Mumblings Of A "Big New" Open-Source GPU Driver Coming...

[Danny3]

There is literally 0% chance that it's Nvidia, this is the middle-finger company.
They would rather drop dead than open source anything meaningful !
Microsoft is pretty much in the same area.
I think it can only be one of the mobile vendors.

[OneTimeShot]

Why all the secrecy? I'm going to take a guess that this is Nvidia sticking half a GPU driver into the Kernel, and it'll only work with a proprietary user-space BLOB and a signed firmware that they won't allow you to distribute.

[tuxd3v]

Looking at the stars,
I think of it being Imagination Technologies..

To support products that will exclusively running GNU/Linux, and will later this year or next one be released..
I don't think that clients are satisfied with a closed source blob be any means...

[andyprough]

I'm thinking that either 3dfx is updating the Voodoo driver or S3 is updating the Savage 3d driver.

[Linuxxx]

Oh look, it's a ... NVIDIA?!?!?!

Has been coming for a long time now, ever since Linux kernel 5.3 changed everything for them:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.3-NVIDIA-POWER-Problem
(NVIDIA's Graphics Driver Will Run Into Problems With Linux 5.3 On IBM POWER - 13 July 2019)

That's what the "losing marketshare" meme is hinting at; nVidia is losing out on the VERY lucrative supercomputer wins versus AMD!

Also, how else do you think nVidia is going to support Wayland with the upcoming 470 driver series?
It will most likely turn into a hybrid driver akin to AMDGPU-PRO (open-source kernel part, closed-source userspace blob).

Anything else simply doesn't make any sense!
[MediaTek, Exynos, Vivante... LOL!!]

[kpedersen]

Microsoft is pretty much in the same area.

I'm not sure. Microsoft keeps prattling on about their WSL layer. They are probably just going to open up some useless layer specific driver for their platform. Useless for those who broke free of their mess decades ago.

I'm thinking that either 3dfx is updating the Voodoo driver or S3 is updating the Savage 3d driver.

Ugh, please no. My awesome little Thinkpad T23 broke last week. Getting an updated open savage driver would rub salt into the wound

[MadeUpName]

If I had to bet I would go with NVidia. Few companies ruffle the kernel guys feathers enough to get them memeing so I vote for NVidia and it's long history of douche baggery. If it isn't them it would help to know if it consumer space or server space. If server then there is a pretty long list of possibilities. If consumer then possibly the new GPU maker the YT talking heads have been mentioning lately.

[lamka02sk]

Even tho I hope it is from Nvidia, it may be also Samsung since they are preparing their new Exynos CPUs with Radeon graphics.

[Kristian Joensen]

Aside from a full, well-functioning, high performance, feature complete, open source DX12 implementation from MS, only Nvidia even remotely counts as "big". Nothing else even comes close to "big".

[andre30correia]

its nvidia, they will do the same as amd, a kernel open driver with user non free and free user for 3º parties