Ah ok, so it’s just the kernel part that they’re open sourcing, but a proprietary driver will still need to be installed just as before. I knew there had to be a catch.

I guess it’s nice that this would help with kernel issues, like graphics breaking when you install a new kernel. But still not quite what I was hoping for.

Is this really as good as it sounds? There’s some parts of the article that concern me:

The initial release targeted datacenter compute GPUs

Not every GPU is compatible with the open-source GPU kernel modules.

Is there any chance that this just means only a certain class of GPU’s are ever going to support open source, while their mainline desktop GPU’s will still be proprietary?

Not trying to spread FUD, but I don’t want to get too excited until I know for sure that this means they will support open source drivers on all their future desktop GPU’s.

The image was modified, I think the original said something like “we’re gonna listen to Russian number stations on shortwave radio”

Controversial opinion: Copyleft is actually more free than permissive licenses.

Because the way the GPL works is how the world would be if there were no licenses and no copyright at all. Because then anything made public is free to use. And if I were to reverse-engineer a binary then I could still add that code to my software.

But since we live in a world where we play make-believe that you can make something public and still “own it” at the same time (e.g. copyright) and where using reverse-engineered code can still get you into legal trouble, the GPL is using their own silly logic against them (like fighting fire with fire) to create a bubble of software that acts like a world without any licenses.

Permissive licenses don’t do that, they allow your open software to just get repurposed under a non-free paradigm which could never occur in a world with no licenses. And so ironically permissive licensing in a world that is (artifically) non-permissive by default does not reflect a world with no licenses, and is thus less free than Copyleft.