NVIDIA Alerts Nouveau: They're Starting To Sign/Validate GPU Firmware Images

[whitecat]

Like I said, I was speaking for what is valuable to me. And having official support from the designers of this kind of hardware is more important to me.

We are arguing that NVIDIA developers *plus* other developers can only do a better job than the NVIDIA developers alone. That's nearly mathematical.

[liam]

ORLY?

What about hundreds of poorly supported devices in Linux? What about buggy as hell Wi-Fi USB drivers? What about buggy as hell GBit NIC drivers (aside from Intel's)? Do me a favour and run the "regression site:lkml.org" query on google.com. Be astonished.

Do you really think nouveau developers give a flying f*ck if your GPU burns in flames if they make a mistake? Have you actually read nouveau's mailing list where egregious regressions come up in dozens every month? God, open source fanatics seem to believe that open source developers somehow have better brains which allow them to write flawless code right from the start and never make mistakes.

You seriously need to take off your rose glasses.

I don't want to speak out of turn but I THINK he was mostly referring to the voltage issues. While it may happen even on perfectly documented hardware, from time to time, I'm not aware of any instances where open source code caused gpus to get snuffed out by the masses.
BTW, yeah, I think nouveau devs DO give a fuck if your gpu burns as a result of their error. Just like most any driver developer would. Please for a reference to such an incidence where gpu was destroyed to to driver error and developer didn't care.
IMHO, the open source driver developers aren't better, for the most part, but they seem to be pretty conservative. In the past they've hidden gpu clocking functionality behind kernel cmdline switch even though it didn't seem to do anything worse than cause some gpus to hang (never experienced that particular combination of problems). Similarly, the radeon devs took a long time between implementing dpm and enabling it.
So, as much as some folks will look at things with rose colored glasses, others can do the same with shit stained ones.

[liam]

I kind of agree with you. No offense to the nouveau or radeon developers, but if I'm dropping $300 - $400 for a GPU I would like to have the drivers made by the company who has the in-house engineering competence to understand the hardware and such. These things are expensive and I want drivers from the people who know the product inside and out.

Then, hopefully, you're running osx exclusively.

[asdfblah]

IMO, this is all about protecting IP AND potentially adding DRM.
And BTW, there sees to be quite a conceptual mess here, because in this case, Nouveau would keep being (mostly) open source, just not FREE/open source software.

This isn't about bugs in Nouveau, it's about preventing the latest Internet Explorer vulnerability or whatever from allowing an attacker to burn up your GPU.

It'd be easier and far more convenient to attack, say, flash (or bash, or systemd :P), than some specific GPU. Flash is installed in 99% of desktop systems, and you can currently buy exploits for these vulnerabilities for "cheap" (that's it, for governments: US$100K per 0day exploit).
Even if it really was about security... if these companies (NVIDIA, AMD) acknowledge these bugs, you can be sure someone else (that has enough resources) knows about them too, and (if convenient) is already exploiting them.
And if you are interested in this kind of bugs, google "PoC or GTFO 0x05", there is already a known, public hardware bug (I don't know much about it, but it seems to involve PCIe).

You really need to go see a shrink. NVIDIA doesn't owe you anything. You don't like their GPUs? Don't use them.

So, they have no (legal, ethical, ...) obligations to their consumers? hmm...

NVIDIA has thousands of mouths to feed. You are only concerned about "freedom". Freedom from what? From rational thinking? Again, NVIDIA is not a charity - it's a company whose sole goal is to make money and survive.

You are contradicting yourself here... and BTW, NVIDIA doesn't feed anyone, their workers are feeding themselves by selling their work force to NVIDIA.

If you can create an open source GPU which can successfully compete with NVIDIA solutions - go do that. Alas, GPUs are the most complex computational devices nowadays - according to NVIDIA's own estimates over three thousand talented engineers and scientists worked for three years to create Maxwell.

Three thousand people where each one of them is ten times smarter than you.

LOL, you are, conveniently, ignoring IP and copyright laws.

You are a free market extremist, who happen to not understand (and laugh at) the irony of using a FREE/open source operating system (that is what it is BECAUSE it's FOSS) while using it... assuming he is using Linux, of course.

Perhaps he's a windows, OSX or BSD user? Perhaps he's just a random troll. Same for johnc, BTW. I really wonder how you guys found Linux and this forum...

