AMD Publishes Initial openSIL Open-Source CPU Silicon Initialization Code

[Lakados]

Yup and why was it? Because Nvidia didn't have open source drivers (you know that part you left out).

Dude compared to Nvidia they are saints that's why I'm bringing them into this. Nvidia's history is far far worse. So if you don't have a problem with nVidia and their horrible record you can't get your soap box to talk about a company that's done far more for open source than it's rival.

Nvidia does not have a history of creating Opensource projects and abandoning them if anything the opposite, Nvidia does incredibly well with their support for their limited source projects of which there are numerous.

You can be mad that Nvidia doesn't do open-source projects often, and that is a valid criticism, Nvidia usually puts up a lot of limited-source projects, which is better than nothing at the very least, but their support and documentation on those projects is immaculate, they answer questions, host round tables, take feedback, and have a decent turn around time on feature requests and fixes of the coded binaries.

So AMD has a well-earned reputation for creating and abandoning its open-source projects, and Nvidia has a reputation for not having open-source projects.

Those are not the same thing, and you can't equate one to the other.

And really we are talking CPUs and Motherboards here, so if anything you should be comparing AMD's open source to Intel's, if you really want to you can compare it to the Nvidia Tegra platform but the bootloader (there is no bios) for that has been open source for years. And was actually a huge boost in adoption for the Jetson and Orin platforms.
https://github.com/OE4T/tegra-boot-tools

 

[kac77]

Nvidia does not have a history of creating Opensource projects and abandoning them if anything the opposite, Nvidia does incredibly well with their support for their limited source projects of which there are numerous.

You can't abandon something you've never created. It also can't be numerous because well it's not.

You can be mad that Nvidia doesn't do open-source projects often, and that is a valid criticism, Nvidia usually puts up a lot of limited-source projects, which is better than nothing at the very least, but their support and documentation on those projects is immaculate, they answer questions, host round tables, take feedback, and have a decent turn around time on feature requests and fixes of the coded binaries.

It's not just a valid criticism it's the entire point if you're going to talk about documentation.

So AMD has a well-earned reputation for creating and abandoning its open-source projects,

What projects have they abandoned? List them.

And really we are talking CPUs and Motherboards here, so if anything you should be comparing AMD's open source to Intel's, if you really want to you can compare it to the Nvidia Tegra platform I suppose you can but the bootloader (there is no bios) for that has been open source for years. And was actually a huge boost in adoption for the Jetson and Orin platforms.
https://github.com/OE4T/tegra-boot-tools

They had to reverse engineer drivers for Tegra too. There's a very real reason why this happened:

Linus Torvalds Gives Nvidia the Finger. Literally​

 

[Lakados]

You can't abandon something you've never created. It also can't be numerous because well it's not.

It's not just a valid criticism it's the entire point if you're going to talk about documentation.

What projects have they abandoned? List them.

They had to reverse engineer drivers for Tegra too. There's a very real reason why this happened:

Linus Torvalds Gives Nvidia the Finger. Literally​

It is a lot long ass list better off creating a dedicated thread to them. You could just Google and start joining all the Reddit sub groups if you really care but I’m pretty sure you are just trying to troll at this stage.

Here’s a list NVidia maintains of their Opensource initiatives. It doesn’t list any of the limited source ones which is probably double the length.
https://developer.nvidia.com/open-source

I mean who has to reverse engineer Tegras boot tools they were open since day 1??
The entire platform uses the C-Boot including the new modules. You can write one from scratch with a YouTube tutorial.

And yeah Linus is mad because Nvidia is in a position to be one of the top 5 Linux contributors and their attitude is “nah we good” and they are instead way in the back.

 

[kac77]

It is a lot long ass list better off creating a dedicated thread to them. You could just Google and start joining all the Reddit sub groups if you really care but I’m pretty sure you are just trying to troll at this stage.

OK so you don't have one. Figured.

Here’s a list NVidia maintains of their Opensource initiatives. It doesn’t list any of the limited source ones which is probably double the length.
https://developer.nvidia.com/open-source

I mean who has to reverse engineer Tegras boot tools they were open since day 1??

Their video drivers sir are not open.

The entire platform uses the C-Boot including the new modules. You can write one from scratch with a YouTube tutorial.

And yeah Linus is mad because Nvidia is in a position to be one of the top 5 Linux contributors and their attitude is “nah we good” and they are instead way in the back.

Nvidia is NOT in the top 5 Linux contributors not even in the top 10. The 5 currently are Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Intel, and Red Hat.

 

[Lakados]

OK so you don't have one. Figured.

Their video drivers sir are not open.

Nvidia is NOT in the top 5 Linux contributors not even in the top 10. The 5 currently are Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Intel, and Red Hat.

I said in a position to be, not that they were, if they were one of the top 5 Linus would be loving them, if they opened up even 1/5'th their stack it would put them in the top 20 for sure, but they don't so as I actually said, Nvidia's attitude is "nah we good" and they are way in the back.

