
Regarding EGLStreams Support in KWin - craftyguy
https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/public-inbox/%3C20190220154143.GA31283%40homura.localdomain%3E
======
emersion
For completeness, here is the reply from one of the KDE developers:
[https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/public-
inbox/%3CCAGeFrHA7FyqR2...](https://lists.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/public-
inbox/%3CCAGeFrHA7FyqR24VkOgYO7tfsVEkfhCcvg6DX_jiJSm-y40hdhQ%40mail.gmail.com%3E)

(It doesn't appear in the thread because it's been forwarded)

EDIT: and here is a blog post about EGLStreams from another KDE developer
(2016): [https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/09/to-
eglstream-...](https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2016/09/to-eglstream-or-
not/)

Here is a follow-up blog post from the same author (2017):
[https://blog.martin-
graesslin.com/blog/2017/10/plasmawayland...](https://blog.martin-
graesslin.com/blog/2017/10/plasmawayland-and-nvidia-2017-edition/)

Here are some (technical) discussions on wayland-devel about EGLStreams
(2016): [https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-
devel/2016-Ma...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-
devel/2016-March/thread.html#27547)

Here are some recent IRC logs from #wayland, also discussing EGLStreams:
[https://dri.freedesktop.org/~cbrill/dri-
log/?channel=wayland...](https://dri.freedesktop.org/~cbrill/dri-
log/?channel=wayland&highlight_names=&date=2019-02-21#t-1155)

------
robert_foss
Either the technical or the political appeal is enough to reject the
EGLStreams series.

There are APIs that offer the same features and are used by _every other_ Open
Source driver. Just implement those.

Nvidia truly is the last vendor in the GPU space that is actively hostile to
Open Source.

Don't get me wrong, the developers at NVidia that are out there contributing
to projects are nice&intelligent people with the best intentions. But their
corporate parent _is actively hostile_.

~~~
PlutoIsAPlanet
There are actually technical reasons GBM can't be used by nVidia.

first is that it's tied to Mesa and secondly it has performance issues with
non-display outputs (e.g. VR).

~~~
robert_foss
GBM doesn't necessarily have to be the answer here.

Just providing an implementation of EGLStreams support for mesa could be
another.

~~~
vetinari
Or the allocator library, they were talking about and didn't get anywhere.

------
gmueckl
I am not sure if open source developers rage against nVidia for justifiable
reasons or not.

They were the first to provide actually usable GPU drivers on Linux. But then
the kernel guys became upset because they couldn't see the insides of the
drivers. IIRC they started the holy crusade when they introduced the tainted
flag in the kernel and made it policy to ignore all bug reports from kernels
with that flag set. That was designed specifically to make nVidia look like a
bad actor. There have been a number of similar sleights against them from
various developers and the company took the beating and has so far worked
stoically around all of these hurdles that were erected.

I am not saying that they are saints, but singling out the vendor of the
objectively best GPU hardware and software package in the market like that
does not feel right, either. There are tons of users out there that have
practically no alternative to that hardware and they are being screwed over.
And they are one of the few markets in which Linux actually has a dominant
share in.

Long story short: I believe that kind of ideology first thinking might do the
Linux software stack in in the long run.

~~~
josteink
> They were the first to provide actually usable GPU drivers on Linux.

Indeed. They raised the bar for Linux graphics. Maybe 10-20 years ago?

And then later ATI/AMD came along. And now their driver, the only driver, is
open-source.

That is, they publish not only a driver, but more importantly the driver
source. As is now true for pretty much all drivers for all HW Linux supports.

The bar has clearly been raised again. And now Nvidia is the only one lagging.

I don’t see anything unreasonable about asking them to contribute at the same
level as everyone else.

Imagine how Linux would look today if _all_ vendors got a free pass with doing
things “their way” like Nvidia does. I doubt it would be functional at all.

I’m not going to cut Nvidia any slack _today_ over what they did back in the
days where everyone agreed M$ was evil and Google could do no wrong. It was a
loooong time ago.

~~~
clhodapp
Unless you have a really old OS version, you actually don't get your driver
from AMD, you get it as a part of your Linux kernel: most Linux drivers aren't
managed as standalone open source software projects, they are simply merged
into the kernel itself.

~~~
pritambaral
> you actually don't get your driver from AMD, you get it as a part of your
> Linux kernel

Thankfully.

However, the open source driver that is now part of the Linux kernel did
indeed come from AMD, and could not have come from anywhere else.

Your parent said AMD publishes the sources to its (only) driver. That they
happen to publish it with the Linux kernel wrapped around it, through
kernel.org, is also true, but not incompatible with the claim that they
publish it.

