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NVIDIA Responds To Linus Torvalds
jones_supa writes "NVIDIA's PR department has issued a statement following the harsh comments by Linus Torvalds last week where he referred to the graphics company as the single worst company he's ever dealt with, called them out on not supporting Optimus, and other issues. Basically the company replied they're committed to Linux using their proprietary driver that is largely common across platforms, and this allows for same-day Linux support with full OpenGL implementation. They also say that they're active in ARM Linux for Tegra and support a wide range of hardware under Linux. Despite having not made any commitment to better support Optimus under Linux nor providing technical assistance to the Nouveau community, NVIDIA assures us that 'at the end of the day, providing a consistent GPU experience across multiple platforms for all of our customers continues to be one of our key goals.'"
As sibling said - I don't think anyone particularly cares if they write closed-source software - just open the effing API and specifications, so the community can write its own drivers for it.
Also, Nvidia is still not providing any Linux support for the one chipset that seems to be the most commonly used in laptops... go figure.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
No support of Optimus means that on laptops, nvidia cards are either unsupported or power hungry. NVidia made a statement saying they will never support such a feature in their linux drivers. Nouveau has repeatedly asked for the specification information of this. Note that this information is not critical at all from a strategical point of view. No answer. NVidia's message is clearly "linux users are second zone citizens and we will not help them the slightest".
Even when not thinking that everything linux should be open source, NVidia does not provide a working linux driver for its optimus cards (that is, 90% of cards sold in laptops today). With no open source solution and no closed source solution, we can simply stare as a fact that their support simply sucks.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I think he means that there is no real difference between a Quadro GPU and the consumer GeForce GPU, only a PCI ID and some limits in the firmware.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
Apps have a stable API, so non-FOSS software can work fine with linux...
now DRIVERS have to comply with the kernel API, that might not be stable over time and can change... hardware builders should integrate their drivers in the kernel tree or suffer the pain of outside development. Its their choice, having to work together with the community and have the pain for legal process and code cleanup (not all trash is accepted in the kernel) is harder in the beginning, but will pay off for everyone (users, developers and company) on the long run... or play dumb and keep the closed driver and keep updating it when things change.
Releasing the hardware papers will allow the community to develop their drivers without the company have to work much, so between open source drivers, papers or close source drivers, the company have a lot to choose.
Most companies choose the first or at every least, release some papers or demo driver. They are seen as heros.
Nvidia is one of the few that choose closed sources drivers and so earns the hate of many users and the kernel developers.
Again, its their choice. Also, its the user choice to buy their cards or not.
i personally prefer open drivers and stability over better performance and locked in over on my own machine. other might have other opinions.
finally Linus dont have a hidden agenda, he cares only about the kernel and closed source drivers make very hard to almost impossible to debug problems. He choose GPL as a license as it protect his work from being abused by others. Linus didnt even wanted to migrate to GPL V3, so is clearly dont have a hidden agenda.
Again, if NVIDIA dont like the kernel license, they can choose to work only with *BSD kernels.
Higuita
He wants working Optimus on laptops. He was kinda clear about that.
I've read the specs for AMD. It's mostly just a list of registers and what numbers to dump into them to control it. It's hardly giving away how it works.
As an offtopic, there's over 500 of the bloody things. I sort of glazed over when I saw it. The people writing drivers with no support are doing a grand (but probably quite fun) job.
I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.