OS and Software > All Things Unix > Potential nVidia Optimus support blocked by kernel politics

Potential nVidia Optimus support blocked by kernel politics

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While there's been some rudimentary Optimus hacks for Linux to use notebooks that offer an integrated graphics processor and a discrete GPU (to offer maximum performance when needed but to fall-back to only powering the IGP when in a low-power mode), NVIDIA Corp hasn't provided any official Optimus support under Linux. Now there's talk of possible support, but it's potentially to be blocked by Linux kernel developers.

Robert Morell, a long-time NVIDIA Linux engineer who's worked on the Tegra support and other areas of NVIDIA graphics, requested a kernel change (and provided a patch). He's requested that the DMA-BUF symbols be exported without the GPL license attached. This would allow DMA-BUF to be used within the binary NVIDIA Linux graphics driver, the AMD Catalyst driver, and other binary graphics drivers (i.e. many ARM SoCs), etc. This was done to the mailing list last week.

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Binary drivers are against the spirit of open source (and who knows what mysterious vulnerabilities lie in these closed blobs). Hopefully Linux will keep with the spirit of open source and not back down to corporate pressure.

And yet it's not that simple, nvidia doesn't own everything that makes up their drivers or the tech on the hardware itself so so it's a quite arrogant to just jump on the bandwagon and say they should make it all open. Not to mention if they did make it all open but not in a gpl license there would still be the same moaning.

And what they are wanting has nothing to do with putting binary pieces into the kernel. Nothing at all. They are asking for for what amounts to a goodwill gesture so they can use the kernel driver interface in the most technically beneficial way. What they get in return is veiled threats from kernel devs in the form of touting lines given to them by their lawyers that state exactly the way they feel with NO legal decisions to support said stances. With attitudes like that nvidia will just continue to do what they do now and probably ignore the symbols, change the shim, and make it the absolute minimum amount of code to compile to link the two together by-the-end-user with the burden on the user not-to-distribute as per the license. Yes, that's right, if you do not distribute the binary code the license does not apply to your use. And if nvidia doesn't do that they can and probably will if necessary change the kernel code itself on the devices in question to match up perfectly with their shim or blob.

And this is as much of a push from Intel as it is nvidia, Intel needs the graphics muscle for their x86 android ambitions.

reply to Cabal
How is this any different from the normal proprietary nVidia drivers?

Is it because both nVidia and Intel are involved?

The user still has the option to not install it, and if I recall correctly you still have to install special Kernel headers in order for it to work... so this doesn't have to affect the mainline Kernel in any sort of permanent way, or am I totally off base here?
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reply to firephoto

reply to Cabal
Dear Friends,

As I am about to start another thread seeking help, I might prefer to remain less controversial than normal but this is an issue of balance that has been argued within the community since I began using linux.

The argument that only the coders, and no one questions our gratitude to them, should somehow limit the choice of the user is one that has raged and enraged for years.

Open source is either free or not, as in beer, as in ideas, as in pantyhose sprayed so it does not cling. To say it be free for the coders, who have a "spirit", but that the enduser be an irrelevant nuisance appears to be a kind of intellectual arrogance. It surprises me daily. A cell phone can be used to blow up buildings or run a suicide hotline. The morality of the use touches not upon the device. I would prefer to be given the choice to pollute my kernel, if possible, to use a device for which I have paid.

Certainly, the only consideration being "the spirit" is rather like arguing that one kernel loves Jesus, the other Satan. A kernel supports the operation of a mechanical device. No more no less. Wanting the mephistophelean version, to get the graphics performance one wants may be the road to hell, but for the kernel devs to deny it is to exercise power, not grant freedom.

Using the internet, using the computer to do what I need is not some convenience here or there, but the heart of why those non coders who run linux so do. To argue that we are less human because we watch television on the internet or edit stuff or just like more performance is cruel. The idea that people should be disadvantaged or inconvenienced is at one level disingenuous. The defence of an idea whose basis is to allow things which would otherwise not happen by demanding adherence to a legal fiction is as dangerous as abandoning ideals, precisely because the real world demands a modern laptop with all the admittedly idiotic content. The access to that content is a freedom just as much as absence of Gates in my life. Do I need a flash presentation to get the information I need about a car? Hardly. But since most people do, I either become isolated or Adobe abandon a share of the marketplace, or we go back to writing in newsgroups rather than sharing things on you tube. To argue we cannot compromise with the devil means that the Amish have it right. They may. I prefer turbocharged and sensual.

