Nvidia: bans platform translation layers for CUDA
Meanwhile AMD: is forbidden from releasing an open source HDMI 2.1 driver supporting 4K@120hz because of HDMI Forums requirements.
Oops. Someone hacked the server and now the code is leaked online. How terrible.
DisplayPort gang?
Sadly also not an open standard, in reality but they are friendlier to FOSS.
At least it is royality free compared to HDMI which has a large annual fee + per unit fee for manufacturers
Oh. It’s absolutely superior on the royalties side. Just incredibly frustrating that what should be an open standard that anyone can tinker with is not.
It’s at least partially because the specification was designed to detect and thwart attempts to tee the video and audio data in order to bypass copy protection on DVDs and Blu-Rays, iirc.
It is indeed and the fact that I don’t care about any of that makes it that much more frustrating. I got bored with piracy nearly two decades ago and just want to implement my own open-source virtual display systems in hardware and gateway I shouldn’t need to either cough up thousands of dollars a year or find a copy of a PDF that someone “accidentally” left at a public location in order to do so with an established protocol standard.
Accidental DisplayPort guy checking in. I didn’t even know it was a thing until I bought my graphics card. It seems like I dummied my way into some good tech.
Does DP support CEC or ARC nowadays?
sadly not, but GPUs (at least those I used) do not support that over HDMI as well, which is kinda frustrating :/
I was thinking about home cinema, but good point
Mindless fanboys: AmD aNd nVidIa aRe LitEralLy tHe sAme!
It was hilarious seeing Intel bent over the proverbial barrel for a while after AMD put out Ryzen, be nice if they could do the same to nvidia.
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These companies are wielding way too much power if they are not afraid to act like this in the open. Bring back making the board of executives and C Suites lives hell when a company so much as inconveniences you.
Mandatory jail sentences would be ideal.
God would I just absolutely bust
If I understood you correctly: yes, I would be very happy as well. :)
Just to play Devils advokat here: Wouldn’t that just completely discourage anyone from taking up a new CEO or similar role since you are now liable for some illegal activities that might have happened without your knowledge and long time ago.
You would at least need very good evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the person in question actively put into motion the illegal activity and knew that it was illegal.
Placing blame on a single individual might feel satisfying but does not nessesarly punish the correct responsible. When cooperations get as large as Nvidia, Intel etc. it functions in my opinion like one giant complex organism and legal issues like these are often systemic and involves hundreds of people who took decisions.
I think massive and progressive fines are in fact a good tool because it punishes the “organism” that is truly to blame and not an individual who might be to blame.
No, stop putting randos in the positions of power.
Selling everyone and everything to the highest bidder should be discouraged and punished. The yes-men bellow will fall in line.
Then who do you suggest should be in power instead? I’m just asking because I would not know. To me personally they will always be a “rando”
Alright, let me rephrase that.
Stop putting power-hungry people into positions of power. Put there people who care about others, and don’t want the power. Works for government too.
Exactly. Same in every club, society and whatnot. The power hungry with strong narcissistic traits (not the mental health diagnosis, mind you) are those who promote their buddies and do everything to stay in power. Its essentially the single biggest problem we have. You can pin mostly all and everything that is wrong with our world on those traits (basically the dark triad), yet they are promoted everywhere. You need to have „elbows“ even in primary school. Just a fool wouldn’t see the outcome of that.
I agree but yet here we are… And I don’t think just putting people in jail helps. But it should definitely have consequences, that’s for sure, but they must first be effective for what they are trying to solve.
I am all for rehabilitative care and what not.
But psycho- and sociopaths should be behind bars. I’m not even sure if they can be helped.
That won’t work.
No u
And you played the devils advocate well but the reality is very different. As a former CEO I can tell you that there definitely are jail sentences possible for rather minor offenses (where I live, mind you) like not answering a letter by the government because you were busy. Granted, you do have to be very overwhelmed to not answer those for an extended period but it happens.
But its the same for small companies that male no profit as it is for multi billion dollar companies.
I suppose you get the problem here. We have always pinned it on the individual because fines are a corpos wet dream. Same readon why the country I live in has mostly fines for speeding (so it doesnt affect the rich).
So, mandatory jail sentences, increasing with the companies profit.
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I think it is naive to think that only selfless and competent people will take the role then. If properly competent you’d see the massive risk of jail and be highly discouraged to take the position. Noone in their right mind would risk jailtime for a job position.
On the other hand, billionaires, risktakers and gamblers would be more than willing to take such a role for the power it gives. They don’t really care since billionaires manage their risks with all the money they have, and risktakers and gamblers simply just dont care about it untill it hits them.
So it solves nothing
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Yeah fuck this.
… What’s a translation layer?
In general, it translates instructions into something readable by whats accessing it. A popular translation layer on Lemmy is Proton. Its how the Steam Deck can play all those windows games.
Got a Windows app you want to run on Linux? Wine and Proton are well known translation layers.
I guess Graphics Cards are similar. CUDA is basically the NVIDIA equivalent of .exe I think.
Cuda is an Nvidia specific method for using a graphics card to do computation (not just graphics), like physics simulations.
