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Graphics Software Hardware Linux

NVIDIA Licence Update (Linux Exception) 32

Posted by timothy from the but-don't-touch dept.
(startx) writes "I don't know how long this has been the case, but with the latest NVidia driver update comes a new installation method, which unifies the installation process almong all Linux distributions. Just for kicks I re-read the licence, and it has a new section labeled "2.1.2 Linux Exception" Basically GNU/Linux users are now free to redistribute the driver file. Not only this, but the FAQ section of the README file says you can redistribute in whatever form necessary, stating distributions are welcome to include it as a package as well. Woohoo!"
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NVIDIA Licence Update (Linux Exception) More

NVIDIA Licence Update (Linux Exception)

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  • 3 Cheers for NVIDIA
    FREE BEER FOR ALL (Hey it might happen)

  • Debs (Score:2)

    by Strike ( 220532 )
    Excellent, now I can just apt-get install nvidia-kernel nvidia-glx instead of having to grab the *-src packages and build my own debs. Provided the maintainer will package these ... oh please oh please oh please

  • Great (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Monday March 31, 2003 @11:59PM (#5635880) Homepage Journal
    Great, they do this just AFTER I upgrade to Mandrake 9.1. If they would have done this before then it probably would have been included in the distro.

    • Re:Great (Score:2, Informative)

      by leviramsey ( 248057 )

      Well, Mandrake has a policy against including software that's not Open Source in the main distro (they made an exception for Netscape back in the day, though). However, PLF [zarb.org] (the repository for patent or license-encumbered Mandrake packages) could be a place to find them, in which case it's just a urpmi away.

    • Re:Great (Score:2, Informative)

      by slux ( 632202 )
      buy a Mandrake boxed set and you'll get the Nvidia drivers on the commercial applications CD.

      • Re:Great (Score:2, Informative)

        by KeyserDK ( 301544 )
        Either that or you can join mandrake club which has had them too for a couple of weeks, although that is currently an unrleases version 4321 which the boxed versions are going to carry. It works here though =).

  • Gentoo (Score:2, Interesting)

    by doja ( 36500 )
    Gentoo already has nvidia-glx and nvidia-kernel packages as part of Portage.

  • Moo (Score:1, Troll)

    by Chacham ( 981 )
    Whatever. I simply don't trust Nvidia. Even if they mean well today, they'll be well mean tomorrow. I don't understand why anyone still uses them. They lost my trust, and I'll never go back.
    • How did they lose your trust? What did they do? Provide good drivers for Linux while Ati and others sat around with their collective thumbs up their asses?
  • Hey, it's April 1st, isn't it? Just wait 24 hours and look at the licence stuff again.
    • I don't think NVidia would fool around with a legal document. Some one could actually use it in a court of law, as a legally published document. That'd be relatively stupid, the legal department will have somebody's head on a platter for doing it. About the only thing I can see is that the documented last change is Mar 27th. I suppose if the license could be for a revision that doesn't exist. So I'm guess that it is real, if it's an April 1 day joke, it's a very, very good one. I don't have the time to

  • Excellent! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @02:25AM (#5636509) Homepage
    This will be a great help for distro packagers. Not the least of which, Knoppix would finally be able to play OpenGL games (Chromium!) straight out-of-the-box.

    I applaud nVidia for their continuing support for Linux.

    Like many others, I would be happier if the drivers were open-sourced, but realise that there is so much licensed technology in these cards, that getting permission from all the IP holders would be impossible, even if nVidia wanted to release the source.

    Well done, nVidia.

  • Doesn't seem to be an April Fool's Day Joke.... yet.

    I'm with everyone else who thinks we should check the nvidia website in a few days.

    If this isn't a joke, then I certainly applaud nvidia for taking a step in the right direction so you can install Linux on an nforce/nforce2 system and have to muck with driver code patches to get sound/lan/video working right.

    And yes, I double checked... the license also applies to the nforce drivers!

