thank you very much.

[oiaohm]

Of course, but nobody says you shouldn't say why you don't buy something. Of course you should. In the case of Nvidia, they know it very well. Everyone is complaining about the driver situation and about their policy. Linus himself famously had some choice words for them... and people still keep buying it. I don't think that's "thinking like children" to point it out. To the contrary: the bottom line is that the Linux market is crucial to them, if Linux users told them to get stuffed unless and until they provide good first class support for Linux in accordance with the OS's conventions and standards (like they do for Windows, for example), they would feel it immediately and I bet a big announcement regarding Linux drivers would follow in a matter of weeks. In the meantime no, their hardware is absolutely not irreplaceable, thank you very much.

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsur...platform=linux Go to the Video card for Linux and notice hang on for gaming on Linux over 50% is AMD GPUs. So Linux users have not been buying Nvidia GPU in the same number as Windows users for quite some time.

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/

jacob yes when the big guys put their foot down over Nvidia closed source drivers Nvidia has changed. Newer cards only. Yes the newerest Nvidia cards on linux don't have a closed source kernel module at all its the open source driver or nothing. Yes all new Nvidia cards now will not have a closed source driver because the big guys running datacenters said they will not put up with this.

Thing is the mainlining process into the Linux kernel even for AMD took years. Yes the datacentre guys have said they want it mainlined. So this is more matter of time until Nvidia on linux comes into alignment with Intel and AMD..

[jacob]

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsur...platform=linux Go to the Video card for Linux and notice hang on for gaming on Linux over 50% is AMD GPUs. So Linux users have not been buying Nvidia GPU in the same number as Windows users for quite some time.

Unfortunately Linux's market share on games is still negligible so that by itself is not going to make any difference.

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/

jacob yes when the big guys put their foot down over Nvidia closed source drivers Nvidia has changed. Newer cards only. Yes the newerest Nvidia cards on linux don't have a closed source kernel module at all its the open source driver or nothing. Yes all new Nvidia cards now will not have a closed source driver because the big guys running datacenters said they will not put up with this.

Thing is the mainlining process into the Linux kernel even for AMD took years. Yes the datacentre guys have said they want it mainlined. So this is more matter of time until Nvidia on linux comes into alignment with Intel and AMD..

Yes, but to my knowledge (I could be wrong) only the kernel component of the driver is being open sourced. That will address some long standing problems, including installation hassle, constant breakages on kernel updates and hopefully some of the Nvidia-caused kernel panics as well. But the DRM/Vulkan part, AFAIK, will remain a huge binary-only blob with its own proprietary APIs. I know that some people don't care about that (although I for one certainly do), but it also means that the problems associated with it, including flimsy Wayland support, suspend/resume that seems to be perpetually broken, etc. are likely to stay.

[ssokolow]

With godot something blew up on Twitter/X then the moderators from Twitter/X banned users on Github that have never posted on Twitter/X. Yes for posts on github that predated the blow up in twitter as well. Yes well run project moderation this should not have happened. Yes this cut people who had already shipped games to end users using the godot engine and they are opening issues to attempt to fix issue the end user of that game has reported. Yes they have zero interest in political things because they are attempting to fix game issue that comes from the game engine that effecting downstream user.

Then you have how lay down with dogs catch fleas problem. That game developer dealing with issue system enforcing something can like it or not bleed into their game work and also effecting end user.

And I generally agree that it's far too early to get up in arms about that... especially when you keep linking to just a single questionable information source with a financial incentive to drum up outrage for the clicks.

No project's moderators are perfect because all project moderators are human, going too far in the opposite direction can have equally bad consequences for a developer's psyche (but then you're one of the serial "loud, argumentative people" here on Phoronix, so I'm not sure you have a good perspective on that) and we don't yet have enough data points to know whether this rises above statistical noise.

[wertigon]

This is wrong.

Some of the people blocked off of github have active games to end users. So now the bugs that their end users are suffering from have been blocked from being raised with the game engine.

The fact that you don't (appear to) understand that private forks of godot can exist at the same time as godot main branch blows my mind.

Ok, so godot needs a patch. Write the patch. Bug fix cannot be applied upstream due to shitty devs not accepting it since they "do not like your tone"? Post the patch on your game website somewhere.

That is, if you really do care about upstreaming code. Since godot is MIT any improvements have no obligations to reach the wider world.

