Is this project ever going to be fully open source?

[hnhx]

I wonder if the rest of the components of the NVIDIA driver are going to be fully open source in the future, or is it going to remain like this and only the kernel modules are going to be open source and nothing else.

[mtijanic]

Hi there! There are currently no plans to open source the usermode drivers.

[YusufKhan-gamedev]

@hnhx: linux-libre allows AMD gpus to use Wayland/X/Mir if you need it.

[hnhx]

@YusufKhan-gamedev Most AMD GPUs don't work with Xorg without non free firmware.

@throwaway1037 My NVIDIA RTX 3050 worked fine with nouveau, linux-libre and no nonfree firmware, so thats wrong. rms prefers NVIDIA over AMD since nouveau works without non free firmware, unlike amdgpu.

[throwaway1037]

@hnhx I doubt that for a couple of reasons:

1. Whichever OS you are using probably ships proprietary firmware and software.
   If you want to confirm it works in freedom, try installing Parabola, only install software from the Parabola repos, and report back if it still works.
2. Do you have a source for the RMS comment? It's widely agreed-upon that AMD cards are better in freedom than NVIDIA ones, as both require proprietary firmware, except that the AMD ones have libre, mainlined kernel code, unlike NVIDIA which only has this partially free, non-mainlined kernel module.

[throwaway1037]

@hnhx also, what do you mean specifically by "worked"? Nouveau provides significantly less perfomace than the proprietary drivers and firmware. Sure, it might boot with Nouveau, but I doubt the perfomance is anything to brag about.

[jorenham]

Why?