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Nvidia Wants To Prohibit Consumer GPU Use In Datacenters (theregister.co.uk)
The Register reports:
Nvidia has banned the use of its GeForce and Titan gaming graphics cards in data centers -- forcing organizations to fork out for more expensive gear, like its latest Tesla V100 chips. The chip-design giant updated its GeForce and Titan software licensing in the past few days, adding a new clause that reads: "No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted."
Long-time Slashdot reader Xesdeeni has a few questions: Is this really even legal? First, because it changes use of existing hardware, already purchased, by changing software (with potentially required bug fixes) agreements retroactively. Second, because how can a customer (at least in the U.S.) be told they can't use a product in a particular place, unless it's a genuine safety or security concern (i.e. government regulation)!?
Nvidia expects that "working together with our user base on a case-by-case basis, we will be able to resolve any customer concerns," they told CNBC, adding that "those who don't download new drivers won't be held to the new terms."
Long-time Slashdot reader Xesdeeni has a few questions: Is this really even legal? First, because it changes use of existing hardware, already purchased, by changing software (with potentially required bug fixes) agreements retroactively. Second, because how can a customer (at least in the U.S.) be told they can't use a product in a particular place, unless it's a genuine safety or security concern (i.e. government regulation)!?
Nvidia expects that "working together with our user base on a case-by-case basis, we will be able to resolve any customer concerns," they told CNBC, adding that "those who don't download new drivers won't be held to the new terms."
With policies like that, Oracle will be proud to buy them!
...just because you plaster something in a license doesn't make it automatically law.
"WHQL certified drivers are deployed automatically via Windows Update." -- And if you're running an OS that allows MS to automatically update your server, you deserve everything you get.
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Agreed. Even if you ask the janitor or your kid to click the install button, you're technically in the clear.
It's about pricing.
For roughly equivalent GeForce versus Quadro/Tesla, nVidia charges an arm and a leg more for the professional model. They have long been forbidding their partners from selling 'professional' (workstation/server) products and allowing to order GeForce with them.
Particularly this has been a sore spot for academia, where they always want the cheaper GeForce model and they inexplicably can't get it.. I work at a vendor and customers always assume it is us being rent seeking assholes. I'm happy nVidia is making it very clear they are the ones being assholes, not us.
I don't see NVIDIA going after people who install the software in a datacenter. I see them using this licensing clause to quash lawsuits from people who do violate the terms, and end up having some sort of issue running the hardware where NVIDIA could be held liable. Be it something extreme like a fire from overheating, to a chip-level problem like what Intel has recently been going through You're running this software/hardware in a datacenter, and we told you not to. Liability absolved...maybe.
History repeats itself, did you ever remember the stories about Microsoft and Xbox? Apple and the iPhone? The right to modify your own hardware device?
The consumers and the companies that produced these product - couldn't quite agree on the ownership, even though it should be blatantly clear: If you OWN the hardware you purchase, you're technically free to do what it as you wish (in a perfect world free from lobbyist that convince lawmakers to follow the way of the companies rather than the public wishes).
Now, that said - the companies in turn, has no specific responsibility to offer you free software that support certain functions for your own purposes if they don't wish to do so, you may own the hardware, but you don't have rights to demand them to do anything for you in the future with your hardware (unless promised by them).
Nor do they have any obligation to provide you or anyone with full documentation on how your hardware works.
You in turn - have the full rights to refuse their products, you simply don't buy them.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
I may be overly optimistic but I hope that this move will provide enough incentive for big corporations to get behind open source drivers and help create something that's on par with the official ones.
If I understand it right, you can still do whatever you want with the hardware itself, the restriction is on the drivers (software). That is why it does not apply to those who do not update the drivers. Nor if you use GeForce GPUs on Linux with the Nouveau drivers, but in practice switching to AMD is probably a better alternative.
However, in order not to infringe the janitor's human rights, you might wish to employ a team of cats trained in keyboard skills. (check Youtube for details).
