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I would say that linux isn't able to strong-arm nvidia into complying because nvidia can just go back to distributing their closed-source driver on permissively

I would say that linux isn't able to strong-arm nvidia into complying because nvidia can just go back to distributing their closed-source driver on permissively-licensed OSes such as BSD.

ninjin 4y ago
I have a hard time making the parent comment even making logical sense. So the reason we are not seeing say open CUDA drivers from NVIDIA for Linux is that they instead distribute closed ones for permissively licensed operating systems such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Illumos, MINIX, Plan9, etc.? Which (apart from all lacking CUDA drivers) all universally have less support from hardware manufacturers both when it comes to open and closed drivers across the board? ERRNOLOGIC. You are aware that FreeBSD got closed NVIDIA graphics driver support about a decade after Linux? It is also the only operating system with a permissive license that I am aware of NVIDIA ever supporting. Alternatively, are you trying to refer to that some game consoles used FreeBSD as a basis and had proprietary NVIDIA drivers written for them? You are aware that there is nothing stopping them from doing exactly the same thing with Linux? You are free to believe in “licensing magic” being a solution as much as you want, but I think that you will find that it all has much more to do with what NVIDIA is ultimately all about: Shipping as many cards as is humanly possible while maintaining a borderline monopoly maximising profits.
- magic_quotes 4y ago
  > FreeBSD got closed NVIDIA graphics driver support about a decade after Linux Ahem, https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/commit/?id=94fc89fbfbc7cd8886e9742a2889a5ed8ede4bbc https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/commit/?id=94fc89fbfbc7cd8886... > some game consoles used FreeBSD as a basis and had proprietary NVIDIA drivers written for them You mean proprietary AMD drivers? (Only PlayStation 4 and 5 are based on FreeBSD.)
  - ninjin 4y ago
    Thank you for correcting me. Nothing to add in terms of AMD. But I could have sworn that there was a set of “demands” in terms of features from NVIDIA around the time I used FreeBSD on my desktop (~2010) in order to produce binary drivers back then. Perhaps I am misremembering?
    - magic_quotes 4y ago
      That would be the amd64 driver port: https://wiki.freebsd.org/NvidiaFeatureRequests https://wiki.freebsd.org/NvidiaFeatureRequests. For comparison, the first x86_64 driver version for Linux seems to be 1.0-4499 (https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86-64/1.0-4499/ https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86-64/1.0-4499/) from 2003-09-02.

I would say that linux isn't able to strong-arm nvidia into complying because nvidia can just go back to distributing their closed-source driver on permissively-licensed OSes such as BSD.

ninjin 4y ago

I have a hard time making the parent comment even making logical sense. So the reason we are not seeing say open CUDA drivers from NVIDIA for Linux is that they instead distribute closed ones for permissively licensed operating systems such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Illumos, MINIX, Plan9, etc.? Which (apart from all lacking CUDA drivers) all universally have less support from hardware manufacturers both when it comes to open and closed drivers across the board? ERRNOLOGIC. You are aware that FreeBSD got closed NVIDIA graphics driver support about a decade after Linux? It is also the only operating system with a permissive license that I am aware of NVIDIA ever supporting. Alternatively, are you trying to refer to that some game consoles used FreeBSD as a basis and had proprietary NVIDIA drivers written for them? You are aware that there is nothing stopping them from doing exactly the same thing with Linux? You are free to believe in “licensing magic” being a solution as much as you want, but I think that you will find that it all has much more to do with what NVIDIA is ultimately all about: Shipping as many cards as is humanly possible while maintaining a borderline monopoly maximising profits.

magic_quotes 4y ago
> FreeBSD got closed NVIDIA graphics driver support about a decade after Linux Ahem, https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/commit/?id=94fc89fbfbc7cd8886e9742a2889a5ed8ede4bbc https://cgit.freebsd.org/ports/commit/?id=94fc89fbfbc7cd8886... > some game consoles used FreeBSD as a basis and had proprietary NVIDIA drivers written for them You mean proprietary AMD drivers? (Only PlayStation 4 and 5 are based on FreeBSD.)
- ninjin 4y ago
  Thank you for correcting me. Nothing to add in terms of AMD. But I could have sworn that there was a set of “demands” in terms of features from NVIDIA around the time I used FreeBSD on my desktop (~2010) in order to produce binary drivers back then. Perhaps I am misremembering?
  - magic_quotes 4y ago
    That would be the amd64 driver port: https://wiki.freebsd.org/NvidiaFeatureRequests https://wiki.freebsd.org/NvidiaFeatureRequests. For comparison, the first x86_64 driver version for Linux seems to be 1.0-4499 (https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86-64/1.0-4499/ https://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86-64/1.0-4499/) from 2003-09-02.