Open Source & NVIDIA

[jackangel]

Dear NVIDIA employees, please tell me what I want to know:

Would you consider releasing your drivers in open source, under GNU GPL?
I, personally, think that such a release wouldn't infringe and legal rights of NVIDIA nor would it somehow deprive you of your incomes. Such practice would be only to the benefit of all users and developers. People would find and fix bugs much faster than your limited number of programmers do, so you would be more concentrated on improving performance and adding new features.

Also, providing binary drivers for the open source operating system is quite irritating - I mean, just look at it - without NVIDIA drivers, my system would be
one hundred percent open source - every hardware I have has their open source drivers. Why would other companies make these drivers open source / release some specs allowing developers to make the drivers, and NVIDIA wouldn't? Follow them and realize that you will not lose any money or intellectual property by releasing the drivers. After all, the drivers are useless without the actual hardware, and they ship free with the hardware - so, users will buy hardware anyway, and, as drivers come free, why not make the open source too?

The kernel driver is actually open source, but with somewhat restricted license. Also, it is quite overweight - your typical kernel module is 100kb at max, but nvidia's one is over a meg. Does a module really have to be as big as the kernel image itself (kernel is compressed, though)? Why not change the open source kernel module's license to GNU GPL?
Using NVIDIA kernel module with non-GPL license taints the kernel, this is bad: http://www.tux.org/lkml/#s1-18
Moving to GPL will solve this problem - and it's quite painless IMAO.

My conclusion is that transition of all NVIDIA-Linux stuff to open source would benefit both NVIDIA itself and the users. I know some people who wouldn't buy NVIDIA card, their reason being their usage of linux and denial of using binary drivers - so, they usually end up buying ATI Radeon, for which the open source drivers are available. Release the drivers open source and they may reconsider this decision. Some bugs (e.g., incompatibility of NVIDIA kernel driver with in-kernel framebuffer driver for NVIDIA cards (rivafb), crashes/hangups while switching to console and back) would be finally (hopefully) solved, when kernel developers actually get their hands on the source, armed with debuggers.

Whatever the cause of not releasing this stuff open source, please, tell it to me and other GNU/Linux people willing open-source drivers (there are quite many of those, e.g. the developers of the most popular linux video player - mplayer).

[bwkaz]

The first thing a lot of people will say is that they can't, as it will violate a handful of NDAs they have signed with other companies.

What I say is, so put the NDA-covered code in the ROM BIOS on your cards, and take it out of your driver. *shrug*

It can't possibly do anything but help, though, when your users can actually submit useful bug reports, like "there seems to be a problem with the driver not being able to return to text mode properly, when this variable is 235, and this other one is 57382." (for example).

[nileshbansal]

Ya i also believe that nvidia cards can perform much-much better if they make their drivers open source, and many more linux users will switch to nvidia. I dont know whats the problem with nvidia that they want to make open their card specs.
Closed source drivers are very BUGGY, and my card is not able to perform the way it does in windows(not even comparable to that). I am not able to get 3D support even with nvidia drivers.
If nvidia can't make source open they should make good drivers(windows drivers are good), but they dont as they know linux community is not very large and they enjoy some monopolistic previlages.
plz plz plz go open source as i know nvidia will never be able to write good drivers. And if you cant atleast suggest me name of some card with good linux support.

[TRON21Net]

I think making the drivers open source would solve a huge load of bugs and problems. The drivers just get worse and worse each new release and this is getting out of hand. Windows drivers aren't any better, the newest drivers lag my windows machine to death that uses the nForce2 chipset whenever it accesses the hard drives and the hardware is fine since Linux has no problems whenever it uses it's own drivers but the second I have it use the nForce kernel driver all hell breaks loose. >:(

I support making the drivers open source 100%!

[TRON21Net]

Also nvidia could easily make it open source and the parts of the code that cannot be can be placed in a pre-compiled object file that can be linked with the open source code so that everything would work. That way nvidia wouldn't get in trouble. :P

[Cheshiremackat]

While I think everyone would like to see Nvid GPL their drivers, I don't think it will ever happen because of us voting here.

IF we all want GPL drivers then physically WRITE the company (ink and paper) Address to Pres... say something about how you use linux, and will only use NVID cards b/c their support is better than ATI, BUT... that the support COULD be better if the drivers were opensource... play up the ATI thing, saying how Nvidia would be unique in the Linux market, and that is growing fast...

