[pabs3]

nouveau has the problem that they rely on nvidia signed firmware blobs for some functionality (like reclocking), and if nvidia don't want to give them those blobs, then they can't use the features the blobs enable. With nvidia's Linux kernel driver going open (but firmware and userspace staying proprietary), the firmware will be released separately and be redistributable, so nouveau will be able to use it.

[Nextgrid]

> if nvidia don't want to give them those blobs, then they can't use the features the blobs enable

Nvidia is giving these blobs to Windows users who download their drivers, so why can't they write a script/etc that extracts blobs from a Windows driver binary and let the user download that binary manually?

[pabs3]

They are giving the blobs to Linux proprietary driver users too. I'm not sure why that isn't viable, but they definitely did it for very old unsigned versions of the firmware on old GPUs. I guess they got tired of the upgrade treadmill if they aren't doing it any more, but probably they have such a script for their own reverse engineering efforts but don't want to deal with the support issues from when users try the script against newer driver downloads etc.