[bnmillar]

Firstly for all the previous things they have done, for example their lack of driver support for free operating systems which is why Linus said this, their lack of Free Software drivers, their tight lockdown on proprietary technologies like PhysX that hurts portability and hurts non-Nvidia users and finally default collection of telemetry data is a highly unethical practice and the inclusion of the extra code to do it can only hurt stability and performance and increase driver size. Go ahead and downvote me to hell, I'm not bothered, go ahead and buy Nvidia chips, I will avoid Nvida like the plague till the day I die.

[KirinDave]

> Firstly for all the previous things they have done, for example their lack of driver support for free operating systems which is why Linus said this

It is not Nvidia's job to prop up the desktop linux ecosystem. It's wise not to invest time in that ecosystem, as far as I can tell. It's got an ongoing history of disappointing its customers and vendors over and over. And we get good enough computational support ever business or individual out there, Nvidia GPUs are still preferred for clustering.

> I will avoid Nvida like the plague till the day I die.

The way you talk makes it sound like it's a religious or political debate. You're mad that they don't support your demagogue or your shared values. Isn't Hacker News a place where we're supposed to keep politics at bay and focus on the technology?

[wwalexander]

NVIDIA could release documentation on their hardware that would make it easier for Nouveau developers to do their work, but they don't. Nobody is asking for free labor on a low-marketshare OS.

[dogma1138]

NVIDIA's own linux drivers are excellent, they are considerably better than AMD's ones (reversal from the days of ATI), but they are closed source.

NVIDIA released Linux drivers hand in hand with their Windows based ones, you get at least one update every month.

So while it's true that you can't have a completely open source driver for NVIDIA you do have excellent Linux drivers.

On the compute side NVIDIA's support for Linux is also unmatched, in fact for many things CUDA actually works better on Linux than on Windows.

[vetinari]

Unfortunately, Nvidia's proprietary drivers are excellent for features where the puck has been and not-so-excellent in features where the puck is going. See also Wayland support or switchable GPUs.

[dogma1138]

Been hearing about Wayland for a while wake me up when it's actually here. Also there is no problem with switchable GPU's which is specific to nVIDIA anymore the Optimus chip is no longer used (and haven't been for a while) since Intels Iris came out it powered a single generation of mobile GPUs and was a hack even on Windows.

[vetinari]

Wayland is actually there; it has been shipping with Fedora for some time and for 25 (release in less than two weeks), it is going to be default.

There is still problem with switchable GPUs: namely those, where one GPU is using Mesa and the other is not (i.e. Nvidia). Those computers didn't disappear for the face of the Earth, people are still using it and expect it to work, even if there are never laptops available on the market. It is being worked on (https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2016/11/01/discrete-graphics-...).

[stirner]

> Also there is no problem with switchable GPU's which is specific to nVIDIA anymore the Optimus chip is no longer used

Do you have a source for this? In any case, just because some hardware has been recently phased out doesn't mean the manufacturer shouldn't be expected to support it. Not everyone has enough money to buy a new computer every year; I'm a student with an Optimus laptop and I know I won't be able to afford a replacement in the next year or two.

If NVIDIA can't be asked to fully support their hardware on Linux, the least they can do is release some documentation so the Nouveau devs don't need to grope in the dark.

[andromeduck]

Unlikely to happen without major business motivation/incentives to do so. Right now outside that small community, nobody really cares if it's open source or not as long as it works well and it does.

[throwaway2048]

You are fooling yourself if you think technology can be separated from politics.

[KirinDave]

Personally I think that the HN response of, "We flag politics" is really just a blind for not discussing sensitive topics like racism, sexism, and human rights in a larger sense.

But that won't stop me from trying to fairly apply the policy to the free software people who are utterly convinced that serving their agenda is a net good rather than a lifestyle choice.

[bumblebeard]

Why isn't free software a net good?