Say how IBM, Oracle and others are pouring resources in Linux and how you want to see Nvidia, as your preferred graphics co. embrace OSS!

If enough people did this, we might see some results... maybe even a BSD style license, which although not GPL is better than what we have...

Just for the record, i did this myself for my nforce board, saying how I wanted better driver support...

By posting a poll here only Andy and the other programmers get grief, nobody who would decide to GPL the drivers ever sees these posts (Sorry Andy, you are great but I know the decisions are made in the corp suite)... bug the people who can make it happen!

_CMK

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by TRON21Net
the parts of the code that cannot be can be placed in a pre-compiled object file that can be linked with the open source code Uhmm... that's not open-source...

See the definition of open source (http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php)

And CMK -- that sounds like a pretty good idea. Anyone know the address of someone at nVidia that would work for this? :p

[TRON21Net]

bwkaz: I was refering to the parts of code that they cannot release to the public what so ever because of licensing with other vendors. It's a start to have most of the driver released as open source which is better than none. And I know what open source means but there are times when you have to find alternative ways to get anything done even if it means not a complete open source alternative.

[Noth]

I'm all for OSS drivers, but I don't really expect it to happen.

The drivers just get worse and worse each new release and this is getting out of hand. Windows drivers aren't any better, the newest drivers lag my windows machine to death that uses the nForce2 chipset whenever it accesses the hard drives and the hardware is fine since Linux has no problems whenever it uses it's own drivers but the second I have it use the nForce kernel driver all hell breaks loose. >:(

All I can say is that I havn't had a single problem with any of their drivers. I'm not using any NForce stuff (and I won't, unless there's no other option) but the nvidia XFree driver and GLX stuff has worked fine for me since day one and every new driver has worked just as well as the last.

[Cheshiremackat]

How about:

Mr. Jen-Hsun Huang ? CEO, President and Co-Founder

Or
Mr. Curtis R. Priem ? Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer

Or maybe BEST

Mr. Dwight Diercks, Vice President of Software Engineering


All reachable @
NVIDIA Corporate Office:
2701 San Tomas Expressway
Santa Clara, CA 95050


Seems pretty easy to be... so 3 stamps, paper & toner... time... maybe $2.00... I bet if everyone here did it (133 views?) then we would have better driver support in a hurry....

_CMK

man I wish this was /. I could use all this karma :angel:

[bwkaz]

Sweet, addresses saved. :)

[jackangel]

I've got the point. Almost all linux people here want it. We just must act for NVIDIA to do it.

Forum probably won't help very much, but I've just wanted to know what people think. Now I think I've got the point (just as I thought), so consider the following:

All of you people are encouraged to ask nvidia to release all their linux/freebsd drivers as open source. I've created an online petition where you can sign it, later I'll send it to NVIDIA by snail-mail to as many NVIDIA high-ranking employees as I can find.

Here's the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/hwopennv/petition.html

[omas]

Well, what are you all waiting for?

Sign it!!!

[bwkaz]

Ehhh... is there any way you could edit the petition text?

There are a few typos in there that I'd change (apostrophes in the wrong place, and stuff like that), and a couple of things that I'd say differently if I were you -- words like "bulls**t", while getting the point across well, may not work all that well in the end. Sounding professional is the way to go with something like this...

The other thing is, I've read somewhere the amount of "points" given to each method of contacting (for example) U.S. Senators -- I'd assume the same sort of scale would apply to this as well. They give 100 points to a phone call or hardcopy mailing (assuming it's actually personalized), 25-50 to an email, and about 0.5 to an online petition. Now you say you'll snail mail the petition results to nVidia; I don't know how that would come out on this scale, but the fact that it's an online petition may reduce the credibility. Allow me to emphasize the "may" in that sentence again. ;)

I know I, for one, will write a letter to them.

[jackangel]

i don't know if i can change typos, i've already sent request to petitiononline.com asking for that.
as for the bull**** etc., that's just my emphatic mood when i was writing that.
yeah, that may be true about the online petition stuff, but i hope snail-mailing it will be credible enough.

[jackangel]

allow me to say that this petition doesn't only count number of sign-ins, but also records people names AND e-mails, so it should get points as number_of_people*points_for_email, provided that e-mail addresses are valid

[how]

Hi everybody,

I would just like to discuss this. It is my observation that by the look of the linux forum more and more bugs and problem appear than the bug fixes for each release of the driver. I think alot of us including me like good working drivers. And bringing out opensource would definitely help alot, because I think there is are many capable people who can do bug fixes but are exclude because the drivers are not opensourced. What do you think everyone and Nvidia?

kind regards
How

[alien999999999]

you could start a sourceforge project for the linux nvidia drivers under GPL, or start your own cvs server and let lots of people help developing the drivers...

