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Are the technical problems documented anywhere where non-NVIDIA-driver-developers can learn about them? Most of the discussion I've read online argues that to

Are the technical problems documented anywhere where non-NVIDIA-driver-developers can learn about them? Most of the discussion I've read online argues that to support NVIDIA's solution, everyone would need to add if(nvidia) checks to their code and maintain them forever. But this argument only really holds in Wayland's bizarro-world where all programs that arrange windows must also bake in code that interfaces directly with hardware to draw them on the screen. Absent any other technical problems, it's hard not to conclude that this is just an attempt to use politics to cover up one of Wayland's poor design choices.

Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago
https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bdip8a/nvidias_patches_merged_into_kwin_does_that/el0yu5n/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bdip8a/nvidias_patch...
arghwhat 7y ago
> Most of the discussion I've read online argues that to support NVIDIA's solution, everyone would need to add if(nvidia) checks to their code and maintain them forever. This is a severe misunderstanding of NVIDIA's solution. NVIDIA's solutions is so fundamentally different that you'd basically maintain two compositors internally: One that handles every sane driver, and one that handles NVIDIA. Nothing in wayland is incompatible with NVIDIA's approach. GNOME supports it, and KDE recently gained support. However, the NVIDIA approach exists for only one reason: Because NVIDIA does not want to play along with the open source world, and doing the least amount of work to their proprietary driver. Unless NVIDIA turns their ship around, supporting NVIDIA is harmful to our community. Although, if they'd just keep up with our standardized APIs, maybe we could somehow accept their ridiculous proprietary drivers which has no place in this decade.
- csande17 7y ago
  > NVIDIA's solutions is so fundamentally different that you'd basically maintain two compositors internally: One that handles every sane driver, and one that handles NVIDIA. If Wayland had a standard compositor interface like X has, this wouldn't be a problem at all, would it? You could write your compositor that talks to the hardware using your "sane" interface, and someone else could write a compositor that uses the NVIDIA interface, and users could pick the compositor that works for them and use it with any window manager they choose. It's only because of Wayland's design that "GPU manufacturer creates nonstandard interface to their driver" is some giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    > It's only because of Wayland's design that "GPU manufacturer creates nonstandard interface to their driver" is some giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community. That's not how I think of it. By analogy, consider POSIX. Every major operating system supports the POSIX interface--all of them, except one that is. But no one goes around calling that one OS a "giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community." Essentially, you have to pick a point somewhere in the stack where you define the common interface between the different hardware vendors. The problem is that one hardware vendor, because it's the 800 lb. gorilla who loves throwing its weight around, decided to not implement the common interface, hoping that its weight will force everyone else to adapt. Wayland is unfortunate enough to be in a position where it relies on that common interface being supported, but this isn't the only place that NVidia has decided to try to scuttle cross-vendor compatibility (GPGPU computing is a very notorious case).
    - nqzero 7y ago
      > no one goes around calling that one OS a "giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community." we did do that, and they were, but for the most part, for the moment (at least) we've won - so it's no longer on the tip of our tongue
      - incompatible 7y ago
        I'm not sure what victory is being declared here: is Wayland likely to run on more than a tiny fraction of devices any time in the near future? If not, that "one OS" can take a large part of the blame.
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        In an age where POSIX is sliding into irrelevance in what concerns mobile and embedded OSes. "POSIX Has Become Outdated" https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/issues/login_fall16_issue.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/issues/login_fall1...
    - pjmlp 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

Sir_Cmpwn 7y ago

https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bdip8a/nvidias_patches_merged_into_kwin_does_that/el0yu5n/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bdip8a/nvidias_patch...

arghwhat 7y ago

> Most of the discussion I've read online argues that to support NVIDIA's solution, everyone would need to add if(nvidia) checks to their code and maintain them forever. This is a severe misunderstanding of NVIDIA's solution. NVIDIA's solutions is so fundamentally different that you'd basically maintain two compositors internally: One that handles every sane driver, and one that handles NVIDIA. Nothing in wayland is incompatible with NVIDIA's approach. GNOME supports it, and KDE recently gained support. However, the NVIDIA approach exists for only one reason: Because NVIDIA does not want to play along with the open source world, and doing the least amount of work to their proprietary driver. Unless NVIDIA turns their ship around, supporting NVIDIA is harmful to our community. Although, if they'd just keep up with our standardized APIs, maybe we could somehow accept their ridiculous proprietary drivers which has no place in this decade.

csande17 7y ago
> NVIDIA's solutions is so fundamentally different that you'd basically maintain two compositors internally: One that handles every sane driver, and one that handles NVIDIA. If Wayland had a standard compositor interface like X has, this wouldn't be a problem at all, would it? You could write your compositor that talks to the hardware using your "sane" interface, and someone else could write a compositor that uses the NVIDIA interface, and users could pick the compositor that works for them and use it with any window manager they choose. It's only because of Wayland's design that "GPU manufacturer creates nonstandard interface to their driver" is some giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  > It's only because of Wayland's design that "GPU manufacturer creates nonstandard interface to their driver" is some giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community. That's not how I think of it. By analogy, consider POSIX. Every major operating system supports the POSIX interface--all of them, except one that is. But no one goes around calling that one OS a "giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community." Essentially, you have to pick a point somewhere in the stack where you define the common interface between the different hardware vendors. The problem is that one hardware vendor, because it's the 800 lb. gorilla who loves throwing its weight around, decided to not implement the common interface, hoping that its weight will force everyone else to adapt. Wayland is unfortunate enough to be in a position where it relies on that common interface being supported, but this isn't the only place that NVidia has decided to try to scuttle cross-vendor compatibility (GPGPU computing is a very notorious case).
  - nqzero 7y ago
    > no one goes around calling that one OS a "giant, existential, ecosystem-fragmenting threat to the open-source community." we did do that, and they were, but for the most part, for the moment (at least) we've won - so it's no longer on the tip of our tongue
    - incompatible 7y ago
      I'm not sure what victory is being declared here: is Wayland likely to run on more than a tiny fraction of devices any time in the near future? If not, that "one OS" can take a large part of the blame.
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      In an age where POSIX is sliding into irrelevance in what concerns mobile and embedded OSes. "POSIX Has Become Outdated" https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/issues/login_fall16_issue.pdf https://www.usenix.org/system/files/login/issues/login_fall1...
  - pjmlp 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
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