Nvidia is being blackmailed to open-source their GPU drivers

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29 pointsyasp5 comments

I’m not seeing this as a bad thing… is this supposed to be bad?

I mean being blackmailed to do the socially correct thing doesn’t feel so much wrong as extrajudicial.

No, it's not bad unless you are Nvidia. Personally think they should be open, but nvidia won't do it.

I mean, who gets to decide what is correct and what is not? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, which is why we have adopted law to stand on common ground. Blackmail is most certainly illegal in every jurisdiction.

... which is why the commentator said it was extrajudicial, not morally wrong. We collectively decide as a society what is and is not acceptable, and very often use any forms of social capital available to us in order to enforce those norms.

If you think this is not morally correct we could discuss it, but I don't think many people here will defend NVIDIA or proprietary drivers. Legality is a whole different box. Owning humans used to be legal, it's not the measuring stick we should be using as to whether something is right or wrong.

I'm not sure they necessarily could if they wanted; how much of it comes from a limited use license from someone else?

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