I can understand that it would seem weird to a company, but that would help your case, as bugfixes would be less and less, you wouldn't lose your advantage to competition, because you'd have an big community helping you out... in fact it will increase speed of driver release.

under that license no one can use your code, and because that code is public you can accuse competition much easier, should they do something.

plus if you'd go under GPL, the competition will follow...

no to mention that XFree could release their version with your drivers so that linux users would have direct access to the right drivers...

using a sourceforge project will be free and sourceforge has a lot of licenses they support. and it's an easy way to get lots of developpers to work together to make perfect drivers...

Alien

[Thunderbird]

A lot of users think that opensourcing a driver directly leads to a very good driver. This doesn't have to be true. For example look at the Radeon drivers. Ati provides all specs (they don't allow all to be used ..) but the dri drivers still aren't that great in terms of quality, stability and also performance.

To create very good drivers you need a lot of developers and they also need to know the hardware well.

Nvidia's current Linux drivers are quite optimal in terms of 3D performance (that is what most people care about). Nvidia uses a special unified library/kernel module that is shared between Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and other operating systems. More than 90% of the code is the same on all platforms. The other 10% is platform specific code (kernel glue, xfree86 ..).

Good programmers are working on the xfree86 part of the drivers. Including a member of the Xfree86 Core team (Mark Voljikovic). The 2D performance in recent drivers might be a little less but that is because a new architecture they are using to prevent other problems (twinview related for example).

The Linux drivers nvidia provides are very good compared to what the competition offers. Even compared to the Windows drivers the performance (atleast in 3D) is great. An opensource driver won't directly help. It is hard to build a fast (unified) driver and patents make some things about impossible to implement in an opensource driver. (for example S3TC)

[lajiri]

.

[how]

you said linux nvidia drivers are good at the moment. But I say it is not working properly most of the time. Have you read about the thread about people have performance issues on gf2 mx cards? results that are worst than TNT or TNT2?
And look at all those hardware problems TV-out, black screen, AGP...etc

[Thunderbird]

Some of these problems are in that last 10% of the code. Most mainly appear because X configuring problems. On windows you don't have a server to set up.

The AGP troubles exist on windows too. Various features like SBA/FW .. are disabled without knowing it. The problem is a little less there because you need a AGP driver from your hardware manufacturer. Windows useally only includes a Intel driver. I think the hardware provided agpgart driver might be a bit better.

[bwkaz]

We also don't see the thousands of people here that are having no problems whatsoever.

Like me (though I am speaking up now...).

[leibold]

There is no doubt in my mind that I do want open source drivers for nvidia hardware (chipsets and graphics), but in this poll you make me choose whether or not I think such a move will benefit nvidia.
There is one very clear benefit and that is to stop the complaints about the lack of an open source driver ;)
Having a worldwide community of developers making changes to your product however could easily go both ways. It is very easy to envision situations were a company releasing their drivers can get hurt in the process. Furthermore it's something they really have only one shot at. Opening the driver source is not something that can be undone. For this reason a lot of hardware companies feel safer keeping things secret. There really isn't anybody that can guarantee that opening the driver sources will bring any form of improvement to the company (whether it be more sales or reduced support costs).
There is one thing that the open source community has going for itself and that is the fact that it has a very good track record of acting responsibly. Hopefully the positive experiences of other companies that have gone through the process of releasing their drivers will help to convince those that so far haven't.

[Cheshiremackat]

I have no problems with the nvidia drivers at present... 3123 was a stinker for 2d but that was it...

basically, I would like to see a best of both worlds type situation... where Nvidia's source is opened up, but there are nvidia developers still writing code... there are some really talented people in "the community" that I am sure could tackle problems that are too minor/rare to be of much concern... If a specific combo of hardware conflicts then the community might be the best solution... however we need to be weary that the corportate managers will continue to fund development when other people do it for "free"... we may end up shooting ourselves in the foot...

I would happily support open source (GPL) co-developement, but not community development alone... (sorry ATi/DRI group)...

Consider the "worst case" before we go demanding anything... we might get more then we bargain for...


_CMK

P.S. Andy I think the drivers are fine...