Bonum Certa Men Certa

Note to the Press: Nvidia News is About Linux, Not Linus

Photo by Alex Dawson, 2002

Linus



Summary: Cult of Personalities takes over the news again -- news which, if anything, proves Stallman's points to be valid

EARLIER this week Nvidia made an important announcement [1] that was picked up by the press [2-8]. Nvidia shows some signs of changing, conceding its purely proprietary culture. Finally there is a response with actions, not just words. Interestingly enough, a little message from Torvalds in Google+ almost generated more headlines than the original news [9-11] (a lot of the aforementioned links overemphasise Torvalds), especially because he previously gave Nvidia the finger (as in, "up your rectum"). Imagine what the reaction would be if Stallman had done that. When Torvalds does provocative stuff in order to attract attention then it's portrayed as "cool" or "funny", whereas the father of GNU gets smacked down if he even dares to try. The person who all along preached in favour of source code freedom is Stallman, not Torvalds, who had also created Linux as a proprietary kernel at first (so basically the same as Nvidia).



Related/contextual items from the news:
  1. [RFC 00/16] drm/nouveau: initial support for GK20A (Tegra K1)


  2. drm/nouveau: initial support for GK20A (Tegra K1) Directly Rendered From Nvidia


  3. Nvidia gets even more open saucy
    This Tegra K1 Nouveau support is still proof-of-concept but it is a sign that Nvidia is getting more open saucy having committed to better open source graphics support in September.


  4. Nvidia deepens Linux Nouveau support for upcoming Tegra chips


  5. Nvidia Seeks Glasnost With Linux, Contributes Open Source Code


  6. Nvidia slips love letter to open source driver devs


  7. Nvidia startles Linux world with driver contribution


  8. NVIDIA offers initial open source support for K1 graphics
    Chip maker NVIDIA has a long history of making sure there are Linux drivers for its graphics cards. But they’re usually closed-source drivers which means they’re not easy for OS developers and open source enthusiasts to work with. Linux founder Linus Torvalds was not amused by this approach.


  9. Torvalds gives Nvidia software thumbs up, not middle finger
    "This time I'm raising a thumb for Nvidia. Good times,"Torvalds said Sunday night on Google+, a strong contrast to a June 2012 speech in which Torvalds instead offered Nvidia a middle finger for its non-cooperation. Nvidia has preferred to offer proprietary binary drivers to let operating systems use its graphics chips, not open-source software that others can adapt, modify, and debug.


  10. Linus Torvalds Applauds NVIDIA For Posting Early Tegra K1 Open Source Drivers To The Nouveau Project
  11. Nvidia opens Tegra K1 driver, wins Torvalds thumbs-up


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