Translation layers would let you use software designed for other graphics cards to work with Cuda, or to let Cuda software work on other graphics cards
So nvidia designed something and they don’t want other companies to use it?
CUDA was there first and has established itself as the standard for GPGPU (“general purpose GPU” aka calculating non-graphics stuff on a graphics card). There are many software packages out there that only support CUDA, especially in the lucrative high-performance computing market.
Most software vendors have no intention of supporting more than one API since CUDA works and the market isn’t competitive enough for someone to need to distinguish themselves though better API support.
Thus Nvidia have a lock on a market that regularly needs to buy expensive high-margin hardware and they don’t want to share. So they made up a rule that nobody else is allowed to write out use something that makes CUDA software work with non-Nvidia GPUs.
That’s anticompetitive but it remains to be seen if it’s anticompetitive enough for the EU to step in.
I guess I’m missing who owns/developed Cuda, then. Like, why does Nvidia think they can disallow anyone else from using Cuda if Cuda was made and broadly used as the API before Nvidia.
CUDA was developed and launched by nvidia. The predecessor was lead by the same person and developed in the open, as opposed to CUDA.
Less that they don’t want other companies using it and more so they don’t want other other companies translating it into something they can use.
Basically, translating an instruction manual from German to Spanish.
No one is breaking any copyright laws or IP to do this. It’s the same how Steam created Proton to run Windows games on Linux. It’s translating code from one language to another that’s readable.
If Linux becomes the dominant gaming platform for gaming (not gonna happen, wish it would tho), there is no reason for a “Proton for Windows” could/should emerge.
Hey now. That all depends on how popular Steam Deck handhelds keep getting and if future versions of windows keep getting worse and more ad intrusive like windows 11 has done. Gaming on Linux has gotten much easier and at some point the chunk of people on Linux will be high enough (it’s gone from 1.6% in 2019 to 4% now) that devs will decide its worth it to make Linux compatible games. I have a desktop at home that still works as a pretty good gaming rig at home, but win 11 isn’t supported by my processor. Once win 10 stops getting support it will be running Linux only. A lot of preventing a full switch over now is the anti cheat software some major studios use on their online games that won’t run on Linux.
/useless rant.
Oh, I drive Linux only. I have Windows 10 running Atlas playbook on standby but hasn’t been booted in months.
I think the entry barrier for installation/setup is what will be what stops Linux fully taking over. If OEMs start loading a very user friendly Linux on their “normal” desktops/laptops (Best Buy, Amazon, etc.), then I can see Linux being the majority.
With all that said, I want Linux to be the majority and running on everyone’s computer. I’m just being a realist at this point in time.
The clear answer. Thank you
I think it’s about translating cuda to ROCm instructions or something.
it’s stuff for using AI (like stable diffusion) to render images.EDIT : turns out I know jack shit
You’re thinking of transformers.
So a knife maker can now forbid me to cut chicken with it?
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But at least you wouldn’t download a car, right?
I’d singlehandedly bring down the car manufacturers in my country if I could. They have the strongest lobby in Germany for sure.
https://youtu.be/uErKI0zWgjg?si=kOQ5xUtJHcJvVaMj
Stealing it one piece at a time seems to be celebrated by the same generation of people that are concerned about copying media
I give it about 10 years before the EU is invaded by the US after corporate lobbying
Or a couple of months if the EPP win the next EU elections.
A guarantee of deploying to europe would be great for military retention! Everyone is tired of fighting forever wars in the desert
Yeah take me back to the early 20th century, that was when you could get some good warring in
I give it about 10 years before the EU is invaded by the US after corporate lobbying
No need. The US most likely pushed Ukraine and Russia into a war that essentially is a way to put so much pressure in the EU economy that things will fail one way or the other.
Russia (and Putin) are so weak the USA forced them to invade their neighbour?
Cope.
Russia (and Putin) are so weak the USA forced them to invade their neighbour?
I’m not saying that is or that isn’t the case. What I know is that in this war, right after Ukraine, the EU is the most affected party. The US is the one that has most to gain from destabilizing the EU economy and weakening the Euro.
Politically sure, but economically the USA is hurt by this war. You may as well make the case that it’s in China’s interest, or Indias.
But that wouldn’t align with Kremlin disinformation that you’re spreading. Wilfully or not.
The US promptly forgot that Ukraine existed once they gave Russia their nukes back, and didn’t bother to think about them again until Russia invaded. The major exception being Hunter Biden, and he has never been in politics so he doesn’t count.
Can a EULA ban fair use? Google v Oracle might have something to say about this.
It can say whatever it wants unless invalidated by a court or an existing law saying otherwise.
Yup, it’s not a question of laws if there is no enforcement.
But until a government steps in there’s potential civil liability for violating the terms. And even winning a lawsuit against Nvidia could be very expensive and take years. And even if they lost it would be worth it to Nvidia to go through the long, expensive process because they’d making sales that entire time.
Probably depends on your country’s laws. Here in Estonia most EULAs aren’t valid because pressing accept on those isn’t legally binding.
What if we don’t accept the EULA? Like why do we need to accept Nvidia’s EULA to create translation layer of cuda?
