New NVIDIA Open-Source Linux Kernel Graphics Driver Appears

[tehehe]

They will not release open source driver for their desktop gpus for as long as desktop gpus are competitive with their data center offerings in compute and video transcoding. Why would you pay $3k+ for a gpu when $1k desktop part does the same (except ECC and SRIOV part). You can't say - have a gpl drivers but don't use these gpus in data center! They would need to do the same AMD did - separate architectures for data center and for a desktop.

[rogerx]

Obviously nVidia's corporate tactic after getting cold feet from Intel finally bringing a descent open source GPU to the market.

I'm not swayed at all in my planning from purchasing a future, to be released soon, open source Intel GPU.

Likely hype. We've all seen this before.

Shrugs. Is it Linux kernel policy to allow such completely non-working code to be pulled into the kernel?

In my experience, stubs or beginning code was allowed to be pulled/pushed into the kernel, but only after some verbal confirmation working code would be subsequently pulled/pushed into the kernel. (Didn't read the article word for word, so maybe a different staging method is being used.)

[piotrj3]

They will not release open source driver for their desktop gpus for as long as desktop gpus are competitive with their data center offerings in compute and video transcoding. Why would you pay $3k+ for a gpu when $1k desktop part does the same (except ECC and SRIOV part). You can't say - have a gpl drivers but don't use these gpus in data center! They would need to do the same AMD did - separate architectures for data center and for a desktop.

corporate has a lot higher VRAM requirement, that is main reason why desktop GPUs (outside of maybe 3090) are NOT competitive at all with workstation or datacenter.

[Developer12]

Mesa Nouveau driver would suddenly show amazing progress and popularity since the leaked code would allow contributors to understand how to implement a quality foss driver.

This. Right here. This shows you didn't read the comment you were quoting at all.

You may have missed the word "tainted." If you read the leaked source code you are tainted. You have ideas in your head that came from leaked source and do not belong to you. Any code you write for nouveau is arguably a derivative work, and argue nvidia's lawyers will. Any contribution you give without their approval is flatly and completely illegal.

[Quackdoc]

Yeah, honestly I would lie if I said I hated these lapsus guys...
If they released the driver sources as they claimed, it would be pointless for NVidia to keep them close source... and who would not benefit from this, except 3 brown-noser corpos at NVidia ?

what do you mean pointless? open source and source being leaked are two very different things, reactOS is still fairly dookie despite winxp being leaked? why? because they aren't stupid enough to think they could benefit from it. so they didn't even try, infact anyone who has seen the source code probably isn't allowed anywhere near their code base.

same thing with this, anyone who would read such source could would essentially turn themselves into the equivalent of the bubonic plague in terms of employment. no one would fix the code up to get mainlined, at best you would have a dkms module that's outdated in a few months. the ONLY thing the code being released would do is cast doubt upon further developments. and make code scrutinized with a microscope. laplus leaking the code would be an absolute nightmare for open source nvidia drivers.

[piotrj3]

Yeah, honestly I would lie if I said I hated these lapsus guys...
If they released the driver sources as they claimed, it would be pointless for NVidia to keep them close source... and who would not benefit from this, except 3 brown-noser corpos at NVidia ?

outside of huge legal issue, one thing is that code is leaked, another is open source (so others can use it), and another is making it compatible and marged into kernel. Even if Nvidia would give bleesing to legal issues, jumping from randomly open sourced code to it being merged into kernel (what we want) is huggeee jump.

[karolherbst]

Yeah, honestly I would lie if I said I hated these lapsus guys...
If they released the driver sources as they claimed, it would be pointless for NVidia to keep them close source... and who would not benefit from this, except 3 brown-noser corpos at NVidia ?

nobody except shitcoin scammers benefit from it. They want the source to they can unlock full perf for room heating. That's all. Nothing what they do helps nouveau, to the contrary: it hurts a lot. Anybody who just glances at that stuff couldn't contribute to nouveau at all anymore.

[CommunityMember]

Anybody who just glances at that stuff couldn't contribute to nouveau at all anymore.

In practice, leaking of any source code could be the end of nouveau progress, as proving (and yes, they could be required to prove) that any derived information was properly reverse engineered under pure clean room conditions (and not acquired from "tainted" sources) could require an entire legal team dealing with provenance (and that would be another unresourced requirement).

[mdedetrich]

Not necessarily. If the source code is not under an appropriately permissive license the code cannot be included in Linux (ZFS is an example of even an OSS license that is sufficiently different that it cannot be included in Linux), and if it is encumbered due to other IP (which it may very well be) no one of consequence is going to touch it, or perhaps even look at it, as they may then be considered "tainted" and may not be able to contribute to things like nouveau ever again (which is why Wine does not allow contributions from those who have seen the Windows source code). IP is funny like that.

I have no idea what nvidia plans to do with their driver. Maybe they will release an open source version next week, and perhaps never. It seems pretty clear that right now the primary drivers of their revenue have not stopped purchasing GPUs due to the lack of open source license, and unless that changes they are unlikely to change their shade of green.

I don't think people realize but this is the main reason why NVidia would never willingly release their current driver as open source, there is so much IP in their driver that its basically a legal minefield. Also unlike AMD, NVidia's driver's were historically very good so they have no business incentive to just rebuild their entire driver from scratch with different engineers to avoid the legal minetraps (in fact there was a severe business disincentive NOT to do so).

With AMD on the other hand, their fglrx drivers was so shit they had nothing to lose and they had to redo their drivers from scratch anyways so they decided to open it because why not.

And yeah if anything the recent LAPSUS leak hurts open source efforts because the whole reason why NVidia would have to recode their driver entirely is also applied if people read the leaked source code and then try to contribute to Nouveau NVidia can rightly claim that its derivative work of their original IP protected driver. Proving this would also be quite easy considering that the main issue right now is that the firmware is signed and the only way to get around that is by either reading the leaked source codes or somehow getting the master keys.

[STiAT]

Lapsus does not threaten to release the code, but the whole chipset design and demand the driver officially being open sourced and maintsinef open source by Nvidia.

I do not expect Nvidia to give in on that demand. Though, I think releasing and maintaining their drivers as open source would not really hurt them.

But that step should come from Nvidia out of their own decision. And that is not likely to happen, sadly.