I need a new laptop. I need to make sure that I can derive the necessary or merely desired performance from a chip that people build to realise a profit. If the kernel developers cannot grasp this, they may be right, but in a way that will do no good for those not on the mailing lists, not coding, and wasting the time of those pure enough to prefer security to adventure. Thir choice, because the own the power to make it. Hypocrisy anyone? Freedom to choose demands the ability to pay, or the sharing of things we own. There is no third option.

Should open source be about choice? If so, then grant it. If not, those of us who use it but do not contribute very much should be denied it because we are not anointed? This makes great real world sense. Perhaps it is time to rethink why we offer those to whom we give of our time what we do. Expecting gratitude, charity is dross.

I for one want as much flexibility as I can get. I did my time, gave my self, and merely ask for the devs to respect the rights of AMD and NVDIA to their property while allowing me to buy what I want and have it function. If my satanic ways damn me to an eternal hell, that is my choice.

The kernel should, therefore, be as flexible as possible, if, indeed, choice, rather than security or arrogance be our goal. Ergo, the question is "choice or ideology?"

Respectfully,

Yazdzik
--
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I am curious if you fully understand what nVidia is asking for here. I do not understand it as well as I'd like.
If nVidia wants GPL code in the kernel that would communicate with their binary blog, and they are denying it because they don't want the GPL code to even talk to binary blobs, then that does seem like a case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If nVidia wants part of the kernel to not be GPL, then I think the objection is obvious and crucial.
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reply to yazdzik

Dear Bink and friends,

I am not sure how I could have it wrong when the sentenced quoted states no conclusion other than there have been two sides arguing. Indeed, the very premise of the sentence indicates ownership of the code, elsewise "should" would be an improper modal auxiliary. No one disputes ownership, the tenets of IP, contract or tort law, least of all I.

Rather, open source either means what it says or does not. The arguments made are clear. Since ATI or NVDIA make money from selling stuff, and since part of that stuff is the workings via code, their code is part of how they eat.
Torvalds is no longer a grad student, any more than Lundquist is a kid playing hockey for fun. The question is mere whether or not we, the consumer, running linux, should be able to use as a matter of choice, the latest hardware to enjoy the latest content.

An easy example is the chinese motorcylce I just saw on sale in Panama. $1000 for a 200 cc get about. How is this possible? There was no R&D. Simple, primitive, efficient. Buy plans on the cheap or reverse engineer. Ducatti are not quaking, believe me. Hardware is hardware, but without the massive investment necessary to get the "diminishing returns" levels of high end bikes, there is a long time to wait before teen age boys will lie awake wondering how they can afford a cheap industrial transportation device.

The grey line between ip law and hypocrisy is hard to see, and one can merely read the history of the GPL to sense the kaleidoscopic nature of the colours of the reasoning over the years.

That does not invalidate the point that for the end user, convenience is a very large issue. Arguendo windows and debian cost the same, apt-get is a lot less time consuming than trying to do anything with an "install this thingy.exe, not to mention the complexities of malware and so on. However, the internet belongs to windows, and, for example, until linux users' numbers reached the so-called critical mass, adobe had no reason at all to offer a linux solution. The do now. The hardware drives software drives hardware appears to me, an non geek, to be a cycle which is unlikely to decrease in amplitude or increase in wavelength in our time.

But as the linux kernel based systems became an integral part of the business world, and I speak from experience seeing many law firms running open source offices which would have been unthinkable ten years ago, we need to realise that there are at least two sides to the issue of the licensing.

As to content providers, how much easier it would be for all of us if we simply had licences for protected content and free usage of unprotected content running on the same system. Instead of trying to hack protection, why not give content providers programmes to ensure protection of their work? There were prototypes; most failt.

If we want hardware manufactures to be OS neutral, their drivers have to be profit neutral, and they should not fear that we are trying to cheapen their accomplishments. Gamers drive the market at that end, but as the trickle effect continues, and the web becomes more and more commercial, we need the hardware to allow the thousand ads at the side of a site to run, while we read the content we want while ignoring the ads which provide it.

In short, the gamers, running windows, want high end gpus. As these become common, web content uses the features. Then, the Martins need the gpus just to read the news on the web.

Even nhl.com is almost unreadable on a five year old lappie. In order to future proof, we need to know that we can buy, tonight, at the microcenter nearest us, a device the hardware of which will be supported.

The kids who are connected all day, the businessmen who never stop their ipads, they are driving the "battery life" market, and this is the issue with the dual gpus. Spend time in an airport. I do. Every week. A lot. Everyone is plugged in. Not just the businessfolk at lounges where I hang out, but the kids at the boarding gate. Battery life is essential to sales. I would never, ever need to slow down to conserve it. I, other than the odd rant here, or the odd hockey game or movie a few times a year, do not use my laptop for fun.

