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this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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The kernel isn't requiring the driver be GPL.
Nvidias driver straight up violated the license by talking to parts of the kernel it wasn't legally allowed to talk to, by shipping its own tiny open source shim to sit between the proprietary and open source parts they wanted to illegally have interoperate.
This is a case of nvidia straight up actually breaking the law with a literal hack. Prompting linux into implementing new security measures.
The shim module smuggles GPL-only kernel symbols into the non-GPL binary blob. Because the actual module using those symbols is not GPL compatible this violates the GPL license.
From Linus Torvalds mouth:
In short, nvidia is playing with "please sue me" button.
I'll add that to the list of reasons to hate nvidia.
The sad part is they are almost a monopoly
Big company violates copyright law, kernel devteam catches heat.
What else is new.
Windows has components other companies are not allowed to use too. Why should it be different on Linux.
Windows actually doesn't allow any driver to work fully. We would still be in the wild west that DOS and Windows 9x drivers were.
Windows has a massive quantity of components only Microsoft products can use, or can only be used in a certain way. A third-party application loading them might risk their developer keys being revoked without a officially signed license of usage, if the keys are even present. But most situation end up with the software getting blocked by Defender or Smart Screen or the user's Windows install being considered non-genuine. This is not only for security, but also to protect the license of the many components Windows is using.
You see no meltdown from Windows users because most don't care when Microsoft tightens their usage rules. Linux users tend to be more tech savvy due to the need of curiosity to leave the Windows ecosystem, meaning they can care about this because they also tend to be actual part of the community, instead of being strangers or passerbys.
I don't think I mentioned CUDA.
Are you insane? I said nothing of this.
You didn't mention anything about trains! But I'll blame you anyway!
Then there's AMD...
We sane ones must stick together. I don't know why it's so hard for people to understand that they can't force Nvidia to go open source at gun point. They just move elsewhere