You probably don’t but it depends where you are. Reverse engineering software without permission isn’t illegal in most places but in the US I’m pretty sure it is.
So its for reverse engineering it only? They can’t restrict creating a translation layer if no reverse engineering is involved right?
No idea, I’m not from the US and don’t know the laws beyond what I have previously looked up. Here in Estonia you can make the translation layer without accepting any EULA and even if you did it wouldn’t be legally binding. You can alse reverse engineer anything you want.
Me neither is from us though
@FluffyPotato @zea_64 Nice haha.
EULAs should not exist.
If translation layer can be banned with EULA how is wine not dead yet? M$ loves Linux or what?
MS loves money. If Linux makes them money, great. If not, fuck it.
“…because it makes us money” could be put at the end of any slogan to make it 100% honest.
USA: Oh yeah ofcourse I understand
EU: Hmmmmmm
More like:
EU: Oh yeah of course I understand, but also, you need to follow the law.
Lmao true
Well for sure they profit on Linux but I doubt they are using Wine.
The EULA of the CUDA SDK bans reverse engineering output of the SDK to make translation layers (and such compatibility aids in general).
That makes it more legally dangerous and/or harder for devs. It has no effect on anyone not using the SDK.
How is that Nvidia can ban reverse engineering and for example Nintendo can’t. I’m sure they would love to just say in EULA that sorry but reverse engineering Switch is prohibited therefore every emulator is illegal
Nintendo firing all its lawyers atm because no one suggested this yet
Well, maybe they can’t. This clause would probably not hold up in a lot of countries/courts. OTOH it would in others. It might take years of litigation to figure out.
So, if you want to work on this kind of thing, better consult a lawyer first. It will have a chilling effect and that’s something.
US situation: https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq
I’m willing to bet that Linux is irrelevant to Microsoft. It doesn’t threaten them, Microsoft has it’s core business elsewhere
Their core business is hosting linux for other people at this point.
Microsoft do make money from Linux though. For example, Microsoft SQL Server runs on Linux, and you can use Linux in Azure (both of which are part of their core business).
Not that irrelevant. They even have their own distro: Mariner
This one goes in the hall of fame for sure
Microsoft’s operating system accounts for a vanishingly small percentage of server hosting, and their deathgrip on personal computing is starting to slip. (Particularly as Android has already replaced Windows as the most popular operating system.)
Microsoft is well past “not worried”, looking at “too late to do anything about it” in the rear view mirror, and barreling toward “cease to exist if they don’t continue to stick the landing on interoperability with Linux and Android”.
Microsoft’s long term relevance plan counts on cloud tools on Linux and their Office Suite on every platform.
Funny you should say that because they just dropped Android Subsystem for Windows
Yeah. I can’t say I blame them, in that front.
As someone who often runs apps on hardware the app was never meant to run on, it’s not great.
There may be a unified Android / Linux package type coming, when more laptops are touchscreens and more phones are dockable workstations. But I doubt the Windows kernel will have much to do with either.
Microsoft is earning crap loads of money from Android. The more Android phones are being sold, the more money Microsoft gets.
Yeah. To be clear, I’m not calling them out. Just pointing out that Microsoft is very aware that Windows isn’t the future of the company, anymore.
They can prohibit whatever they want, but how enforceable is it? Does Nvidia intend to play whack a mole by checking for translation layers?
Nah, they’ll just pull “Nintendo move”
If AMD and/or Intel took leadership of the project the Nintendo move wouldn’t work and they’d have to actually test it in court
“How dare you use software on your hardware,” says another worthless gaggle of bastard morons.
Just have Jensen Huang flop his dick out and say CUDA is an anti-competitive tactic. It wouldn’t be less obvious.
Now imagine Microsoft banning the translation of DirectX to Vulkan. Could they do that? That would kill gaming on Linux in a snap.
Don’t give them ideas
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Who said anything about heroes? Villains sometimes want to stop other villains, too. In fact, probably often.
To be fair thor is undoubtedly firmly in the hero category, and they are depicted as him in this meme Thor Ragnarok.
top slider is hella (villain) middle is Thor (hero), bottom is Surtur (villain)
I would argue that the meme has long lost that particular aspect of itself and the character alignment is ignored. In this instance, clearly indicated by Surtr being EU, while the context heavily implies that EU is the “hero”.
Yeah it’s definitely up to interpretation, it doesnt read as the middle slide being bad/villainous.
Bad meme format I guess
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You took my comment too seriously, it was just a joke.
But you also singled out Intel. Corporations aren’t heroes in general and AMD is also there. And EU is depicted as the villain, although it’s implied it’s the hero in the context of the meme.spoiler
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ZLUDA originally only supported on Intel since it was designed by an Intel employee, but AMD hired him to make it work for AMD instead. So in a way Intel is somewhat important here.
Bottom should be MooreThreads or some other Chinese GPU maker
Here’s the problem:
Doesn’t matter the country/countries. Due to bureaucracy and lobbying, this will take forever for anyone to get anything done. And by the time it’s done, something better will have appeared and will be using any and all loopholes present in whatever bill they pass to do the exact same shit that is happening now.
It’s too technical.