However, an old NV quadro chip, top of the line when this very laptop was built can barely muster a site with a lot of ads and a .mov playing. We need proprietary drivers for the latest kit, and therefore need to accept that the things that make them work need be kept secret. Some people write code for money, and if that code does something cool I need to do, why not make it possible for me to use it?

Or perhaps go back to text newsgroups, where we can get the information I need more simply, without the need for the flash ads, rich content, and e-mail on my android?

We, the public who run linux based OSes need the binaries, because we need the hardware, because the people who created the need for the hardware are driving the way we, the non-coding open source public use the machines we buy.

This in no way diminishes my understanding of statute, nor implies my support of capitalism, nor any other system of economics. Nor am I the sole cause of AIDS in Africa or starvation in North Korea. I merely need drivers to work on kit that AMD and NVIDIA sell to make money. That need or want for profit precludes them from giving away what open source coders choose, pursuant to one set of laws or another, to have, to hold, or to share.

Nonetheless, to imply that those who want to use hardware to its fullest advantage irrespective of ideology whilst wishing to do so on an OS based upon a linux kernel are ipso facto loquitur ignorant of statute, stare decisis, or the history and application of the GPL is possibly inappropriate.

In the world of money, there are haves and have nots, and in the current world of coding, there are coders and leaches. By virtue of my not coding, should I not run an open source OS? Or by supporting a free for all in open source, have I implied that piracy be lawful? Or have I anywhere implied an author not to own his work?

No, I simply advocate that until manufacturers make shit for no profit, the two worlds of open source and selling shit for money will have to co-exist, and the consumer would like to have the shit that people make for them work in the system of their choice.

Others argue that that choice by nature of the GPL precludes this co-existence. Neither side is correct, but all sides agree, one should hope, that we all understand law.

Peace,
M
--
Life is a series of return dates. There is but one final argument, its eloquence determines who we were, and whether who we were had meaning.

reply to Maxo
This issue was one created intentionally by the kernel developers years ago. They redid the driver interface and made a better performing one that hooked into some new cool things then threw a _GPL* tag on it with some accompanying legal speak followed by "ianal" at the time and forced NVidia into some changes and to continue using the old interface.

What they are asking for now is the bogus unproven in a court of law name attached to a driver interface removed so they can use the interface that gives them the best performance and the interface that receives lots of attention by the kernel itself. This is NOT un-GPL'ing anyting. it is literally removing the letters G, P, and L from the end of string of identifying text.

Nvidia will still use a shim, a blob, and a compile on the device driver for most things if not all things because all this bs ever did was force them onto a generic interface if they choose to play along nicely(and they do). They could of said screw it and used whatever they wanted and wasted some money on lawyers but they haven't. yet. Personal feelings driven by passionate avocation of free software used to form legal opinions don't mean squat till they pass thru a court and get a ruling in favor, it's nothing more than FUD on a smaller than IBM scale (unless they're your employer and lawyer:).
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said by firephoto:

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What they are asking for now is the bogus unproven in a court of law name attached to a driver interface removed so they can use the interface that gives them the best performance and the interface that receives lots of attention by the kernel itself. This is NOT un-GPL'ing anyting. it is literally removing the letters G, P, and L from the end of string of identifying text.

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Your desktop has one graphics subsystem. This is about systems with two graphic subsystems, one low-power (on-board), the other fast (plug-in card). That typically means laptops. The two different subsystems require two different drivers, and this is a request for access to kernel mechanisms intended to allow buffer sharing between different drivers.

At least, that's the way I read it, but I'm no Linux kernel weenie.

Nvidia drivers use one interface, lets say it's the plug for your electric range in the kitchen and has 4 big prongs. Intel uses a different interface, lets say it's plug for your portable mp3/video device and has about 20 tiny pins. They're both video drivers but the plug is different and they connect to different things in different places and you can't take the meal cooking on the stove and make it appear on your 3" screen by changing moving the plug to the other socket.

From a technical point the GPL'ness of the interface Nvida uses is not any less than the GPL'ness of the interface Intel uses that has the letters G, P, and L on the end of it's name. Certain vocal and well positioned kernel devs do not point this out however and just push new and useful features into the interface with the letters _GPL on it along with threatening legal speak with no proven legal backing just biased interpretations.

The GPL is good, bullshit legal vagueness to promote it is nothing but some sorry excuse for "how things are" in some fabricated altered reality that people promote as the only possible way.
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