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.'"

Comments

I'd agree with them on that..

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Posting anonymously because some people are _incredibly_ opinionated on this subject, but not everybody has the opinion that everything linux related must be open source. Linus Torvalds, while a visionary and certainly one of the most technologically-minded people of our age, disagrees with this, and that's too bad. Just because Linus Torvalds thinks you're doing it wrong doesn't necessarily mean you are.

Cheers.

Re:I'd agree with them on that..

[Penguinisto]

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.

Re:I'd agree with them on that..

[Yvanhoe]

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.

Re:I'd agree with them on that..

[gl4ss]

and I suppose this response from nvidia outlines why Linus is frustrated with nvidia.

the response doesn't have anything to do with the issue he complained about and the response is just about waving hands to make people look the other way, "look, we do provide drivers! we provide the same drivers on the same day!(but please don't ask us about optimus)".

(also, traditionally one reason for closed source and binary blob graphics drivers has been just plain old bullshitting and lies about what the card does on card with hw. also about selling same products for different clients for wildly different pricing).

At least open the specs.

[Picass0]

I think Torvalds less critical of closed source drivers and more critical of closed specs. Nouveau would be improved greatly if Nvidia provided more transparency on the hardware.

Re:At least open the specs.

[DigiShaman]

With Intel and AMD as their competition, why risk tipping your hat for what arguably could be called a niche market. Keeping secrets about low level hardware optimizations is a competitive market advantage.

Re:At least open the specs.

[KingMotley]

What makes you think that your bank account PIN can't be guessed? Please post it.

Re:At least open the specs.

[DrXym]

They could keep their low level optimizations and simply release the technical specs to their hardware. Then the nouveau people can program the driver without even seeing NVidia do or do not do in their own code.

Keeping the source closed might mean they have some secret tricks but at what cost? At the end of the day updating a binary driver is a pain in the arse. Every time the kernel changes, the video driver must be updated. The natural inclination for Linux users is to favour AMD or Intel products and forget about NVidia completely. And yet NVidia is stuck with testing and develop a driver that runs across an eclectic range of kernels and distributions. If they opened the source, or assisted nouveau by releasing the tech specs they could turn over a lot of support and maintenance to the distributions themselves.

They could even implement some reasonable and sane end of life policy where once a GPU is more than 2 years old they turn over the specs or some reference driver so the hardware can be community supported. It would gain them a lot of kudos and alleviate them from a lot of the hassle of maintaining drivers.

Re:At least open the specs.

[sqldr]

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.

Re:At least open the specs.

[toejam13]

Every time the kernel changes, the video driver must be updated.

I see that as a problem with the kernel developers, not the video driver developers.

I've read elsewhere that developers from Nvidia are frustrated over the volatility of the Linux kernel interface to the graphics subsystem. It changes frequently and often with little advanced notification. You don't hear that complaint about Windows, MacOS or FreeBSD.

Perhaps your ire is aimed at the wrong group.

Re:At least open the specs.

[hairyfeet]

This would be an argument IF Nvidia and AMD were doing things even closely to the same way, but they are not and haven't been for several years now. Nvidia has always used the classical "Build a big ass bad ass chip, then cut it down for the mainstream and budget markets" while AMD is using the "Build a mainstream chip and then add more chips to ramp UP to the high end" which is a completely different approach and one knowing how the other did X or Y frankly i doubt would help much as their designs are just too different. hell just look at the specs of any two roughly equal Nvidia and AMD chips, Nvidia has fewer but much more powerful cores while AMD has hundreds of weaker cores working in concert.

so I really don't see how knowing how one does X or Y really is gonna do shit. After all they could always reverse engineer the hardware or write a custom kernel to look at what is going on if they were THAT curious and it certainly didn't seem to bother AMD to open up THEIR specs, most likely because as i said their designs and Nvidia's are just too radically different for one to be copying the other. I mean how long as AMD been using the X2s for the high end now? 5 years? 6? it wouldn't make any sense to suddenly change their designs just because Nvidia opened their specs, not to mention it would mean basically tossing their designs and roadmap, it just wouldn't make sense.

It Is Positive

[assertation]

It is positive sign that they care enough about the Linux community to bother to have their PR department give the usual empty corporate zero content response.

Re:Diplomatic response

[Hatta]

Sure, Linus made Linux and uses it to push his agenda (i.e. that of FOSS)

No, Linus uses FOSS to push Linux, not the other way around.

