NVIDIA Publishes Signed Ampere Firmware To Finally Allow Accelerated Open-Source Support

[jonwil]

I still don't understand why NVIDIA refuses to share the power management/clocking firmware, its not like sharing that firmware is going to give their competitors any secret information about the secrets of NVIDIA GPUs that said competitors don't already have. If anything, it would probably result in people buying NVIDIA cards who would otherwise have not bought those cards (i.e. increased sales)

[Developer12]

I still don't understand why NVIDIA refuses to share the power management/clocking firmware, its not like sharing that firmware is going to give their competitors any secret information about the secrets of NVIDIA GPUs that said competitors don't already have. If anything, it would probably result in people buying NVIDIA cards who would otherwise have not bought those cards (i.e. increased sales)

If they did then it would become possible for nouveau to outperform their binary driver. They need people to prefer the binary driver over the open source one, because it's through their binary driver they enforce certain terms of use, product segmentation, DRM, etc.

With things the way things are, nvidia's GPUs function just well enough (at the reduced clock speeds) with the in-kernel driver that the computer can generate usable video. This allows the user to go download and install nvidia's binary driver.

[bemerk]

They need people to prefer the binary driver over the open source one, because it's through their binary driver they enforce certain terms of use, product segmentation, DRM, etc.

What things are so critical that you can't go the AMD way and do most things people need in the open? You don't have to have feature parity between the binary driver and an open source one.
The company features can still be secured by obscurity.
You can't make a card faster and get more ram and cores by flashing different firmware

[sinepgib]

You can't make a card faster and get more ram and cores by flashing different firmware

It depends. If the current firmware is used to lock features out, a different firmware may re-enable it. AFAIK they do that with miner cards.

[Developer12]

CUDA.
What things are so critical that you can't go the AMD way and do most things people need in the open?

CUDA, for starters.

You don't have to have feature parity between the binary driver and an open source one.

The cards are uselessly crippled without power management firmware to raise the clock speeds.

You can't make a card faster ... by flashing different firmware

When the clock speed of the card is locked somewhere below "rate of continental drift" without power management firmware? Yes, yes you can.

The company features can still be secured by obscurity.

There's no obscurity here. The clock speed can only be changed by firmware. The card will only accept firmware signed by nvidia. The firmware nvidia has signed doesn't support changing the clock speed.

[Developer12]

It depends. If the current firmware is used to lock features out, a different firmware may re-enable it. AFAIK they do that with miner cards.

The firmware nvidia has signed for use by open source drivers does not allow the clock speed to be changed. The default clock speed is too slow to get even a few FPS.

[ssokolow]

There's no obscurity here. The clock speed can only be changed by firmware. The card will only accept firmware signed by nvidia. The firmware nvidia has signed doesn't support changing the clock speed.

Technically, there is obscurity in that, if they wanted to get into an arms race with nVidia, the Nouveau developers could try to maintain a tool for extracting the firmware from the binary driver and then fake being the binary driver... it's just not exactly practical when nVidia could scramble things up differently with every point release and make it legally unfeasible to keep and distribute copies of the drivers versions you know how to extract from.

[Developer12]

Technically, there is obscurity in that, if they wanted to get into an arms race with nVidia, the Nouveau developers could try to maintain a tool for extracting the firmware from the binary driver and then fake being the binary driver... it's just not exactly practical when nVidia could scramble things up differently with every point release and make it legally unfeasible to keep and distribute copies of the drivers versions you know how to extract from.

They can also simply make it illegal to use their firmware with anything but their own driver. They have 100% control to set whatever terms they wish in their firmware licence.

[ssokolow]

They can also simply make it illegal to use their firmware with anything but their own driver. They have 100% control to set whatever terms they wish in their firmware licence.

Point. I hope we see further case law in the vein of that ECJ ruling that, in cases where DRM is interfering with right to repair, "the lawful acquirer of a computer program is entitled to de-compile it in whole or in part".