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Nvidia bans using translation layers for CUDA software (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 9 months ago by quinkin@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] Rooki@lemmy.world 170 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Nowadays you cant do anything with the software or hardware you put and have on your pc.

If nvidia is going to go on a power trip, then please make that nvidia drivers is only allowed to get installed by nvidia servicemen before that the servicemen teaches the user about their 30 thousand page eula what and what they can do with THEIR bought hardware.

[-] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 102 points 9 months ago

Microsoft: "what do you mean, your PC?"

[-] Rooki@lemmy.world 65 points 9 months ago

Linux: "Its my pc"

[-] werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago

Fuckers!

You forgot to add fuckers! "it's my PC fuckers!"

You're welcome 😁

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[-] ptz@dubvee.org 46 points 9 months ago

If I had to point to an exact time when Windows went to complete garbage, I'd say it was right around the time they renamed "My Computer" to "This PC". To me, that just shows how their view of your device changed.

[-] n3m37h@sh.itjust.works 17 points 9 months ago

If I wanna delete the windows folder, by golly I should be able to - Win 95

[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I always saw "my computer" as infantilising. If something is going to be labeled as "my" thing, it should be because I applied the label.

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[-] dan1101@lemm.ee 26 points 9 months ago

Maybe we should rent our video cards for $25 per month. You get 2,000,000 frames rendered per month and anything beyond that puts you in a pro gamer tier for more money.

[-] eco_game@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 9 months ago

It'll be a collab with HP!

[-] silver@lemmy.brendan.ie 6 points 9 months ago

heh, if ye had yer screen on 24/7 that would be merely 0.83 frames per second

The human eye can't see more than 0.5 frames per second anyways (/s)

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[-] tabular@lemmy.world 100 points 9 months ago

None of their business if we use a translation layer.

[-] kwedd@feddit.nl 28 points 9 months ago

Agreed. I hope lawmakers step in and make EULAs like this unenforceable.

[-] VonReposti@feddit.dk 12 points 9 months ago

EULAs are already by definition unenforceable in the EU

[-] FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world 88 points 9 months ago

This feels illegal. Like it's probably not, but it should be.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 56 points 9 months ago

It probably is. In the EU APIs aren't copyrightable in the first place, doubly so if it's necessary for interoperability, in the US there's Google vs. Oracle which declared Google's use of Java APIs in Android fair use.

[-] assassinatedbyCIA@lemmy.world 21 points 9 months ago

That's the neat thing about being in the American oligarchs class. If it's illegal just make it legal.

[-] ItsMeSpez@lemmy.world 19 points 9 months ago

Feels like a fantastic base for an anti-trust case at the least.

[-] empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 88 points 9 months ago

Definitely not anticompetitive in the slightest. No need to look here, FTC.

[-] qaz@lemmy.world 78 points 9 months ago

An anti-trust lawsuit is overdue

[-] laxe@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

Nvidia is dominating the AI chip market. If our laws were properly enforced, Nvidia should’ve been too afraid to abuse their market position like this.

[-] filister@lemmy.world 69 points 9 months ago

I guess this is Nvidia's reaction to projects like ZLUDA.

And that's a textbook case why monopolies are bad for pretty much everyone except the shareholders of that monopolistic company.

[-] SoupBrick@yiffit.net 15 points 9 months ago

I am extremely tempted to @ some guy who was shilling for nvidia and saying they weren't a monopoly.

[-] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Part of it depends on how you define things. They're not a monopoly in terms of having eliminated all their competitors, but they're a defacto monopoly in terms of being able to do the things a monopoly can. As an example, they can dictate pricing for the whole market as their margins are better than AMD's, so if AMD undercut them, they can retaliate by dropping their prices to the point AMD would have to sell at cost, so AMD can only sell things in the narrow price window where Nvidia doesn't feel threatened. On the other hand, AMD does exist and does sell things.

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[-] Hubi@feddit.de 63 points 9 months ago

Is something like this actually enforceable? That's like Microsoft saying you can't use Wine on Linux.

[-] CaptainBasculin@lemmy.ml 42 points 9 months ago

Wine is done on clean room reverse engineering, it doesn't use any propetriary code as reference. If they had done so, Microsoft would have grounds to sue them.

This can't enforce anything on CUDA versions below 11.6; but any functionality introduced to CUDA after 11.6 needs to be clean room reverse engineered, so this will make ZLUDA development on those versions more difficult.

[-] visor841@lemmy.world 26 points 9 months ago

Yeah, Wine is very strict about this; IIRC if you've ever even looked at the leaked Windows XP source code, you're not allowed to work on Wine.

[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

It might not be. But the mere potential of having to litigate for years will have a chilling effect.

https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq

[-] Thann@lemmy.ml 60 points 9 months ago

Interoperability is illegal now?

[-] realharo@lemm.ee 55 points 9 months ago

Take a page from the AI companies' book - just claim AI "learned" from the CUDA SDK and call it fair use.

[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Yes, the clause might be unenforceable on fair use grounds. So, if you feel like going through a couple years of risky litigation...

Funny how people aren't cheering on NVIDIA.

[-] ryannathans@aussie.zone 53 points 9 months ago

Is this in response to AMD's cuda adaptor

[-] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 19 points 9 months ago

I tried to read the article but i am too stupid. I think nvidia has a proprietary hardware/software combo that is very fast, but because they "own it" they want money; instead other companies are using this without paying... Am i close?

[-] General_Effort@lemmy.world 45 points 9 months ago

You can use graphics cards for more than just graphics, eg for AI. Nvidia is a leader in facilitating that.

They offer a software toolkit for developing programs (an SDK) that use their GPUs to best effect. People have begun making "translation layers" that allow such CUDA programs to run on non-nvidia hardware. (I have no idea how any of this works.) The license of that SDK now forbids reverse engineering its output to create these compatibility tools.

Unless I am very mistaken, Nvidia can't ban the use of "translation layers" or stop people making them, as such. This clause creates a barrier to creating them, though.

Some programs will probably remain CUDA specific, because of that clause. That means that Nvidia is a gatekeeper for these programs and can charge extra for access.

[-] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 9 points 9 months ago

Thanks

[-] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 9 months ago

It's not about it being fast, it's about it only being available for NVidia GPUs. As long as software for things like machine learning uses CUDA, you need to buy an NVidia GPU to use it. A translation layer would let you use the same software on other companies' GPUs, which means people aren't forced to buy NVidia's GPUs anymore.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 16 points 9 months ago

How does this make sense? If you've got an NVIDIA card, you don't need an emulation level. And if you have a different hardware that needs an emulation layer, you don't have to agree to those NVIDIA terms, because you are not using their products.

[-] quinkin@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

The EULA is associated with the CUDA software, not the NVIDIA hardware.

[-] Treczoks@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Ah, OK. TIL. Thanks.

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[-] Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

Cuda is the main reason Nvidia has their monopoly. Especially their artifiical limitations on VRAM for more expensive cards would make AMD a lot more interesting if AMD actually had good support.

[-] Eideen@lemmy.world 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Is this not similar to the Android Java interface?

Wikipedia Google Oracle

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this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024

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