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More importantly, why does NVidia, who contribute practically nothing to Free graphics development (drivers or the rest of the graphics stack) think that the Wa

More importantly, why does NVidia, who contribute practically nothing to Free graphics development (drivers or the rest of the graphics stack) think that the Wayland developers have any obligation to make Wayland work well with their secretly-developed blobs? If NVidia wants to have input, they could hire people to work on Wayland. Otherwise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxHqi8tx048&t=0m28s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxHqi8tx048&t=0m28s

blinkingled 13y ago
Exactly. Nvidia has got away with crap for far too long. And given the rise of Intel and AMD GPUs which come with fully OSS drivers, they need to get their heads out of sand and realize that they can't get away with it anymore and they need to either invest resources in getting their GPUs supported under Linux - be it Android or Desktop - or at least make their specs open like AMD. (The way they supported Tegra on Android is also similarly crappy - look at how many popular Tegra Android phones or tablets were released post the Nexus 7 2012.)
- a8000 13y ago
  The last time I tried to use an AMD video card with 3d acceleration under Linux it was a horrible experience. Nvidias binary drivers just work out of the box even with the most recent hardware and have OpenGL 4.3 support. Has the situation changed with AMD cards?
  - rcxdude 13y ago
    It works pretty well for me using the OSS drivers. Better experience than any of the binary drivers (NVIDIA and AMD), and the performance and features are good enough for gaming via WINE (though still not quite as good as the binary drivers AFAIK). I think the current pain points are support for the latest hardware and power saving for laptops.
    - zanny 13y ago
      Kernel 3.13 got full dual graphics ACPI shutdown on the discrete part, and they have had DPM enabled on all parts since 3.12. Should be good now on the power saving end.
- cookiecaper 13y ago
  They can get away with it because their drivers actually work. The OSS drivers are improving, but it's taken them a half-decade or more to come even within 70% of Windows performance parity. nVidia's drivers have performance parity on day 1, and generally, far fewer show-stopping bugs.
  - zanny 13y ago
    Really, FOSS driver development has been confined to the last 2 years. AMD has a half dozen developers in Mesa, and I think Intel has around 20. They have pushed it from Core Profile 2.1 to 3.3 in 2 years, and will probably have it at 4.0 or 4.1 by years end. Before that, AMD wasn't making free drivers, and Intel didn't care about their integrated graphics as much and never had higher GL support on them. They have come pretty far in a short time frame, and by the time GL 5 comes out (I assume, the one with the low level primitive support to match DX12) Mesa should only be a version behind or so. Also, I wouldn't really agree Nvidia drivers work. I had a GTX 285 in an older machine I put Ubuntu on, and their blob didn't work with resume / suspend at all. Dunno if they'd work now, I just switched that system to Nouveau, which... works with suspend flawlessly. And manages fan speeds a lot better than the blob, too.
    - cookiecaper 13y ago
      AMD's been making free drivers for seven years. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=826&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=826&num=1 I said the last half-decade to be generous. It's taken this long to finally get some of the older cards to a mostly usable state for 3D gaming (usually the point of a consumer-grade 3D graphics card). Mesa has been picking up new GL versions which is good, but it's taken a really long time.
      - blinkingled 13y ago
        >AMD's been making free drivers for seven years. It takes lot of time and effort to get GPU drivers usable with all features. I would say they actually did a great job hiring OSS people, contributing documentation after lengthy legal reviews and they kept up with most older and newer GPUs. And they now have dynamic power management! That's great progress for me.
teacup50 13y ago
> More importantly, why does NVidia, who contribute practically nothing to Free graphics development (drivers or the rest of the graphics stack) think that the Wayland developers have any obligation to make Wayland work well with their secretly-developed blobs? NVidia could also just not support Linux at all, which would certainly create even more of an uphill battle for Free graphics development and Linux.
- Morgawr 13y ago
  That would be a pretty terrible PR move by nVidia. While I hate the fact that they don't open source their stuff, I have to give them props because their blobs drivers work really well on Linux too. Abandoning Linux is definitely the wrong move, especially now that the gaming community is thriving.
  - pekk 13y ago
    Terrible PR among the tiny minority of Linux users. Most people are using Windows or Mac and most of those are either completely ignorant, completely indifferent or actively hostile to Linux
    - Morgawr 13y ago
      You're not too familiar with the gaming community and the noise they can generate, are you? Just look at the Oculus deal, if you're in the gaming industry you definitely don't want to piss off gamers, no matter how much of a minority they can be. This said, Linux is thriving a lot these days and is gaining a huge momentum as far as gaming goes. The community is constantly growing, the tools are all coming to Linux, SteamOS is right behind the corner, more and more companies are targeting the Linux platform, etc etc. Bailing out of the Linux ecosystem now would be a terrible and shortsighted move on behalf of nVidia.
      - cookiecaper 13y ago
        What are we supposed to learn about the power of gamers from the Oculus deal? They can whine on forums and cancel their pre-orders? That has been the only visible "negative" consequence of the Oculus/Facebook deal thus far.
jamesaguilar 13y ago
I don't see where nvidia acts as if Wayland devs have any obligations here. All he said was that their driver would not work after this change. The only thing this obligates Wayland devs to do is not change this if they want nvidia to support wayland.

