NVIDIA Looks To Have Some Sort Of Open-Source Driver Announcement For 2020

[betam4x]

Statements are being made here that have no basis in realit. NVIDIA can't open source their binary blob due to partnerships with a large number companies that don't want their tech opensourced. AMD and Intel had the same issue, that is why both companies had to rebuild their driver stack from scatch.

[Soul_keeper]

It's a matter of survival for them going forward.
I havn't even looked at nvidia cards or cared about their benchmarks for years now because i'm a linux user and AMD cares.

Also them pushing closed solutions like cuda and gsync is a problem imo. We need open standards that work for all hardware.
That's the point of opencl and freesync. Stick to the hardware, that's what your supposed to do, and fall back on industry standards and open efforts for as much of the software as you can.

[shmerl]

I think they’re worried about the code quality of what they have. Their current binary driver is a conglomeration of hacks, and I know of at least one big sketchy optimization trick they do. Releasing that somehow as open source would be embarrassing. But writing a generic, agnostic driver from scratch could never match that speed, so people would complain and become skeptical. It’s a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t situation.

Too bad for them, because everyone knows they are cheating, so their "faster" is not a free thing, it comes at lowering quality.

[bearoso]

In March? Why not let the world know now? Are they worried this top secret information will be used by their competitors against them to gain an edge? haha XD

I think they’re worried about the code quality of what they have. Their current binary driver is a conglomeration of hacks, and I know of at least one big sketchy optimization trick they do. Releasing that somehow as open source would be embarrassing. But writing a generic, agnostic driver from scratch could never match that speed, so people would complain and become skeptical. It’s a damned-if-you-do/damned-if-you-don’t situation.

[theriddick]

No Cuda, no way.

is CUDA only used for workstation professional work? its not a gaming thing from what I can tell.

[tildearrow]

They could use Google's negative latency technology

Wait what? Did they just go faster than light?!

[shmerl]

nouveau has no blob barriers, it has "no documentation and no manpower" barriers

It has. It can't work with full performance, see the article itself.

[Terrablit]

There's a lot of stuff that might influence Nvidia utilizing open source drivers. Stadia, the continued rise of streaming and Nvidia's lead on GPU-accelerated transcoding, AMD already having invested a fair amount in open-source drivers (both proving the sky didn't fall and already having done a lot of the infrastructure work for a lot of features), the continued interest in non-x86 platforms like ARM, RISC-V, MIPS and POWER and the availability of consumer and server products based on them, China's government-driven initiative to remove the dependency on Intel-based computer (and their rising economic influence), console platforms adding pressure on vendors for open drivers, a potential investment in mobile GPUs, etc.

A closed-source driver for one hardware platform is feasible, but a closed-source driver for 3 or 4 gets far more difficult. Utilizing kernel driver frameworks can reduce the maintenance burden a lot. As of right now, there's no reason to consider Nvidia for anything other than x86. Having most of the desktop marketshare is an attractive position, but their current strategy severely limits growth in other markets. They're a big fish in one pond, but they can't expand anywhere else. Eventually that's going to make someone nervous.

That said, I still half expect their March announcement to be that they have no intention of providing an open source driver, because they've just been that shitty.

[pal666]

Would be cool to see BSDs other than FreeBSD be well supported by a major graphics vendor.

it would be cool if *bsd would not split their tiny userbase even more

[pal666]

It will. That's how open source collaboration works. Once blob barriers are out of the way, real competition begins.

nouveau has no blob barriers, it has "no documentation and no manpower" barriers