NVIDIA Drops Their Open-Source Driver, Refers Users To VESA

[rmstallman]

The xf86-video-nv driver is described as "open source", and maybe that
is true, but I think it isn't free software. If the "source code" is
obfuscated, then it isn't real source code. It appears that the real
source code for this program is not available, which means it's not
free software. Its discontinuation is no loss.

To say that nvidia' motive is to "protect their intellectual property"
is basically vacuous, because "intellectual property" is so vague that
it doesn't mean anything, so it lends itself only to confusion. If
you want to make a clear statement, that's always easier if you avoid
that term. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.)

[Adarion]

OMG. The FOSS guru was here!

Its discontinuation is no loss.

Well, I see that code obfuscation is a pretty lame thing when you want to call a program still free software. So yes, it might not have been a wonderful piece of freeness but for those who bought their chips before they were aware of free as in freedom hardware designs or "at least" free drivers and all that - it gave them an opportunity to use their chips at all without relying to a completely closed system (nvidia-blob) that would even abandon support for these older chips (legacy).
So I was still quite happy that nv was around.
Of course if nouveau will be finished it will be the far better alternative (even though it is probably mainly made "just" be reverse engineering).

"intellectual property"

I.P. is a stupid thing every way. I believe that there is private knowledge that has to be protected but on the other hand there is public knowledge that should be freed.
A real int. property is hard to imagine since everything we build is made upon the knowledge and research of our forefathers (and mothers, 'kay). As a chemist I know that well. And I know that all I do is recombine the things I learned and found in publications to create something new. But still all this is based upon research that started in the early days of mankind (making fire e.g.). So how could I call that property?

I like to speak of intellectual work or an int. achievement.
That sounds far better and more true to me than property.

But try to tell that to the "content mafia".

[NeoBrain]

The xf86-video-nv driver is described as "open source", and maybe that
is true, but I think it isn't free software. If the "source code" is
obfuscated, then it isn't real source code. It appears that the real
source code for this program is not available, which means it's not
free software. Its discontinuation is no loss.

To say that nvidia' motive is to "protect their intellectual property"
is basically vacuous, because "intellectual property" is so vague that
it doesn't mean anything, so it lends itself only to confusion. If
you want to make a clear statement, that's always easier if you avoid
that term. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.)

Totally agree with you here. What's the point of having a feature-crippled obfuscated "open-source" driver if you can have the almost perfectly-working blob? I mean, for ATI you have arguments like "if the blob crashes the system the kernel devs won't help you" but for nvidia it's still "if the OSS driver crashes the kernel devs CAN'T help you", since they can't understand the source code. So what's the point? Obfuscated source is just the same as no source, so I wonder why distributions were bundling that driver at all instead of just falling back to vesa or something

[Adarion]

so I wonder why distributions were bundling that driver at all instead of just falling back to vesa or something

Go, work with a VESA driver and then lets talk again. It was a matter of pragmatism of distributors to put xf86-video-nv in. I honor VESA driver cause if all else fails this sometimes still works but it brings you a graphic surface. Nothing else. Try to actually work using xf86-video-vesa and you'll end up crying most of the time.
Zero acceleration, you can't even scroll in a browser without getting seasick. No energy management, not all resolutions supported, 50 Hz or something, just nothing. Sometimes it feels like being on Windows 3.11 on a 80286.
(I admit it was the only one capable of firing up my VGA out on the old laptop for presentations though.)
So nv was something that most people would accept and a lot of non-idealists (but more pragmatist) would download the blob later anyway.

[mugginz]

The xf86-video-nv driver is described as "open source", and maybe that is true, but I think it isn't free software. If the "source code" is obfuscated, then it isn't real source code. It appears that the real source code for this program is not available, which means it's not free software. Its discontinuation is no loss.

Completely agree with this and is largely why I find a lot of the outrage about nVidia's recent decision weird. Whether the nv driver is maintained or not has no large functional impact on what people are currently doing with their nVidia cards.

To say that nvidia' motive is to "protect their intellectual property" is basically vacuous, because "intellectual property" is so vague that it doesn't mean anything, so it lends itself only to confusion.

While I largely agree that the term should die in a fire, the very fact the the concepts of Intellectual Property have the force of law make the issues surrounding I.P. that nVidia need to consider relevant here. nVidia can themselves openly rally against the legitimacy of the term I.P. in a purely intellectual sense, but until they or someone else changes the law, they need to factor its ramifications into the decisions they make.

[next9]

I think nVidia anti-opensource behavior has nothing to do with actual state of intellectual property law. Of course they are limited, but that does not mean they can not do anything. AMD has same IP "problems" like nVidia, but they were able to deal with them, and release at least specification of their hardware and activelly help to build new OSS driver. Now look at nVidia and think about their IP. Why they refuse to release specification? I hardly believe argument they protect their hardware secrets, because ATI hardware is considered to be superior these days, and ATI use very different strategy.

[yotambien]

To say that nvidia' motive is to "protect their intellectual property"
is basically vacuous, because "intellectual property" is so vague that
it doesn't mean anything, so it lends itself only to confusion. If
you want to make a clear statement, that's always easier if you avoid
that term. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.)

That was an interesting reading, thanks.

[L33F3R]

ughhh fucking nvidia, why oh why do you insist on ass raping me, over and over. Any more of this crap and they will make an ati or s3 user out of me .