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NVIDIA Cg Compiler Technology to be Open Source
Jim Norton writes "This announcement from nVidia states that
their Cg compiler technology for 3D applications will be Open Source and available under a free, unrestrictive license. The ETA for this is in August and will be available here." The linked company release says it will be under "a nonrestrictive, free license," but does not give further details. BSD?
ass the article fails to spell out the details, other than it is a "non-restrictive open source lisence" we can assume this means something like the BSD or X lisences, especially since MS co developed it. The was a daemonnews thread a while back about Bill Gates saying how governments should use BSD-style lisences for the absolue maximum effectevness on stuff they develope. It just allows more embracing and extending to happen.
Some of the best news is that they've openly said they'll include support for ATI and other large manufacturers of competing graphics products. I'm glad to see that Nvidia isn't being closed-minded or trying to undermine their own intentions for ease of development by using the proprietarity card.
I'm in a field totally different from graphics programming and hardware, but:
In my reading of earlier coverage of Cg, my understanding that most people weren't concerned about Cg or its compiler being open source, but rather that Cg would depend to some extent on hardware specs that are proprietary. This would have the effect of driving other hardware competitors out of business because they can't implement Cg components because of hardware patents. Sort of similar to fears associated with MS open sourcing part of C# while keeping a good deal of it dependent on proprietary stuff. The fear is that Cg would lead to people saying things like "well, your video card is so crappy it doesn't even support a standard graphics programming language" (all the while being unaware that the card can't because of hardware patents). Just because the language and compiler is open-source doesn't mean the hardware it will run on is.
Anyone more knowledgable care to comment? Am I misunderstanding this?
creative has free software drivers for gnu/linux. and as far as I know there are some sort of specs that would make it easy to port to another platform.
give me bongo
Nvidia, if you're reading this, please read.
For as long as I remember, the #1 complaint from the open source community has been the lack of open source X drivers, and the lack of documentation for directly accessing the hardware.
This still isn't direct access to the hardware is it? This is an API that goes through a compiler that translates things into machine code. Absolutely no real access to speak of.
Sometimes I wonder if nvidia cards are truly the hardware marvels that they are. Their implementation sort of reminds me of Play Incorporated's snappy video snapshot, where the hardware functions and bios get's loaded by an external program. I don't know if this is the exact case with nvidia hardware, but i'm pretty sure i'm not that far off the mark.
If that really is the case, it means that TNT2 cards are capable of all the neat tricks gforce cards only alot slower. I can see why you wouldn't want it opened up to the public. What's to stop a competetor from using the same hardware/software implementation you are?
I don't think it would seriously put a dent in the bottom line however. People tend to keep loyaltee's towards a company if it doesn't fuck their customers. Look at how many hits a day voodoofiles.com gets!
So be bold and daring like the new dorito's. Let other companies mimic your techniques, and try not to worry about the bottom line so much. If you let a bunch of open source guru's hack on your code, you could fire a few of those internal programmers thereby making up the cost. If you do this, anytime a relative, friend, customer asks us what 3d card solution they should get, we will respond NVIDIA.
yours truly
--toq