Linus Torvalds: Nvidia, Fuck You!
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited whenever Nvidia's relationship with open-source and Linux drivers comes up.
What it is
A one-minute clip of Linus Torvalds telling Nvidia "fuck you" over its lack of support for Linux and open source. It is taken from a Q&A session.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2012 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites gagan2020 · 2012-09 · on “Hybrid graphics support in Nvidia 's Linux driver”
This effort of Nvidia is brand reconciliation for Linux users. After the talk where Linus mentioned Nvidia. [this video]
Cites D9u · 2013-09 · on “”
How long have you been following the Linux Kernel Mailing List? Linus has always been abrasive when confronted by what he sees as less than intelligent comments. Then there was one of my favorites; When Linus made the following statement to Nvidia. [this video]
Cites Intermernet · 2014-07 · on “GCC 4.9 is doing “some seriously crazy shit” according to Linus Torvalds”
Yes they're completely orthogonal. Linus (seemingly) doesn't care about a person's race, creed, gender, or sexual preference. He cares that they are breaking Linux ( [LINK] ), spreading misinformation about Linux ( [LINK] ), releasing software that breaks Linux (GCC 4.9.0), or being generally, and consistantly anti open-source ( [this video] )
Cites bryanlarsen · 2016-02 · on “GPL Violations Related to Combining ZFS and Linux”
Exactly. They're arguing the combined work clause, which would automatically rule out all binary-only modules, such as nvidia.ko. Most previous arguments about zfs.ko were about the derived work clause, which is much more grey. I belive that nvidia.ko would be more likely to be ruled a derived work than ZFS.ko, but that's hard to tell. It does seem silly to argue about ZFS in this context. ZFS is open source and much less offensive to kernel developers than nvidia.ko.[1] If nvidia.ko is fine, then so is zfs.ko. If nvidia.ko isn't fine, zfs.ko may or may not be fine. Ubuntu has been shipping nvidia.ko for years. 1: [this video]
Cites StRoy · 2016-12 · on “AMD responds to Linux kernel maintainer's rejection of AMDGPU patch”
Without any conflict, uh? [this video] > Nvidia has been the single worst company we've ever dealt with. > - Linus Kernel devs are antagonizing the only two GPU makers that matters. Besides the kernel, there has been some flame going between NVIDIA and Wayland devs too. Open source devs are immature men who do not understand the word compromise.
Cites blueblisters · 2020-07 · on “CUDA 11.0”
The economic incentive is simple: open-sourcing the driver will allow an open-source API to interact with the hardware, allowing AMD/other competitors to support the same API. So instead of competing at the silicon level, Nvidia chooses to set up unnecessary barriers to entry at massive cost to developers/users. Like Torvalds says [1]: Fuck You, Nvidia. [1]: [this video]
Cites vngzs · 2020-07 · on “Nvidia is reportedly in ‘advanced talks’ to buy ARM for more than $32B”
> The claim that nvidia is bad at open source because it does not open source its Linux driver is also quite wrong [...] Hey! Wait a second, there. Nvidia isn't bad because it has a properietary Linux driver. Nvidia is bad because it actively undermines open-source. Quoting Linus Torvalds (2012) [0]: > I'm also happy to very publicly point out that Nvidia has been one of the worst trouble spots we've had with hardware manufacturers, and that is really sad because then Nvidia tries to sell chips - a lot of chips - into the Android Market. Nvidia has been the single worst company we've ever dealt with. > [Lifts middle finger] So Nvidia, fuck you. Nvidia managed to push some PR blurbs about how
Cites totorovirus · 2020-09 · on “Nvidia to Acquire Arm for $40B”
nvidia is notorious for being not nice to oss developers as Linus Torvalds claims: [this video] I wonder how Linux would react to this news.