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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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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.
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
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
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.
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
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.
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.
RMS was right. Again.
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.