    Say what you want about nvidia fumbling on the FX cards, ATI
  • 2.1.3 Limitations.

    No Reverse Engineering. Customer may not reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the SOFTWARE, nor attempt in any other manner to obtain the source code.

    Whew! That really had me going for a second 'til I realized what day it was!

    Haha! :-D
  • It's great to see that NVIDIA are getting rid of their huge and confusing list of RPMs and also adding in what sounds like a cute installer, but...and I quote from the README [nvidia.com]:

    "If you already have an XF86Config file working with a different driver (such as the 'nv' or 'vesa' driver), then all you need to do is find the relevant Device section and replace the line:..."

    Er, silly question here, but why doesn't the NVIDIA installer do all this ? The NVIDIA installer on Windows certainly doesn't expect the e

    • My guess they do it because they're afraid they may hose the config file. Let's face it, text config files can be problematic. One has to go to the effort of creating parse routines (easy in perl, but not it C), many of the files have their own format, and there is always the risk of misparsing part of it. Then to change one setting, the most simple way is often to just rewrite the entire file. Not an easy task, and an error in any step may hose the entire thing...

      The M$ registry sucks, but at least it ha

      • Right answer, but for the wrong reasons I suspect.

        Since most installs are done via shell script or makefile, it's not like this would be that hard to program-- sed or perl are likely to be involved and this isn't tough for either of them. I know it's not as simple as s/nv/nvidia/, but it's not that hard to make sure you only change the right lines and nothing else.

        The real problem is finding the right config file to change. Are they in /etc or maybe /etc/X11 or perhaps /usr/X11R6/etc/X11 or any of the

        • Text config vs binary (Score:3, Interesting)

          by moncyb ( 456490 )

          ...sed or perl are likely to be involved...

          So everyone has to have either sed or perl installed? Different developers will make different choices. If it is done this way, everyone will probably need both, plus awk, plus [insert a bunch of programs here]. In fact this is the current state of most open source project. That is a lot of stuff, especially for those workstations who don't do any development.

          Also a lot of programs are starting to use XML (even worse). For config files, it has all the disadvant

          • Highly unlikely to find a Linux system without sed-- it's in the base install for Debian and Gentoo and I suspect most other Linux distros as well. The real point here is that you would probably be better off getting the NVidia drivers from your distribution in package form, which it sounds like is now allowed due to the "Linux Exception" in the license. That way the package maintainer can use whatever tools and config files are appropriate to that distribution.
  • When are we going to see an update to the FreeBSD driver which is currently lagging way behind the Linux driver?

  • They seem to have a clue (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tunah ( 530328 ) <sam&krayup,com> on Tuesday April 01, 2003 @07:55AM (#5637189) Homepage
    This reinforces my impression of NVidia as a hardware company that knows it's a hardware company.

    I was pleasantly surprised back when I got my new computer with a TNT2 that they provided nice (in my experience) fast 3D drivers. They haven't subscribed to the whole open-source/free software philosophy, they're just being smart. Giving source for their drivers may have some benefits, may have some costs, may not be possible for legal reasons. Giving away binary drivers makes sense - you're quite likely to influence a linux user's video card purchase with decent drivers. Making people download it from their website, or install it differently from any other package is just a pain in the ass and doesn't gain them anything.

    There's no altruism here, just common sense. What's surprising is that so many big hardware manufacturers make things so hard.

    • Giving away binary drivers makes sense - you're quite likely to influence a linux user's video card purchase with decent drivers. Making people download it from their website, or install it differently from any other package is just a pain in the ass and doesn't gain them anything.

      I had already made up my mind to buy ATI next time around but if this .run file makes things easy enough then I will stick with Nvidia. Every time RH updates the kernel I have to fiddle around to recompile nvidia and cisco vpn k

  • "Installation will also install the utility `nvidia-installer`, which may be later used to uninstall drivers, auto-download updated drivers, etc."

    Sounds pretty nice!

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