Why do you keep going on about video drivers? They are a significant piece for sure but only one cog in a vast machine. And for the record AMD's GPU drivers are not open, they contain pre-compiled binary blobs, the closest thing we have to open-source GPU drivers at this stage is Intel because the closed-source components there are related to booting and bios and not GPU functionality.

So now I know you are trolling, because I have seen your other posts, and you are smarter than this, but I am not biting.

 

[ZeroBarrier]

I said in a position to be, not that they were, if they were one of the top 5 Linus would be loving them, if they opened up even 1/5'th their stack it would put them in the top 20 for sure, but they don't so as I actually said, Nvidia's attitude is "nah we good" and they are way in the back.

Why do you keep going on about video drivers? They are a significant piece for sure but only one cog in a vast machine. And for the record AMD's GPU drivers are not open, they contain pre-compiled binary blobs, the closest thing we have to open-source GPU drivers at this stage is Intel because the closed-source components there are related to booting and bios and not GPU functionality.

So now I know you are trolling, because I have seen your other posts, and you are smarter than this, but I am not biting.

Reading is fundamental. And you sir, have the patience of a saint vs the trolls on this board.

I always find these posts fascinating as well. For me it boils down to one question. Why? Why would Nvidia open source their drivers? The answer is simple, They don't have a reason to do so. They enjoy a commanding lead in the market segments they participate in, so there is no incentive for them to open source their GPU drivers, especially on the consumer side. Why is this so hard for some to understand?

 

[Deleted member 162929]

Reading is fundamental. And you sir, have the patience of a saint vs the trolls on this board.

I always find these sorts fascinating as well. For me it boils down to one question. Why? Why would Nvidia open source their drivers? The answer is simple, They don't have a reason to do so. They enjoy a commanding lead in the market segments they participate in, so there is no incentive for them to open source their GPU drivers, especially on the consumer side. Why is this so hard for some to understand?

green team devils red team angels y'all

 

[Lakados]

Reading is fundamental. And you sir, have the patience of a saint vs the trolls on this board.

I always find these sorts fascinating as well. For me it boils down to one question. Why? Why would Nvidia open source their drivers? The answer is simple, They don't have a reason to do so. They enjoy a commanding lead in the market segments they participate in, so there is no incentive for them to open source their GPU drivers, especially on the consumer side. Why is this so hard for some to understand?

But the funny thing is back in 2022 they did, sort of.
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-releases-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules

It still contains a number of binary blobs that are shared between this and their closed source drivers, but they are gradually opening it up as they replace those.

And honestly one of the strongest cases for opening up drivers and other things right now is cost savings.

There are of course higher initial costs getting things to a state where they are suitable to be published for 3 party viewing, but then the community as a whole will enforce revision history tracking, change logs, and documentation, it generally forces things to a higher standard which makes fixes, edits, and other aspects easier which long terms reduce costs. It also frees up internal teams from making minor changes needed by specific parties so they can of course make their own customizations separate from the project as a whole which reduces the number of exception cases in the base code which cleans things up further which makes it easier to troubleshoot and bugfix and the cycle continues.

There is also a strong case for open source when key algorithms or formulas used are incredibly domain-specific and hiring experts in the field to develop it solely in-house is not feasible.
Such as this one Nvidia manages https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/USD, which is a collaboration between them and Pixar.

It is no coincidence that Nvidia started doing more open-source work for complicated projects right around the time that Investors were hammering them about their development budgets and timetables. There is absolutely nothing altruistic about them doing more open-source work, but ultimately we can get some benefits from it, so let's just take the win there and not read too much into it.

 

[ZeroBarrier]

But the funny thing is back in 2022 they did, sort of.
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-releases-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules

It still contains a number of binary blobs that are shared between this and their closed source drivers, but they are gradually opening it up as they replace those.

And honestly one of the strongest cases for opening up drivers and other things right now is cost savings.

There are of course higher initial costs getting things to a state where they are suitable to be published for 3 party viewing, but then the community as a whole will enforce revision history tracking, change logs, and documentation, it generally forces things to a higher standard which makes fixes, edits, and other aspects easier which long terms reduce costs. It also frees up internal teams from making minor changes needed by specific parties so they can of course make their own customizations separate from the project as a whole which reduces the number of exception cases in the base code which cleans things up further which makes it easier to troubleshoot and bugfix and the cycle continues.

There is also a strong case for open source when key algorithms or formulas used are incredibly domain-specific and hiring experts in the field to develop it solely in-house is not feasible.
Such as this one Nvidia manages https://github.com/PixarAnimationStudios/USD, which is a collaboration between them and Pixar.

It is no coincidence that Nvidia started doing more open-source work for complicated projects right around the time that Investors were hammering them about their development budgets and timetables. There is absolutely nothing altruistic about them doing more open-source work, but ultimately we can get some benefits from it, so let's just take the win there and not read too much into it.

That's pretty cool. I actually had no idea they were doing this. I stand corrected and apologize then. I'll have to take a look at this some more at a later time.

Thanks for the heads up.