Microsoft opened its source - how about nVidia?

[beosrbin]

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/Jul09/07-20LinuxQA.mspx
And more to come: http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218501447

Three things make this announcement huge:
1. Microsoft
2. GPLv2 License
3. Drivers

I hope to see some more software giants (*hint hint*) to do the same thing. :D

[Dragoran]

How is this related? (not at all)

[beosrbin]

I'm asking the developers if they will too open the source of the graphics driver.
(It's an nvidia support forum, isn't it?)

Perhaps you're right, maybe it should be transferred to "General Linux"

[thefirstm]

All M$ released was code to make Linux run faster being virtualized on Windows. Why in the world would anyone want to do that? Why not just run Linux natively on the hardware?

[Dragoran]

I'm asking the developers if they will too open the source of the graphics driver.
(It's an nvidia support forum, isn't it?)

Perhaps you're right, maybe it should be transferred to "General Linux"

They won't in the foreseeable future, also I doubt that the people how read this forums even have the power to decide that.

[Dâniel Fraga]

They won't in the foreseeable future, also I doubt that the people how read this forums even have the power to decide that.

Even if you're right, at least it's good to register this opinion. If AMD/ATI can open the specs, why nVidia can't do the same?

[Dizzle7677]

How Microsoft made open source selfish
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2009/07/21/how-microsoft-made-open-source-selfish/

[dougdeep]

All M$ released was code to make Linux run faster being virtualized on Windows. Why in the world would anyone want to do that? Why not just run Linux natively on the hardware?

For any of the hundred reasons any one would want to virtualize anything. There's tons of excellent reasons to run virtual machines. I'll leave it for anyone to Google the reasons. Can you run 10 instances of Linux on a single x86 machine without virtualization?

Linux runs particularly well as a virtual machine, and Microsoft is trying to push some of their own virtualization products. Thus the release of Linux drivers to improve the performance of a Linux VM running on a Microsoft hypervisor.

Microsoft didn't really make any noteworthy open source moves here. They needed to release drivers for Linux, and the only way to get them in the kernel tree is to give them a compatible license (GPL). So that leads me back to the original argument, if Microsoft can release GPL drivers without a binary blob, why can't NVidia? I'm willing to bet that locked in Nvidia's binary blob is some intellectual property that they do not have exclusive rights to give up, even if they wanted.

[eborn]

Microsoft's open-source drivers won't do a thing without their Windows operating system. In a way, Windows is their 'binary blob'.

[thefirstm]

For any of the hundred reasons any one would want to virtualize anything. There's tons of excellent reasons to run virtual machines. I'll leave it for anyone to Google the reasons. Can you run 10 instances of Linux on a single x86 machine without virtualization?

Linux runs particularly well as a virtual machine, and Microsoft is trying to push some of their own virtualization products. Thus the release of Linux drivers to improve the performance of a Linux VM running on a Microsoft hypervisor.

Microsoft didn't really make any noteworthy open source moves here. They needed to release drivers for Linux, and the only way to get them in the kernel tree is to give them a compatible license (GPL). So that leads me back to the original argument, if Microsoft can release GPL drivers without a binary blob, why can't NVidia? I'm willing to bet that locked in Nvidia's binary blob is some intellectual property that they do not have exclusive rights to give up, even if they wanted.

How about KVM, VMWare, VirtualBox, or one of the other x86(_64) virtualization products that run natively on Linux? You do not need Windows for virtualization.

[Dizzle7677]

"Microsoft opened its source"

Fat Chance.