5 ms·

Eh, it absolutely helps the Linux gaming community. Not so much the Windows one though

franga2000 5y ago
Removing LHR doesn't help Linux gamers at all. What would help is if they leaked the source code so people could patch nvidia's shitty drivers.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Except no one professional would touch the leaked source with a 10 ft poll. Expect continued clean room reverse engineering or get sued.
  - pabs3 5y ago
    Developers of the open source nouveau driver for nvidia GPUs certainly won't: https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961 https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961
    - NavinF 5y ago
      I honestly don’t care about nouveau. It’s a fine project, but as a user I know it as the preinstalled software that cripples my servers until I install the proprietary drivers. If nvidia releases the drivers as source-available rather than open source that would still be incredibly useful since you can distribute patches. Their drivers are still missing basic features like fan speed control on headless machines.
      - pabs3 5y ago
        In my experience nouveau was way better than the proprietary drivers, which would crash a lot, while nouveau was stable. This was long ago though, maybe nvidia are better now. I don't think you can distribute patches against proprietary source-available drivers, since modifying proprietary code is against copyright law.
        NavinF 5y ago
        Did you leave power savings enabled? Cause that’s a recipe for disaster on Linux. My ML servers have years of uptime with “nvidia-smi -pm 0” in crontab and auto updates disabled. The latter prevents the CUDA version from getting ahead of the kernel module version. It’s a polished turd, but at least it works which is more than I can say for nouveau And yes you can distribute patches. Copyright only prevents you from distributing the modified version.
        pabs3 5y ago
        This was like 15 years ago (no idea about power savings stuff), I wouldn't touch the proprietary driver any more though. nouveau has been extremely stable for me when I used it up until last year. Patches contain parts of the original code, so I would class them as modified versions of the original code. Also the initial modification isn't allowed either, I wasn't really referring to distribution of the patches, just creating them isn't allowed AFAIK.
        NavinF 5y ago
        You’re talking about the EULA, not the copyright license. The EULA can certainly claim you’re not allowed to do that, but it’s also unenforceable in most places so who cares?
        pabs3 5y ago
        I'm talking about neither the EULA nor the copyright license, but about copyright law, which doesn't allow modifications by default. Only a EULA or other license can then allow modifications. OTOH, even the GPL is pretty much unenforceable these days, unless you are well funded enough to afford time consuming legal cases.
        NavinF 5y ago
        <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._N...>
  - franga2000 5y ago
    Of course, a cleanroom procedure is a given in this case. History has shown that it is entirely possible though - see ReactOS for one very public example. But also, not everyone cares. See game modders who routinely use source code leaks to make game patches. I'm not talking about big companies that want nvidia would want to sue, but individuals and small groups, who are not a big enough target and would likely remain anonymous anyways.
    - Qub3d 5y ago
      ReactOS isn't necessarily the best example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933
      - jmholla 5y ago
        That thread goes on to describe several very plausible reasons that a clean room implementation could have resulted in all of the coincidences the commenter pointed out.
  - greggsy 5y ago
    Of course they will review it in their spare time. They wouldn’t copy it, but they could certainly learn insights and apply them in their architectures.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      No, they won't. Any competitors and any open-source projects will advise their engineers to stay as far away from it as possible. It's a clean-room engineering situation, if you've even looked at it you're legally contaminated and you're now a liability to the parent company/project's IP. And now those projects have to be hyper-aware of any contributors who might "sneak in" a bit of NVIDIA code that gets the whole project taken down. https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961 https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961
- sage92 5y ago
  They modified the demand. On Tuesday, Lapsus$ modified its demand. Now, the group also wants Nvidia to commit to making its GPU drivers completely open source. If Nvidia does not comply, Lapsus$ says, the company can expect to see a new leak that would include the complete silicon, graphics, and computer chipset files for all its recent GPUs: So, NVIDIA, the choice is yours! Either: –Officially make current and all future drivers for all cards open source, while keeping the Verilog and chipset trade secrets... well, secret OR –Not make the drivers open source, making us release the entire silicon chip files so that everyone not only knows your driver's secrets, but also your most closely-guarded trade secrets for graphics and computer chipsets too! YOU HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY, YOU DECIDE!
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    Sounds like Nvidia just needs to patent its trade secrets until Friday, thus making them useless to everyone for the next 20 years when they'll be so outdated nobody will use them anyway. Regardless of what is released if the license doesn't allow anyone to use it it's effectively useless. Aside from maybe a few pirated driver builds that will fix some linux issues and also install background bitcoin miners. I seriously doubt Nvidia will cave.
    - thebean11 5y ago
      There's a reason why Nvidia hasn't already patented this stuff. Even if patents can't be directly copied, they can inspire the competition to do similar work.
heavyset_go 5y ago
If they release Nvidia's code it can't really help Linux compatibility out without being an IP nightmare. Miners won't have a problem using it, though.
- praptak 5y ago
  Not necessarily. There is no law against writing an implementation of the drivers as long as you don't copy the IP-protected code but only use knowledge about how the code works. If you need to be on the safe side, the person writing the free code should never look at the IP-protected code but instead read a summary of the findings by someone else (clean room implementation).

