7 ms·

IANAL, but I don't see how this can be enforced (in the US) given the legal history of emulation. This is effectively just emulation. c.f., https://emulation.g

IANAL, but I don't see how this can be enforced (in the US) given the legal history of emulation. This is effectively just emulation. c.f., https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Licensing https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Licensing

plussed_reader 3y ago
An arms race of the update whack-a-mole as the encrypted blob grows and encompasses more...
- lunfard000 3y ago
  wouldn't that require breaking the ABI? Many enterprise wont be happy if they do so. Also, there is not way to prevent using old cuda compilers.
  - reactordev 3y ago
    Not a way to prevent it but they can make damn sure its difficult to find. Example: Where is Newtonsoft's Physics Library v1.x? It was awesome, easy, fast, and worked with my engine (or rather, my engine worked with it?). Gone. Nowhere to be found, not even on the internet archives way-back-machine. It's rather trivial for a juggernaut like NVidia to wipe the earth of older cuda compilers by tweaking a driver and making cuda compilation cloud-based.
jsheard 3y ago
I think there's two issues at play: re-implementing the CUDA APIs, and using that re-implementation to run Nvidias own libraries like cuDNN on non-Nvidia hardware. Precedent around emulation and the Google vs. Oracle case probably protects the former, but Nvidia is probably entitled to say how you're allowed to use their own software in the latter.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
marklar423 3y ago
I think they're trying to do the trick where they don't ban the emulation per se, but they make it a violation of the license to disassemble the code to understand how it works. Then they go after emulating projects for copyright infringement, since they must have violated copyright to get a compatible version running. It's a dirty trick IMO, but it has seen some mixed success.
- lunfard000 3y ago
  I dont think China cares too much about what NVIDIA thinks considering the ban in place.
- ActionHank 3y ago
  So they just put up their hand and said they also want to give the EU money?
  - brookst 3y ago
    At this point with the level of demand they have, it might be easier and cheaper to just not do business in the EU.
    - jijijijij 3y ago
      Funny how nobody does that, eh?! Could be because the EU is the second biggest consumer market on this planet. But of course, they could totally focus on China, now third and rising, instead. Maybe they can even ask the CCP to help them with their IP claims and stuff.
      - brookst 3y ago
        Or it could be because the EU has not yet reached the tipping point where it’s not worth it, or it could be that they have but companies are adapting by reducing investment and it will take years for patterns to emerge. Not sure where the weird China stuff came from. Are you saying that as long as the EU is even slightly better than China we should celebrate it?
paulryanrogers 3y ago
APIs aren't subject to copyright. So unless CUDA is more than an API they're just going to make some lawyers rich and waste everyone's time.
- jsheard 3y ago
  The API may not be copyrightable, but the widely-used official libraries (cuDNN, cuBLAS, OptiX, etc) are, so in practice I think they can at least say that anything which uses those libraries can't be run on competitors hardware.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    AIUI, these libraries are generally implemented as shared objects that the resulting binary has to link to. So it should be quite possible to reimplement the interface that they expose, moreover something like ROCM has to do that anyway in order to compile HIP source code from scratch. Looks like that's what https://github.com/ROCm/hipDNN/ https://github.com/ROCm/hipDNN/ does.
    - jsheard 3y ago
      Possible, yes, but reimplementing the CUDA runtime and the official libraries and getting them up to par with the originals is a much bigger task than just doing the former and running Nvidias libraries in it. AMD did try to do a complete reimplementation of cuDNN with hipDNN but "last commit 5 years ago" doesn't inspire much confidence in it being competitive with cuDNN proper.
      - imtringued 3y ago
        They don't have any tensor cores so there is not much reason for them to work on this.
- laweijfmvo 3y ago
  Making lawyers rich to waste time is how super rich companies stifle competition...
bitwize 3y ago
> given the legal history of emulation. Funny you should say this just after Nintendo shut down Yuzu and collected hefty damages in the settlement.
mordae 3y ago
Reversing in order to achieve interop is explicitly legal in EU. Well unless you have to break DRM in process.
- rerdavies 3y ago
  Does that render UELA clauses that forbid reverse engineering invalid?
- mech422 3y ago
  I believe, this 2 stage/project system was how DeCSS for DVDs worked? Someone cracked it and posted the code (for interop, in EU), which could then be picked up/used by other projects as it was 'public knowledge' or some such and didn't expose them to legal risk ?

