Nowadays you cant do anything with the software or hardware you put and have on your pc.
If nvidia is going to go on a power trip, then please make that nvidia drivers is only allowed to get installed by nvidia servicemen before that the servicemen teaches the user about their 30 thousand page eula what and what they can do with THEIR bought hardware.
If I had to point to an exact time when Windows went to complete garbage, I'd say it was right around the time they renamed "My Computer" to "This PC". To me, that just shows how their view of your device changed.
Maybe we should rent our video cards for $25 per month. You get 2,000,000 frames rendered per month and anything beyond that puts you in a pro gamer tier for more money.
I read the article, and a few points stuck out to me:
This has been a restriction since 2021; now itβs documented in the files and not just the online EULA (ie consistent)
This is a protection to disallow other companies like Intel and AMD from profiting off of Nvidiaβs work
Nothing is stopping anybody from porting the software to other hardware, eg
Recompiling existing CUDA programs remains perfectly legal. To simplify this, both AMD and Intel have tools to port CUDA programs to their ROCm (1) and OpenAPI platforms, respectively.
Iβm all for piracy and personal freedoms, but it doesnβt seem to be what this is about. Itβs about combating other companies profiting off Nvidiaβs work. Companies should be able to fight back against other companies (or countries).
I mean itβs not like Nvidia is unreasonably suing open-source projects into oblivion or anything, or subpoenaing websites for user data; at least, not yet.
Their motive is likely more profit but the result is an unjust restriction on user software freedom. It doesn't matter if they make less money, maximising profit is not why we grant them copyright. Nvidia is often unreasonable, fuck off Nvidia.
maximising profit is not why we grant them copyright
Thatβs the only reason copyright exists. Because society decided that if youβre the one to put work into developing something, you should be the one reaping the profits, at least for some time.
No, that's a lie. Copyright exists solely for the purpose "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" -- i.e., to enrich the Public Domain in the long run. Enabling creators to profit is nothing more than a means to that end.
Society in general has not granted this, it was corrupt lawmakers. Notice the distinction of maximizing profits, no one says no profits should be had at all. But I'm pretty sure most of the people don't want companies to literally hold back progress of a whole field, of humanity in general just so their profits can be maximized. It's only the ones directly benefitting from this that would want this, or if you're brainwashed by those parties, otherwise you're just against your own best interests (and of the rest of humanity) which is irrational.
No, it's really not the reason copyright exists. Granting a profit to authors and artists is just a means to an end. The actual purpose is to enrich the public domain. Or "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as the US Constitution puts it.
You could argue corporate lobbying has molded copyright for profit's sake (e.g. we can thank Disney for copyright lasting an unreasonably long time) but that's not all copyright does. Copyleft is a hack of copyright that lets people use software/media created by another but legally compels you to share it under the same license - meaning a greedy corporation can't just take your work and not share back.
There's a good argument that Nvidia only had the money to do the work because of anticompetitive practices, and so shouldn't be allowed to benefit from it unless everyone's allowed to benefit from it, otherwise it's just cementing their dominant position further.