Linus shows the finger to Nvidia!

[billybob linux]

The Nvidia issue was just a small part of a long and interesting talk. For anyone who did not take the time to watch the whole thing, I would say it is well worth taking the time to watch.

For anyone out there embarking on a mighty challenge they might find this talk somewhat inspirational. Passion, attention to detail, enjoying what you do, and sticking with it for the long haul, is just some of what I took out of his story. Yes, he did say his piece about Nvidia, but like he said he is finnish and I guess they say what they think

Isn't forcedeth opensource code?

/lib/modules/3.4.2-1.fc16.x86_64/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/nvidia/forcedeth.ko

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_nforce_1.21

[DBelton]

Well, here is Nvidia's response to Linus:

PR Response to Linus Torvald's Inflammatory Comments

Supporting Linux is important to NVIDIA, and we understand that there are people who are as passionate about Linux as an open source platform as we are passionate about delivering an awesome GPU experience.

Recently, there have been some questions raised about our lack of support for our Optimus notebook technology. When we launched our Optimus notebook technology, it was with support for Windows 7 only. The open source community rallied to work around this with support from the Bumblebee Open Source Project http://bumblebee-project.org/. And as a result, we've recently made Installer and readme changes in our R295 drivers that were designed to make interaction with Bumblebee easier.

While we understand that some people would prefer us to provide detailed documentation on all of our GPU internals, or be more active in Linux kernel community development discussions, we have made a decision to support Linux on our GPUs by leveraging NVIDIA common code, rather than the Linux common infrastructure. While this may not please everyone, it does allow us to provide the most consistent GPU experience to our customers, regardless of platform or operating system.

As a result:

1) Linux end users benefit from same-day support for new GPUs , OpenGL version and extension parity between NVIDIA Windows and NVIDIA Linux support, and OpenGL performance parity between NVIDIA Windows and NVIDIA Linux.

2) We support a wide variety of GPUs on Linux, including our latest GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla-class GPUs, for both desktop and notebook platforms. Our drivers for these platforms are updated regularly, with seven updates released so far this year for Linux alone. The latest Linux drivers can be downloaded from www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html.

3) We are a very active participant in the ARM Linux kernel. For the latest 3.4 ARM kernel – the next-gen kernel to be used on future Linux, Android, and Chrome distributions – NVIDIA ranks second in terms of total lines changed and fourth in terms of number of changesets for all employers or organizations.

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.

[tashirosgt]

Are Nvidia and ATI the only video chip makers left?

[RupertPupkin]

Originally Posted by tashirosgt

Are Nvidia and ATI the only video chip makers left?

No, Intel still makes video chips, and I believe VIA does as well.

[hadrons123]

Nvidia's response means they still won't change anything. Everything is gonna be the same. They deserve the finger.

[owl102]

Originally Posted by hadrons123

Nvidia's response means they still won't change anything. Everything is gonna be the same. They deserve the finger.

I totally agree. If I translate this PR response to plain English it reads to me:

We simply did not support Optimus notebook technology in Linux because we did not wanted to. Neither Linus nor the Linux users are defining what will be best for our customers, but we do. So everything is fine as it is, and we do not intend to change a single bit. BTW: Regarding Android, yes we are making tons of money with it, and to make us able to do so, we had to change code in Android, too, but don't expect we do any coding for Linux/Android beyond that. Hey, did we already said that we do not indent to change anything?

So to me this proves that in fact Linus has only done what Nvidia is doing to the Linux Community since decades, showing the finger.

[mmix]

it is no good, it is not gonna happen to make thing like sun's java.
nvidia won't open their source, so let's hope nouveau and other ways..

[Wayne]

NVIDIA Loses Huge GPU Order Due To Linux Blob

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...tem&px=MTEyNTE

[jpollard]

Perhaps this will rub their nose in their own poop...