Re:"consistent" experience?

[Anonymous Coward]

No the "Consistent Experience" statement is just PR bullshit.

If providing a "consistent experience" was a true goal of the company they would be implementing Optimus on Linux.

Disappointing response

[peppepz]

Basically they're confirming Linus' words, not denying them. Linus never said that they don't make good drivers. He said that they suck at doing open source, which is an objective truth. Their response is that they do that because they don't want to invest resources to specifically support Linux. Which is exactly what Linus was upset about.

Re:Cannot open drivers source

[bruce_the_loon]

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.

lol.. consistency

[sl4shd0rk]

I haven't had an NVIDIA driver work the same in Linux as it does in windows. Ever. Random screen blanking (nouveau driver), weird X errors (poly request too large or internal Xlib length error) and re-compiles every time there is a system kernel update. In comparison, all you need to do in Windows to get the NVIDIA driver working is hold down the enter key with a stapler while it's installing. Accept all the defaults. reboot. it's working.

At "the end of the day" this is not consistency, it's crapsistency.

Right to Repair bill in Massachusetts

[Latent Heat]

The Commonwealth of Massuchesetts is going to have a ballot question on whether auto companies have to reveal all of their "codes" so that independent repair shops (and I guess do-it-yourself people) would have access to diagnostics on cars. Some assembly member is attempting legislation to preempt the referendum question, telling the auto companies, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way . . ."

So, maybe we could get Bay State voters interested in open other things?

Re:Right to Repair bill in Massachusetts

[Lonewolf666]

Getting a bit off topic, but I don't see the conflict between Federal law and state law.

By not providing the codes (including decryption codes for encrypted onboard electronics) the auto manufactures would be violating state law. Instead of trying to crack the encryption, auto mechanics could sue them. No DMCA violation necessary there.

Re:Diplomatic response

[higuita]

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.

Re:Summary

[peppepz]

Yeah, you're right, who's this Linux Torvalds to judge who contributes to the Linux kernel and who doesn't.

Re:Nvidia has said this all along..

[Joehonkie]

He wants working Optimus on laptops. He was kinda clear about that.

Re:OP here..

[David Chappell]

Openly bashing NVIDIA for doing things their way is wrong, because it's their product, and, therefore, their decision.

The right to make a decision does not include the right not to be criticised for the descision one make.

Re:OP here..

[wisty]

I wouldn't call Linus's off-the-cuff speech "bashing". While his exact words were "Fuck you, nVidia" it was in a jovial sort of way. Americans might not understand, but for most English speakers (especially Brits and non-natives) "Fuck you" is not always incredibly harsh.

His main criticism was, they were making a lot of money off Linux (selling chips to run Android), and were being difficult to work with.

Also, it was an off-the-cuff remark. He's not a Presidential candidate or CEO, he's a programmer. Some people talk in a way that PR flacks don't, and if they are well known it causes a bit of a PR shitstorm. The media reports their "rant", instead of the 49 other minutes before it, in which they were speaking quite insightfully.

Seriously, everyone knows about the Tanenbaum–Torvalds "flame war", in which Linus came up with such withering remarks as "linux still beats the
pants of minix in almost all areas", and Andrew shot back with things like "You would not get a high grade for such a design :-)", and sprouted fanatical anti-free-software rhetoric like "For the true hacker, not having source code is fatal, but for people who just want a UNIX system, there are many alternatives (albeit not free)".

Strong stuff.

I guess people are more interested in shit-slinging (or even pretending that there was shit-slinging) than the technical points these guys raise.

I've heard Linus is a bit mean at times (rejecting patches? refusing to mentor new contributors?), but the idea that he's an angry angry man seems to be more myth than anything.

Re:The community failed on ATi

[ratboy666]

The AMD community supports all (11 now?) chip types, over all (4 now?) generations of Radeon released (since 2000).

KMS (kernel mode setting) and other features of the Linux graphics stack are supported over all hardware, including TV out, and other features.

3D is a work in progress. Yes, it's been almost five years, but the features do work.

I would say that, objectively, the open source drivers have been a success. I would even say that the open source drivers are arguably superior to the closed ones. Work continues (especially in the 3D area). Does the proprietary driver support stuff like multi-seat?

Of course, you claim that it doesn't work at all, and that the effort has been for nought. Please clarify. Bug reports would probably be welcome (not sure, but check x.org, freedesktop.org).

At the least, please post your hardware information, so that other people will know to avoid it.