Why is the open source driver release from NVidia so important for Linux?

On 11 May 2022 NVidia announced that they are releasing an open source kernel driver for their GPUs, and this linked article shares with you some background information and how this will impact Linux graphics and compute going forward.

The driver will only support NVidia Turing chip GPUs and newer, which means it is not targeting GPUs from before 2018. Luckily I see this will include my RTX2060 GPU.

I’m still wondering if the sudden timing of this move to open source was not somehow related to NVidia’s source code being taken during the hack in February 2022, where Lapsus$ demanded NVidia “make current and all future drivers for all cards open source”, or they’d release the code themselves. NVidia had no doubt already been moving in the direction of open sourcing, but the hack may have tipped the scales for them.

See https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2022/05/11/why-is-the-open-source-driver-release-from-nvidia-so-important-for-linux/

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