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China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

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Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#41

Post by w1ntermute »

megablast wrote: post #16
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #6

China is investing in Linux for one simple reason - they can have someone read the source code. A (low-level?) war is going on right now between US and China - and the battlefield are the hardware and software that runs the world. Can't read the code - then we don't trust that you aren't spying on us. Unfortunately I doubt they will extend the same rights to their citizens. On the Nvidia side, this is either the dumb…

Governments and Universities can already get access to Windows source. I think the difference is that China can write the source for Linux.

Universities are given access to Windows source? I'd never heard of this before. Do they give access to all accredited universities, or is there some other kind of restriction?

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#43

Post by gaius »

w1ntermute wrote: post #41
megablast wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments and Universities can already get access to Windows source. I think the difference is that China can write the source for Linux.

Universities are given access to Windows source? I'd never heard of this before. Do they give access to all accredited universities, or is there some other kind of restriction?

See http://www.microsoft.com/education/facultyconnection/article...

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#44

Post by marshray »

wpietri wrote: post #27
lucian1900 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have misread. If one has enough info about nvidia hardware in order to make a driver for nvidia hardware, the same info is not enough to make your own nvidia hardware clones.

Sounds like plenty to make drivers for your knockoff hardware, though.

Why would you want to make hardware which is compatible with open source Nvidia drivers?

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#45

Post by wmf »

y0ghur7_xxx wrote: post #4

I am happy that the Chinese invest this much in Linux. This obviously motivates big hardware makers to release quality/OS drivers for their products, and in the end I benefit from that as well. I remember the times I had to hack around for days to get some particular piece of hardware to work. That happens less and less, and now most of the stuff I buy just works. Video cards and capture cards are the big exception f…

I am happy that the Chinese invest this much in Linux. This obviously motivates big hardware makers to release quality/OS drivers for their products, and in the end I benefit from that as well.

I don't see this happening. We're now seeing Chinese SoCs built from western IP cores (e.g. Allwinner) and soon there will be all-Chinese chips. They don't bother to write any English documentation and they just throw barely-working, uncommented drivers over the wall, never bothering to participate in upstream development at all. (Note that this is only marginally worse than traditional western embedded development, so I'm not really criticizing the Chinese electronics industry.)

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#46

Post by wmf »

BadassFractal wrote: post #9

The article mentions that some of the brightest minds of NVIDIA are now working in China on its future generations of CPUs/GPUs. I don't have the full context, but is it possible that we're seeing the first baby steps of a reverse brain drain?

I've seen it. The Chinese government is "buying back" their top people in the US.

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#47

Post by wmil »

xlevus wrote: post #23
lucian1900 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many experts have shown that hardware specs which are sufficient for writing drivers are entirely useless for making hardware, to someone already versed in the field.

I read/heard/imagined(?) that the reason GPU vendors weren't willing to hand over their source was due to a proportion of their performance being software based. Which then a competitor could also implement.

The other big problem is lawsuit exposure. Given the current state of the patent system it's certain that nVidia drivers infringe on someone's patents.

Closed source drivers make it more difficult for patent owners to check, and launching a lawsuit without evidence of infringement is very expensive.

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#48

Post by drucken »

vlasta2 wrote: post #12
vidarh wrote: post #5

As much as I want this to be true, I don't see anything in terms of sources, I've never heard of this site before, and the style of writing doesn't exactly make it seem very credible. I haven't tried very hard, but didn't immediately find any other sites with this news that weren't simply linking to or regurgitating this article. Losing or winning a contract this size is something you'd expect a lot of well known new…

Also, there is one thing about the title of this story that I do not understand. Why would a failed negotiation imply that "nvidia is losing face"?

The author clearly means Nvidia losing face with respect to China.

This concept of "losing face" may seem like just a small word or minor loss of reputation to Westerners, but in a sense is more important in China (and to varying extent all over the Far East) than even money.

If the story is true, and the depth of detail leads me to believe it is very likely, then the reputational damage to Nvidia would be high and, more importantly, entrenched (an aspect of face that makes it different from mere temporary reputational loss) due the public service, government angle and the size of the proposal.

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#49

Post by SkyMarshal »

Albuca wrote: post #8
NiekvdMaas wrote: post #2

It seems the site is down, so here is the Google cache link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

Thanks for posting the link! EDIT: And I get downvoted for saying thanks... so thanks. EDIT EDIT: And a upvote. Cheers!

Protip - if all you want to post is "thanks" or "cool" or something like that, just upvote and don't post anything, that's what the upvote button is for. The parent poster will know which one the upvotes mean.

Otherwise, your post will tend to get downvoted around here for not saying anything a simple upvote can.

1. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: China: Nvidia Loses Face and a 10 Million PC Order over Linux Drivers and NRE's

#50

Post by mc32 »

drucken wrote: post #48
vlasta2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, there is one thing about the title of this story that I do not understand. Why would a failed negotiation imply that "nvidia is losing face"?

The author clearly means Nvidia losing face with respect to China. This concept of "losing face" may seem like just a small word or minor loss of reputation to Westerners, but in a sense is more important in China (and to varying extent all over the Far East) than even money. If the story is true, and the depth of detail leads me to believe it is very likely, then the reputational damage to Nvidia would be high and,…

Also, the CEO is from Taiwan, so there could be some actual politics involved, seeing as CN regards TW as their "renegade" province.
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