[liam]

AFAIK, this is the kernel role to protect this.

Well, the kernel, firmware working through acpi.

[erendorn]

So, they have no (legal, ethical, ...) obligations to their consumers? hmm...

They sure have, but none that I know of regarding of the subject at hand.

You are a free market extremist, who happen to not understand (and laugh at) the irony of using a FREE/open source operating system (that is what it is BECAUSE it's FOSS) while using it... assuming he is using Linux, of course.

I missed it too :/ how is FOSS incompatible with free market? These are quite orthogonal concepts.

Perhaps he's a windows, OSX or BSD user? Perhaps he's just a random troll. Same for johnc, BTW. I really wonder how you guys found Linux and this forum...

There's a thousand reasons to use linux. Just because other people's possibly have not the same as yours does not make them extremists or trolls.

[artivision]

That's your opinion based on what you value. Like I said, I was speaking for what is valuable to me. And having official support from the designers of this kind of hardware is more important to me.

Your example is contradicted BTW by the fact that NVIDIA probably has the highest quality GPU driver in Linux, and probably all other platforms as well.

No it is not my opinion. My opinion is different. I just describe the mathematically correct: If you have free drivers you will benefit from the work of many, like having less bugs and more futures like Nine. So the most quality setup on the world today it is by far the r600 driver with Nine and Radeon6870 (vliw5). That way you can play 70% of all PC games (regardless of the platform), fast and less buggy. How many you will play with quality with the Nvidia driver, 20%? Nvidia anyway has more extensions that studios use, not that much quality, its just an illusion: more extensions + the NV way from studios + nasty driver hacks. See TombRaider for example that is good for AMD.

[asdfblah]

They sure have, but none that I know of regarding of the subject at hand.

Ahh, US citizens, where consumer rights are managed by the companies themselves...

I missed it too :/ how is FOSS incompatible with free market? These are quite orthogonal concepts.

They are (almost, free market nuts don't like being forced to share, so the judiciary and the GPL are preventing that), but my point isn't that, we are talking about people who hate everything that involves free and/or open source software. I'm pointing at the lack of scrupulous and logic of these free market nuts.

There's a thousand reasons to use linux. Just because other people's possibly have not the same as yours does not make them extremists or trolls.

Of course, you can take advantage of it, that's the whole point of free and/or open source software. But then... why are you complaining about people DEFENDING FOSS software? They are defending YOUR interests. (Unless you are Apple, Microsoft, ...).

[rikkinho]

lol

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. //-- Benjamin Franklin

americans talking about freedom

[Ezzestus]

I kind of agree with you. No offense to the nouveau or radeon developers, but if I'm dropping $300 - $400 for a GPU I would like to have the drivers made by the company who has the in-house engineering competence to understand the hardware and such. These things are expensive and I want drivers from the people who know the product inside and out.

Right and using the proprietary driver should be your right as a consumer of the card. On the sane note if I drop $300-$400 or even $1000 dollars on a piece of hardware i'd like to be able to do what I want with it. If I want to run some random strangers driver or even firmware why shouldn't I be able to if I purchased the hardware. Providing I'm aware that it will break my warranty and I'm willing to accept the consequences. I bring up the $1000 card as an example thinking of the original titan. it retailed for around $1,000 Canadian. It had less performance then its considerably cheaper gtx-780 brother(not even the ti version) in quite a few scenarios. As I understand it this was theorized to be because the firmware shared the same voltage restrictions even though the titan had a larger gpu and more ram to feed that voltage too. Even though the temps were well within the guidelines for there gpu boost 2.0 to keep clocking up. This left the titan starved for power. Obviously there are always dangers of flashing firmware especially from non trusted sources, however there was a group of developers who made a firmware that allowed the titan to use more power and I don't see why someone who purchased the hardware shouldn't be free to do such things if they wish. I think there was some amount of a fix eventually put out by one of Nvidia's gpu partners but i'm not even sure.

For the record I do have a nvidia card and I have personally chosen to use the proprietary driver. I do however feel very on the fence about this development since as I stated above, if someone pays for the hardware and are aware that there may be consequences they should be able use other drivers and or firmware. Maybe even develop their own if they so wish or are capable.