In a cat vs Nvidia lawsuit, I would expect that cat to land on its feet.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
This LICENSE will automatically terminate if Customer fails to comply with any of the terms and conditions hereof. In such event, Customer must destroy all copies of the SOFTWARE and all of its component parts.
No Warranties.To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the software is provided "As is" and nvidia and its suppliers disclaim all warranties of any kind or nature, whether express, implied, or statutory, relating to or arising from the software, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.
Governing Law. This LICENSE shall be deemed to have been made in, and shall be construed pursuant to, the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to or application of its conflict of laws rules or principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is specifically disclaimed.
If I understand it right, you can still do whatever you want with the hardware itself, the restriction is on the drivers (software). That is why it does not apply to those who do not update the drivers.
I'm afraid it's not quite that simple. Ever heard of "rooting"? It simply means bypassing and editing the BIOS (which technically is also software) to your own liking, this often means bypassing access to hardware. This was the case for the longest time for those who wanted to use the powerful multi-core processors of the old Playstation 3.
These companies, don't want you to use your hardware for other purposes than they intended - as long as it competes with their own alternate products, never-mind the competition...
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Enforcement of this will be pretty much impossible without some tie-in to the OS or drivers. First of all, what's a datacenter? Cloud-based infrastructure, or a room of servers only running internally on a local network? How about a mining operation in someone's basement? A grad student running a small network of GPUs for some sort of academic research? Etc. Now, if they really want to enforce it, it can be done -- you'd have to tie the software and drivers to server-class platforms that people typically have to pay for. E.g., I've seen Chelsio do that with some of their iWarp NICs where iWarp is disabled on anything but Windows 10 Enterprise and the Microsoft server OSes (though in that case, Chelsio claimed that Microsoft forced them to do it). On the Linux side, that might not be a realistic option.
Unless an organization is already heavily invested in CUDA, they might go with OpenCL instead so they can use AMD consumer stuff instead of Quadros. Even where GeForce versus AMD Vega currently favors GeForce, Quadro prices will make sure that GeForce versus Vega turns that into a win for AMD in terms of investment costs.
In academia, that would also lead to the effect that new developers are more often trained on OpenCL and less on CUDA. That could lead to the sort of long-term win Microsoft Visual Studio had over the Borland development tools.
C - the footgun of programming languages
There are quite a few cases where you need access to the massive parallelism of a graphics card and don't care about the actual graphics part, and integrated graphics give less value for money. Render farms, machine learning, certain types of modeling (e.g. weather), etc.
ATI / AMD wins again!!
As they are open sourcing the ati video drivers in full for Linux.
Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe Systems, and Nvidia executives are trying to see who can be most abusive?
Just two laws are needed:
1) Everything bad is forbidden.
2) Everything good is mandatory.
Prediction: Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe Systems, and Nvidia will combine and become one company, known as MOAN.
We'll all be moaning about MOAN.
They're specifically stating that they do allow usage for mining.
I don't think this is relevant to GP's argumentation. He (she?) wrote that those who do not update the drivers don't need to agree to the new license. No rooting is necessary here. Legally, it means that the desire of Nvidia to control the use of their hardware can be avoided. At least in the short term.
Practically, the problem will resurface when the current hardware is obsolete/gets unreliable because of age and needs replacing, including drivers for the new hardware. Then the license terms won't be so easily avoided anymore.
Time to switch to AMD. Not only don't they have such clauses, they are actively putting themselves into a situation where a future management cannot easily pull a Nvidia anymore. I mean the open source driver development that gradually replaces the closed source drivers at AMD. Those licenses not be revoked for already released versions.
C - the footgun of programming languages
How is data center defined? I dont have a data center, I have a lab! I dont have a data center, I have a computer room. I dont have a data center I have a mind your own dam business room. Even if in a license I find it hard to see where they can stop the use of a product that has been purchased.
Rednecks around here buy $3,000 gaming rigs, and literally throw them away when they get a virus.
What kind of shit DC allows Windows Update? Are you running Home edition on a server?