plussed_reader 3y ago

An arms race of the update whack-a-mole as the encrypted blob grows and encompasses more...

lunfard000 3y ago
wouldn't that require breaking the ABI? Many enterprise wont be happy if they do so. Also, there is not way to prevent using old cuda compilers.
- reactordev 3y ago
  Not a way to prevent it but they can make damn sure its difficult to find. Example: Where is Newtonsoft's Physics Library v1.x? It was awesome, easy, fast, and worked with my engine (or rather, my engine worked with it?). Gone. Nowhere to be found, not even on the internet archives way-back-machine. It's rather trivial for a juggernaut like NVidia to wipe the earth of older cuda compilers by tweaking a driver and making cuda compilation cloud-based.

jsheard 3y ago

I think there's two issues at play: re-implementing the CUDA APIs, and using that re-implementation to run Nvidias own libraries like cuDNN on non-Nvidia hardware. Precedent around emulation and the Google vs. Oracle case probably protects the former, but Nvidia is probably entitled to say how you're allowed to use their own software in the latter.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

marklar423 3y ago

I think they're trying to do the trick where they don't ban the emulation per se, but they make it a violation of the license to disassemble the code to understand how it works. Then they go after emulating projects for copyright infringement, since they must have violated copyright to get a compatible version running. It's a dirty trick IMO, but it has seen some mixed success.

lunfard000 3y ago
I dont think China cares too much about what NVIDIA thinks considering the ban in place.
ActionHank 3y ago
So they just put up their hand and said they also want to give the EU money?
- brookst 3y ago
  At this point with the level of demand they have, it might be easier and cheaper to just not do business in the EU.
  - jijijijij 3y ago
    Funny how nobody does that, eh?! Could be because the EU is the second biggest consumer market on this planet. But of course, they could totally focus on China, now third and rising, instead. Maybe they can even ask the CCP to help them with their IP claims and stuff.
    - brookst 3y ago
      Or it could be because the EU has not yet reached the tipping point where it’s not worth it, or it could be that they have but companies are adapting by reducing investment and it will take years for patterns to emerge. Not sure where the weird China stuff came from. Are you saying that as long as the EU is even slightly better than China we should celebrate it?

paulryanrogers 3y ago

APIs aren't subject to copyright. So unless CUDA is more than an API they're just going to make some lawyers rich and waste everyone's time.

jsheard 3y ago
The API may not be copyrightable, but the widely-used official libraries (cuDNN, cuBLAS, OptiX, etc) are, so in practice I think they can at least say that anything which uses those libraries can't be run on competitors hardware.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  AIUI, these libraries are generally implemented as shared objects that the resulting binary has to link to. So it should be quite possible to reimplement the interface that they expose, moreover something like ROCM has to do that anyway in order to compile HIP source code from scratch. Looks like that's what https://github.com/ROCm/hipDNN/ https://github.com/ROCm/hipDNN/ does.
  - jsheard 3y ago
    Possible, yes, but reimplementing the CUDA runtime and the official libraries and getting them up to par with the originals is a much bigger task than just doing the former and running Nvidias libraries in it. AMD did try to do a complete reimplementation of cuDNN with hipDNN but "last commit 5 years ago" doesn't inspire much confidence in it being competitive with cuDNN proper.
    - imtringued 3y ago
      They don't have any tensor cores so there is not much reason for them to work on this.
laweijfmvo 3y ago
Making lawyers rich to waste time is how super rich companies stifle competition...

bitwize 3y ago

> given the legal history of emulation. Funny you should say this just after Nintendo shut down Yuzu and collected hefty damages in the settlement.

mordae 3y ago

Reversing in order to achieve interop is explicitly legal in EU. Well unless you have to break DRM in process.

rerdavies 3y ago
Does that render UELA clauses that forbid reverse engineering invalid?
mech422 3y ago
I believe, this 2 stage/project system was how DeCSS for DVDs worked? Someone cracked it and posted the code (for interop, in EU), which could then be picked up/used by other projects as it was 'public knowledge' or some such and didn't expose them to legal risk ?