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Depends on proprietary firmware binaries #35

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throwaway1037 opened this issue May 12, 2022 · 6 comments
Closed

Depends on proprietary firmware binaries #35

throwaway1037 opened this issue May 12, 2022 · 6 comments

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@throwaway1037
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throwaway1037 commented May 12, 2022

Please may you also release the firmware source code under a free software license?
(Those at https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/nvidia)
The driver requires them to work, and without them core features like reclocking will not function, which hindered Nouveau for years.
It's also (virtually) impossible to replace them by reverse-engineering because they are signed and the GPU will refuse to load firmware which is not signed by nVidia.

OS distributions such as Parabola GNU+Linux-libre use Linux-libre, a version of Linux without blobs, and does not distribute blobs.
In essence, without the firmware also being free software, this awesome free software driver release is crippled in the free world, as it relies on proprietary binaries.

@PAR2020
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PAR2020 commented May 12, 2022

Thank you for your comments, @throwaway1037. NVIDIA has just begun our open source journey, so please be patient.
For now, we are not planning to upload GSP firmware at linux-firmware but this may change in the future.
Today, the firmware, kernel driver, and user-mode drivers must match versions within a release.
Note that firmware interfaces are not backward or forward compatible.

@throwaway1037
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We've been waiting for over a decade for our freedom, although I thank NVIDIA for making this positive step. :)

@msva
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msva commented May 12, 2022

for over a decade

@throwaway1037 Two, actually ;)

Today, the firmware, kernel driver, and user-mode drivers must match versions within a release.

@PAR2020 yup, and this is pretty annoying thing that prevents it to package it like any other ordinary opensource package in many distros (well, it is still possible, but it makes mainainer's work harder).

And official instruction still recommends to use blablabla.run "installer" (the script with bundled archives), which is "non-recommended" way of installed anything in linux distros, and installing anything in that way (not with package manager) makes that system "not supported" (as package manager doesn't know anything about that files and can face a collision someday).

So, TL;DR: it is super good thing, that NVidia finally released kernel-side sources, and we're all congratulate and thank NVidia. But at the same time we're hoping NVidia will move further in "opensourcing", and will make it's drivers "compatible" with "standard" way of linux distro mainteance.

@breisig
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breisig commented May 12, 2022

Thank you Nvidia for moving forward with a true open source kernel module. This was needed for a LONG time. GSP firmware should be included in linux-firmware and be flexible to use the same GSP firmware for multiple driver versions.

@AaronWebster
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I'm really pleased to see this as well and going forward it will only make your product better.

Don't worry, you'll still provoke the ire of Linus, just for different reasons :-)

@PAR2020
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PAR2020 commented May 12, 2022

Thank you all for your support, and patience. We have many more issues to work through in the short term, so will close this one for now.

@PAR2020 PAR2020 closed this as completed May 12, 2022
@NVIDIA NVIDIA locked and limited conversation to collaborators May 12, 2022
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