4 ms·

Not sure I'm able to follow your logic here, esp regarding "quickly render Linux useless" and "losing a lot of corporate seats". Linux is extremely pervasive b

by karltk 11y ago

Not sure I'm able to follow your logic here, esp regarding "quickly render Linux useless" and "losing a lot of corporate seats". Linux is extremely pervasive by now: embedded systems, phones, laptops/desktops, servers, super computers. Let's say NVIDIA boycotted Linux on account of the GPL. No more NVIDIA for Linux-based embedded systems, phones, laptops/desktops, servers, supercomputers. What then? It certainly wouldn't make a dent in the embedded space, where NVIDIA hardly has any presence at all, even if you do include NVIDIA Shield. On the phone side, how many of the 1+ billion Android devices use NVIDIA chips? 1 million? 2?. It certainly wouldn't make a dent in the server space -- the market for GPGPUs on regular servers is rather tiny. In the supercomputing space, there's a trend towards more GPGPU capabilities, so here it might actually make a difference for some. Still, seems somewhat unlikely that lack of NVIDIA support would "quickly render Linux useless" as a supercomputing OS... That leaves the laptop/desktop space. Linux has around 2% market share on the laptops/desktops. Most people in that space who need rock-solid 3D performance for CAD/CAM work are already using Windows. Sure, there are still die-hard NVIDIA Linux users left, even after everyone decided to transition to MacBooks and OSX for development, but their number hardly qualify as "lots of corporate seats". All of that being said, I'd love for additional uptake of the *BSDs, in addition to the ~30 million PS4s running FreeBSD :)

andromeduck 11y ago
Losing the market leader for GPUs at a time when accelerators have almost become mainstream absolutely massive. Sure it might not be the end of the world for many existing applications but think of the new/growing growing markets they basically control right now - deep neural networks, car automation, photorealistic offline rendering, accelerated simulation, accelerated HPC, gaming etc. With the interest and demand from all those and potentially other segments like say Android could be enough to push BSD ahead of Linux in a few years and be absolutely crippling for the future prospects of Linux. It'd basically be like GCC vs Clang all over again.
berkut 11y ago
Most independent people who need 3D performance for CAD might be using Windows, but the VFX industry need 3D performance on the desktop and they heavily use Linux and NVIDIA (at least at the high level). AMD is almost nowhere to be found - it's all CUDA (for any GPU compute stuff) and NVIDIA's drivers.
bsder 11y ago
> It certainly wouldn't make a dent in the embedded space The embedded space follows Linux because their alternative desktop was Linux (if it wasn't Windows). You assume that a GPL slapfight only takes out nVidia. It would take out lots of people who have binary-only drivers who currently make Linux their home. The WiFi manufacturers being some of the most important ones. And that WOULD impact embedded Linux very much.

by karltk 11y ago

andromeduck 11y ago

Losing the market leader for GPUs at a time when accelerators have almost become mainstream absolutely massive. Sure it might not be the end of the world for many existing applications but think of the new/growing growing markets they basically control right now - deep neural networks, car automation, photorealistic offline rendering, accelerated simulation, accelerated HPC, gaming etc. With the interest and demand from all those and potentially other segments like say Android could be enough to push BSD ahead of Linux in a few years and be absolutely crippling for the future prospects of Linux. It'd basically be like GCC vs Clang all over again.

berkut 11y ago

Most independent people who need 3D performance for CAD might be using Windows, but the VFX industry need 3D performance on the desktop and they heavily use Linux and NVIDIA (at least at the high level). AMD is almost nowhere to be found - it's all CUDA (for any GPU compute stuff) and NVIDIA's drivers.

bsder 11y ago

> It certainly wouldn't make a dent in the embedded space The embedded space follows Linux because their alternative desktop was Linux (if it wasn't Windows). You assume that a GPL slapfight only takes out nVidia. It would take out lots of people who have binary-only drivers who currently make Linux their home. The WiFi manufacturers being some of the most important ones. And that WOULD impact embedded Linux very much.