I recently tried to add an nvidia card to my workstation for a virtual machine, and it turned out that nvidia breaks the driver when they detect the card is in a virtual machine.
Specifically you get an unexplained "Code 43" error, and nvidia's excuse is that there is a bug which they will not fix. However if you spent some time to hide the VM, like removing hypervisor drivers, it would have magically worked. Unlucky as I am, it turns out nvidia also broke that workaround (at least it did not work for me).
There are 3rd party patchers for this thing: https://github.com/sk1080/nvid... which require a lot of involvement, and will probably break at the next update. Given so much effort by nvidia to make sure I would be unable to use the hardware I purchased, I gave up, and removed the nvidia card from the workstation.
How do they intend to enforce this? Get your IP address from the driver, match it up against known blocks assigned to hosting companies? It's not like they can say "Oh, this is a Dell R740, the driver won't install" because that thing could be sitting (loudly) on a table in my house, not necessarily racked in a data center. It's one thing to say "We want you to buy our Quadro/Tesla gear for your giant virtualized environment" but another to say I can't pop a 1080 Ti in the one server that needs GPU horsepower for some task. It's asinine.
What are the odds that the warranty claims on these cards skyrocketed when they started getting used 24/7 in DC applications and caused this to get thrown in? They know miners won't buy cards that are inefficient for their purposes, and that money train is far too good to throw away, but wealthy corporations and universities? Pay up.
In the end, I will not buy a scumbag's product.
Is if fair for a brick-maker to forbid you from using one for a doorstop?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Capitalism is funny that way.
AMD and Intel make parallel computing hardware add-ons as well, plus a bunch of little guys. Lesson to be drawn: don't code your stuff in CUDA, use OpenCL so that it is portable to other hardware in case any one vendor gets to big for his britches.
The Tesla's have better and more double precision cores, larger ECC memory and ECC caches, thermally optimized for having 4 of them in 1U servers vs a single card in a desktop.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
RMS was right. Again.
If you sell $5 buckets for carrying water and *the same* buckets for $50 with a couple of minor tweaks for carrying wine, donâ(TM)t be surprised when people buy the $5 buckets and decide they theyâ(TM)re good enough to carry wine.
This points to either an artificial cross-market restriction (i.e. antitrust) or a wide open opportunity for competition. CUDA and CuDNN represents a substantial hurdle, though. Still, OpenCL *is* in early stages in some deep learning libraries. Hereâ(TM)s hoping it gets to parity (or close enough) to stop these sorts of abuses.
A group of managers surrounded by yes-men/women convinced themselves that an obviously ridiculous thing would fly, or can be even be explained away as being for customers' own benefit. Plenty of engineers said "that's retarded" on internal mailing lists. Nobody listened to them and a company lawyer told them to drop the thread. Expect some weeks of denial and PR attempts followed by inevitable caving in with "it's only a guideline". I have not seen this particular train wreck from inside, but they are all the same.
I never asked Windows to update, and it installs the drivers without any user input. therefor I DIDN'T agree to anything. The person/entity you are looking to sue would be Microsoft for forcing me into breaking your contract rules.
Many EULAs have clauses that read something like this:
- the software and/or EULA may be modified from time to time;
- your continued use of the software after such modifications indicates your agreement to the new terms;
- if you disagree with the terms, you must cease use of the software, blah blah blah; and
- certain clauses in the EULA survive after you cease use of the software.
IANAL. but my basic understanding is that you agree to conditions as they are now and in the future, and if you don't like it, your only option is to stop using the product.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Microsoft Is Filled With Abusive Managers And Overworked Employees, Says Tell-All Book
Embrace, extend, and extinguish "... a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage its competitors."
Microsoft no longer sells a usable operating system. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made.
Windows 10 shows you ads while you are trying to work. But, at least at present, you may be able to stop at least some of the advertising: 7 ways Windows 10 pushes ads at you, and how to stop them.
Also, due to the form fractor, the GTX 1080s won't fit in a blade-type server. We have to buy a thicker desktop-style machine and fit it into the rack sideways, where it takes up more height than we'd like.
The