While I hate unreliable drivers as much as the next guy this is not just an Nvidia problem. Several Linux kernel developers love to break API just to mess with

While I hate unreliable drivers as much as the next guy this is not just an Nvidia problem. Several Linux kernel developers love to break API just to mess with closed source GPU driver e.g. replace an API for no reason other than hiding a few indispensable functions behind a GPL only macro. This causes nothing but avoidable grieve to users and the driver maintainers. It’s really interesting to see the difference between Linux and FreeBSD (which doesn’t break kernel APIs for shit and giggles). The damn Nvidia kernel module is still a bloated closed source blob, but not once in >10 years did it break. The largest problems I had with this driver under FreeBSD was after the adoption of KMS because Linux locked away the new memory management API required for efficient tearing free frame swapping behind GPL only macros resulting in massive tearing (there were workarounds like using a vsync enabled compositor adding latency and wasting enough power to cost me 30-60 min battery runtime).