[oiaohm]

Yes, but to my knowledge (I could be wrong) only the kernel component of the driver is being open sourced. That will address some long standing problems, including installation hassle, constant breakages on kernel updates and hopefully some of the Nvidia-caused kernel panics as well. But the DRM/Vulkan part, AFAIK, will remain a huge binary-only blob with its own proprietary APIs. I know that some people don't care about that (although I for one certainly do), but it also means that the problems associated with it, including flimsy Wayland support, suspend/resume that seems to be perpetually broken, etc. are likely to stay.

This misses a little bit of knowledge you cannot mainline a Linux kernel driver without a matching userspace. Nvidia has mentioned that their bigger customers have said the driver has to be mainlined at some point. Samsung tried in the last 10 years merging a graphics driver into Linux kernel without an open source userspace. Yes Samsung got a strict no. So it is really now just a matter of time. Nvidia is trying to do as little as possible but the big customers are going to keep on pushing.

Yes Nvidia got that have to work with Nouveau with releasing the firmware for the newer cards but they attempt to miss that they need the Nouveau userspace to work with their open source kernel mode driver so they can mainline it to meet the bigger customer requirements without open sourcing their complete stack. This is purely just a matter of time now. Big customers have put requirements on Nvidia to mainline their kernel driver and this has very strict requirements including open source user-space that can be used to function test the driver..

Suspend/resume issues those with Nvidia are 99% caused by the kernel mode driver not having correct integration in the Linux kernel power management subsystem. There is a lot of perpetually broken stuff about Nvidia closed source driver with Linux is because its was not hooked up to the Linux kernel internal APIs for those features. Yes lot of those internal Linux kernel APIs that Nvidia was not hooking their driver up to required the driver to be GPLv2 compatible.

[oiaohm]

The fact that you don't (appear to) understand that private forks of godot can exist at the same time as godot main branch blows my mind.

Ok, so godot needs a patch. Write the patch. Bug fix cannot be applied upstream due to shitty devs not accepting it since they "do not like your tone"? Post the patch on your game website somewhere.

Yes I do understand the idea of private forks. But you missed the need for peer review and wanting to pay someone to patch something you don't have the skill to fix yourself.

You have a game you might be able to patch the engine do you want to push that patch out on your users and it bring your users more issues because you missed something. Or do you want somewhere where you can open a issue put the patch up there and have it peer reviewed to make sure you have not done anything stupid before pushing it on your end users. Now being blocked because your project moderators are having a bad day then been last on the fix list this is really not good.

Private fork is not what game developers are after once their game is released and they are doing on going maintenance if they have chosen to use a third party engine. They are after a functional upstream if they have chosen a third party engine. If they cannot have a functional upstream they might as well write the own engine custom to their game.

[wertigon]

Yes I do understand the idea of private forks. But you missed the need for peer review and wanting to pay someone to patch something you don't have the skill to fix yourself.

You have a game you might be able to patch the engine do you want to push that patch out on your users and it bring your users more issues because you missed something. Or do you want somewhere where you can open a issue put the patch up there and have it peer reviewed to make sure you have not done anything stupid before pushing it on your end users. Now being blocked because your project moderators are having a bad day then been last on the fix list this is really not good.

Private fork is not what game developers are after once their game is released and they are doing on going maintenance if they have chosen to use a third party engine. They are after a functional upstream if they have chosen a third party engine. If they cannot have a functional upstream they might as well write the own engine custom to their game.

You do understand, games always ship with the engine version baked in, right? They ship the entire runtime. Games are classicYOSO (You Only Ship Once). Once a release is out, some bug fixes may happen, but the engine version is nailed to the post and that is that.

So, if you already have your godot engine then whatever happens in the future will not change that. You have that version. Writing a patch that is obsolete in a newer version is not a problem. Games are kind of a special case to the regular godot rules, and game devs don't want to spend time fixing the engine anyway. If they can get away with not bugfixing the engine in favor of working on their game, they will work on their game.

The only time this is NOT true is if you have built an e-sports title and need to keep up to date to defeat the latest cheats. That is a very niche and special case that will not have an effect on the vast majority of games using godot.

My prediction: godot will be just fine in 6 months time and we'll just look back at this point and laugh. Feel free to get back to me in six months.