franga2000 5y ago

Removing LHR doesn't help Linux gamers at all. What would help is if they leaked the source code so people could patch nvidia's shitty drivers.

azinman2 5y ago
Except no one professional would touch the leaked source with a 10 ft poll. Expect continued clean room reverse engineering or get sued.
- pabs3 5y ago
  Developers of the open source nouveau driver for nvidia GPUs certainly won't: https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961 https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961
  - NavinF 5y ago
    I honestly don’t care about nouveau. It’s a fine project, but as a user I know it as the preinstalled software that cripples my servers until I install the proprietary drivers. If nvidia releases the drivers as source-available rather than open source that would still be incredibly useful since you can distribute patches. Their drivers are still missing basic features like fan speed control on headless machines.
    - pabs3 5y ago
      In my experience nouveau was way better than the proprietary drivers, which would crash a lot, while nouveau was stable. This was long ago though, maybe nvidia are better now. I don't think you can distribute patches against proprietary source-available drivers, since modifying proprietary code is against copyright law.
      - NavinF 5y ago
        Did you leave power savings enabled? Cause that’s a recipe for disaster on Linux. My ML servers have years of uptime with “nvidia-smi -pm 0” in crontab and auto updates disabled. The latter prevents the CUDA version from getting ahead of the kernel module version. It’s a polished turd, but at least it works which is more than I can say for nouveau And yes you can distribute patches. Copyright only prevents you from distributing the modified version.
        pabs3 5y ago
        This was like 15 years ago (no idea about power savings stuff), I wouldn't touch the proprietary driver any more though. nouveau has been extremely stable for me when I used it up until last year. Patches contain parts of the original code, so I would class them as modified versions of the original code. Also the initial modification isn't allowed either, I wasn't really referring to distribution of the patches, just creating them isn't allowed AFAIK.
        NavinF 5y ago
        You’re talking about the EULA, not the copyright license. The EULA can certainly claim you’re not allowed to do that, but it’s also unenforceable in most places so who cares?
        pabs3 5y ago
        I'm talking about neither the EULA nor the copyright license, but about copyright law, which doesn't allow modifications by default. Only a EULA or other license can then allow modifications. OTOH, even the GPL is pretty much unenforceable these days, unless you are well funded enough to afford time consuming legal cases.
        NavinF 5y ago
        <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._Nintendo_of_America,_Inc. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Galoob_Toys,_Inc._v._N...>
- franga2000 5y ago
  Of course, a cleanroom procedure is a given in this case. History has shown that it is entirely possible though - see ReactOS for one very public example. But also, not everyone cares. See game modders who routinely use source code leaks to make game patches. I'm not talking about big companies that want nvidia would want to sue, but individuals and small groups, who are not a big enough target and would likely remain anonymous anyways.
  - Qub3d 5y ago
    ReactOS isn't necessarily the best example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933
    - jmholla 5y ago
      That thread goes on to describe several very plausible reasons that a clean room implementation could have resulted in all of the coincidences the commenter pointed out.
- greggsy 5y ago
  Of course they will review it in their spare time. They wouldn’t copy it, but they could certainly learn insights and apply them in their architectures.
  - paulmd 5y ago
    No, they won't. Any competitors and any open-source projects will advise their engineers to stay as far away from it as possible. It's a clean-room engineering situation, if you've even looked at it you're legally contaminated and you're now a liability to the parent company/project's IP. And now those projects have to be hyper-aware of any contributors who might "sneak in" a bit of NVIDIA code that gets the whole project taken down. https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961 https://nitter.eu/_Lyude/status/1498811646697000961
sage92 5y ago
They modified the demand. On Tuesday, Lapsus$ modified its demand. Now, the group also wants Nvidia to commit to making its GPU drivers completely open source. If Nvidia does not comply, Lapsus$ says, the company can expect to see a new leak that would include the complete silicon, graphics, and computer chipset files for all its recent GPUs: So, NVIDIA, the choice is yours! Either: –Officially make current and all future drivers for all cards open source, while keeping the Verilog and chipset trade secrets... well, secret OR –Not make the drivers open source, making us release the entire silicon chip files so that everyone not only knows your driver's secrets, but also your most closely-guarded trade secrets for graphics and computer chipsets too! YOU HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY, YOU DECIDE!
- moffkalast 5y ago
  Sounds like Nvidia just needs to patent its trade secrets until Friday, thus making them useless to everyone for the next 20 years when they'll be so outdated nobody will use them anyway. Regardless of what is released if the license doesn't allow anyone to use it it's effectively useless. Aside from maybe a few pirated driver builds that will fix some linux issues and also install background bitcoin miners. I seriously doubt Nvidia will cave.
  - thebean11 5y ago
    There's a reason why Nvidia hasn't already patented this stuff. Even if patents can't be directly copied, they can inspire the competition to do similar work.

heavyset_go 5y ago

If they release Nvidia's code it can't really help Linux compatibility out without being an IP nightmare. Miners won't have a problem using it, though.

praptak 5y ago
Not necessarily. There is no law against writing an implementation of the drivers as long as you don't copy the IP-protected code but only use knowledge about how the code works. If you need to be on the safe side, the person writing the free code should never look at the IP-protected code but instead read a summary of the findings by someone else (clean room implementation).