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Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

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Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#2

Post by gone35 »

Japanese original:

https://wirelesswire.jp/2017/12/62658/

--

Edit:

Apparently it's just that GeForce cards have(/had?) no warranty for use in "data centers" --but academic use is not precluded in of itself:

https://twitter.com/NVIDIAAIJP/status/943141204744585222

https://wirelesswire.jp/2017/12/62667/

Still, the line is somewhat unclear, I wonder how many university/academic cluster admins are aware of the fact..

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#3

Post by jo909 »

This is the relevant change in the EULA you need to accept when downloading (installing?) the GeForce driver. The article is weirdly translated, this is apparently a global NVIDIA thing and not specific to "NVIDIA Japan".

> No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted.

Edit: http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload-March2009/licen... and https://www.geforce.com/drivers/license/geforce

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#4

Post by vinayan3 »

For the longest time they have encouraged people to use Geforce cards for doing machine learning. Now they are changing the licensing and making it not okay for data centers is not gonna sit well with people. Especially with the carveout for Bitcoin miners. The number of customers who are impacted like the article points out will be mainly universities. This is bad move overall and isn't gonna gain them any good will with the community. Like seriously how many companies are out there are putting out Geforce cards into data centers? The big data centers from cloud computing platforms all use Tesla cards.

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#5

Post by forgotpassagan »

In good news, this may finally force a court case around EULA's, which basically everyone have known for a decade as bullshit.

Having to agree to draconian terms to use something you own is ridiculous. If EULA's become enforceable there's nothing preventing a toaster maker from banning you from toasting bagels in your machine and countless other absurd usurious machinations. EULA 'shrinkwrap' license agreements are a scourge on the free market and should be banned unilaterally

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#6

Post by dnautics »

jo909 wrote: post #3

This is the relevant change in the EULA you need to accept when downloading (installing?) the GeForce driver. The article is weirdly translated, this is apparently a global NVIDIA thing and not specific to "NVIDIA Japan". > No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted. Edit: http://www.nvidia.com/content/DriverDownload…

What if you write your own block chain where the POW is "do a deep learning task"?

Re: Nvidia’s New Policy Limits GeForce Data Center Usage

#9

Post by wmf »

vinayan3 wrote: post #4

For the longest time they have encouraged people to use Geforce cards for doing machine learning. Now they are changing the licensing and making it not okay for data centers is not gonna sit well with people. Especially with the carveout for Bitcoin miners. The number of customers who are impacted like the article points out will be mainly universities. This is bad move overall and isn't gonna gain them any good will…

The fact that "humps" exist implies that quite a few people are putting GeForces in servers and not talking about it. https://www.servethehome.com/avert-your-eyes-from-the-server...
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