blinkingled 13y ago

Exactly. Nvidia has got away with crap for far too long. And given the rise of Intel and AMD GPUs which come with fully OSS drivers, they need to get their heads out of sand and realize that they can't get away with it anymore and they need to either invest resources in getting their GPUs supported under Linux - be it Android or Desktop - or at least make their specs open like AMD. (The way they supported Tegra on Android is also similarly crappy - look at how many popular Tegra Android phones or tablets were released post the Nexus 7 2012.)

a8000 13y ago
The last time I tried to use an AMD video card with 3d acceleration under Linux it was a horrible experience. Nvidias binary drivers just work out of the box even with the most recent hardware and have OpenGL 4.3 support. Has the situation changed with AMD cards?
- rcxdude 13y ago
  It works pretty well for me using the OSS drivers. Better experience than any of the binary drivers (NVIDIA and AMD), and the performance and features are good enough for gaming via WINE (though still not quite as good as the binary drivers AFAIK). I think the current pain points are support for the latest hardware and power saving for laptops.
  - zanny 13y ago
    Kernel 3.13 got full dual graphics ACPI shutdown on the discrete part, and they have had DPM enabled on all parts since 3.12. Should be good now on the power saving end.
cookiecaper 13y ago
They can get away with it because their drivers actually work. The OSS drivers are improving, but it's taken them a half-decade or more to come even within 70% of Windows performance parity. nVidia's drivers have performance parity on day 1, and generally, far fewer show-stopping bugs.
- zanny 13y ago
  Really, FOSS driver development has been confined to the last 2 years. AMD has a half dozen developers in Mesa, and I think Intel has around 20. They have pushed it from Core Profile 2.1 to 3.3 in 2 years, and will probably have it at 4.0 or 4.1 by years end. Before that, AMD wasn't making free drivers, and Intel didn't care about their integrated graphics as much and never had higher GL support on them. They have come pretty far in a short time frame, and by the time GL 5 comes out (I assume, the one with the low level primitive support to match DX12) Mesa should only be a version behind or so. Also, I wouldn't really agree Nvidia drivers work. I had a GTX 285 in an older machine I put Ubuntu on, and their blob didn't work with resume / suspend at all. Dunno if they'd work now, I just switched that system to Nouveau, which... works with suspend flawlessly. And manages fan speeds a lot better than the blob, too.
  - cookiecaper 13y ago
    AMD's been making free drivers for seven years. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=826&num=1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=826&num=1 I said the last half-decade to be generous. It's taken this long to finally get some of the older cards to a mostly usable state for 3D gaming (usually the point of a consumer-grade 3D graphics card). Mesa has been picking up new GL versions which is good, but it's taken a really long time.
    - blinkingled 13y ago
      >AMD's been making free drivers for seven years. It takes lot of time and effort to get GPU drivers usable with all features. I would say they actually did a great job hiring OSS people, contributing documentation after lengthy legal reviews and they kept up with most older and newer GPUs. And they now have dynamic power management! That's great progress for me.

teacup50 13y ago

> More importantly, why does NVidia, who contribute practically nothing to Free graphics development (drivers or the rest of the graphics stack) think that the Wayland developers have any obligation to make Wayland work well with their secretly-developed blobs? NVidia could also just not support Linux at all, which would certainly create even more of an uphill battle for Free graphics development and Linux.

Morgawr 13y ago
That would be a pretty terrible PR move by nVidia. While I hate the fact that they don't open source their stuff, I have to give them props because their blobs drivers work really well on Linux too. Abandoning Linux is definitely the wrong move, especially now that the gaming community is thriving.
- pekk 13y ago
  Terrible PR among the tiny minority of Linux users. Most people are using Windows or Mac and most of those are either completely ignorant, completely indifferent or actively hostile to Linux
  - Morgawr 13y ago
    You're not too familiar with the gaming community and the noise they can generate, are you? Just look at the Oculus deal, if you're in the gaming industry you definitely don't want to piss off gamers, no matter how much of a minority they can be. This said, Linux is thriving a lot these days and is gaining a huge momentum as far as gaming goes. The community is constantly growing, the tools are all coming to Linux, SteamOS is right behind the corner, more and more companies are targeting the Linux platform, etc etc. Bailing out of the Linux ecosystem now would be a terrible and shortsighted move on behalf of nVidia.
    - cookiecaper 13y ago
      What are we supposed to learn about the power of gamers from the Oculus deal? They can whine on forums and cancel their pre-orders? That has been the only visible "negative" consequence of the Oculus/Facebook deal thus far.

jamesaguilar 13y ago

I don't see where nvidia acts as if Wayland devs have any obligations here. All he said was that their driver would not work after this change. The only thing this obligates Wayland devs to do is not change this if they want nvidia to support wayland.