NVIDIA, Mentor Graphics May Harm GCC

[ldesnogu]

Hope that Intel would release discrete graphic cards some day. Intel is the only big guy that sincerely supports open source and open standard.

Sincerely? Come on, this is a big corp, they have an interest in supporting Linux, Android, etc. But I agree they are doing more efforts than all others!

[tarceri]

And? I also need a Nvidia card to use it in the first place. Oh my god, they are taking my freedom away to use any card I want!!1!11

Well for starters this issue has nothing to do with using your card there are plenty of ways to make use of your card without using GCC.

How does this take away any of your freedom? Before they had an OpenACC to OpenCL backend. Now they will have an additional OpenACC to PTX backend. This does not take away any freedom, but adds more freedom!

Maybe you should go do some research on the history of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. If such a relaxed view on software freedom had been taken GNU\Linux would not be in such a strong state as it is today and you would likely not be making use of you Nvidia card on anything other than Windows.

I'm with the people who call this article pure FUD. Articles like this are the reason why Michael no longer gets AMD cards. Improved interoperability between open source software and closed source software is never poisonous, as long as it is optional. People who do not want to use this new backend can still decide not to compile it into their gcc and their gcc version will just work fine as before. The gcc compiler as a whole does not depend on the Nvidia driver, only the openacc->ptx backend does.

Again if the GNU was to cave on its principals so easily free and open software would not be in such a good position today. There would be no one pushing companies to produce more open software. I Nvidia wants to maintain there our fork of GCC that contains this support then great good on them, but if they want to enjoy the benifits of this being merged upstream then the should come to the table and make a real effort to comply to the GNU principals.

[Guest]

Well for starters this issue has nothing to do with using your card there are plenty of ways to make use of your card without using GCC.

Furthermore, he didn't pay GCC to make his card usable. He paid nvidia, so it's not GCC problem. If there's a problem it's nvidia.

[log0]

http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2013-07/msg00428.html

Thomas Schwinge (Mentor Graphics) talked about their plans to support
OpenACC in GCC; OpenACC constructs and the enclosed code are transformed
into NVIDIA's PTX virtual ISA and calls into CUDA libraries.

So it will depend on PTX and CUDA... As to the possible implications, I'd leave it to the GCC Steering Committee.

[rvdboom]

How does this take away any of your freedom? Before they had an OpenACC to OpenCL backend. Now they will have an additional OpenACC to PTX backend.

OpenCL is opened and documented. PTX is neither.
How is it difficult to understand?
Many people in Phoronix don't seem to understand that most free software developers are before anything else concerned with freedom and having fun, more than market share or anything else. It may not suit these peoples goals or fanboyism, but that's still how it works.
The article claims are basically well known : Nvidia track records as far as openness is concerned is just horrible and this OpenACC/PTX stuff is basically no change at all.
I mean, if you're not concerned by proprietary software and if freedom and open source is of lesse concern to you, why use Linux after all? Use OSX or Windows, they both work rather well.

[Temar]

Well for starters this issue has nothing to do with using your card there are plenty of ways to make use of your card without using GCC.

This was sarcasm and it was not about gcc in general but about the new backend which obviously requires a nvidia card.

Maybe you should go do some research on the history of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation. If such a relaxed view on software freedom had been taken GNU\Linux would not be in such a strong state as it is today and you would likely not be making use of you Nvidia card on anything other than Windows.

Bollocks! The FSF did a very good job with the GPL and the GPL is all that's needed to enforce the freedom of a project. This topic however does not threaten software freedom. We are talking about simple interoperability here. That's why it is not covered by the GPL because it does not threaten the freedom of a project in any way. Adding a new gcc backend which generates code for a new architecture simply does not affect freedom of gcc. No matter how strong or relaxed your view is.

[curaga]

Ask the "trusted source" to out their identity, I can guarantee you that person is a coward with no balls, writing poison pen letters with malicious intent.

Hmm, as if they released it anonymously for a reason.. What's that.. to discourage personal attacks from the likes of you?

I fucking hate you-need-a-name hypocrites. Only the message matters, who said it is completely irrelevant.

[Temar]

OpenCL is opened and documented. PTX is neither.
How is it difficult to understand?

And? Is that a reason not to support it? Most of your hardware in your computer has most likely a proprietary firmware and you still use it. If Nvidia cards could directly understand PTX would the new backend suddenly be OK then?

Many people in Phoronix don't seem to understand that most free software developers are before anything else concerned with freedom and having fun, more than market share or anything else. It may not suit these peoples goals or fanboyism, but that's still how it works.

Most developers? All I see is that most big OpenSource projects have a very relaxed stance. Just look at the Linux kernel itself or projects like Blender, XBMC and so on. Of course this all happens within the confinements of the GPL but that's ok. Even important as it keeps those projects free.

All I can see is that many people on Phoronix have a blind hate for anything that is closed source. Whereas most of the actual open source developers have a relaxed view.

I mean, if you're not concerned by proprietary software and if freedom and open source is of lesse concern to you, why use Linux after all? Use OSX or Windows, they both work rather well.

Is that your last resort argument? I can tell you the answer: Simply because Linux is the best tool for my line of work. It's that easy, no hidden agendas and no fanboism, neither for free nor for closed software. I simply want a tool that works best and this new gcc backend is another step to an even better tool.

[Mike Frett]

RMS: nVidia puts its hands on gcc? nVidia ...
p.s. it's not photoshop.... it's mspaint

So why bother coming to a Linux website if you don't even use Linux?. Just to troll or something?. A lot of people these days claiming to use Linux, yet spend 99% of their time using Windows and coming to places like this to "pretend". Either use it, or don't, stop being fake.

One thing is for certain that I personally learned, you can't use both. Windows constantly locks you in and makes you come back, only when you fully break free of Windows can you truly use a different OS. Same thing applies to any addiction.

[tarceri]

Bollocks! The FSF did a very good job with the GPL and the GPL is all that's needed to enforce the freedom of a project. This topic however does not threaten software freedom. We are talking about simple interoperability here. That's why it is not covered by the GPL because it does not threaten the freedom of a project in any way. Adding a new gcc backend which generates code for a new architecture simply does not affect freedom of gcc. No matter how strong or relaxed your view is.

What part do you not understand? This solution adds a closed source dependency to gcc, hence reduced freedom. PTX is not a hardware architecture it Nvidias way of hiding their architecture behind proprietary software.