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Nvidia's updated license for NVIDIA GeForce Software bans most usage of gaming-oriented GPUs in data centers, except for the purpose of "blockchain processing":
Nvidia has banned the use of its GeForce and Titan gaming graphics cards in data centers – forcing organizations to fork out for more expensive gear, like its latest Tesla V100 chips. The chip-design giant updated its GeForce and Titan software licensing in the past few days, adding a new clause that reads: "No Datacenter Deployment. The SOFTWARE is not licensed for datacenter deployment, except that blockchain processing in a datacenter is permitted."
In other words, if you wanted to bung a bunch of GeForce GPUs into a server box and use them to accelerate math-heavy software – such as machine learning, simulations and analytics – then, well, you can't without breaking your licensing agreement with Nvidia. Unless you're doing trendy blockchain stuff.
A copy of the license in the Google cache, dated December 31, 2017, shows no mention of the data center ban. Open the page today, and, oh look, data center use is verboten. To be precise, the controversial end-user license agreement (EULA) terms cover the drivers for Nvidia's GeForce GTX and Titan graphics cards. However, without Nvidia's proprietary drivers, you can't unlock the full potential of the hardware, so Nv has you over a barrel.
It's not just a blow for people building their own servers and data centers, it's a blow for any computer manufacturer – such as HPE or Dell – that hoped to flog GPU-accelerated servers, using GTX or Titan hardware, much cheaper than Nvidia charges for, say, its expensive DGX family of GPU-accelerated servers. A DGX-1 with Tesla V100 chips costs about $150,000 from Nvidia. A GeForce or Titan-powered box would cost much less albeit with much less processing power.
NVIDIA's DGX-1 product page.
Also at DataCenter Knowledge.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:54PM (9 children)
Can people tell you how to use the things you bought? Or don't we buy anything anymore? Well, I guess this is another one for the courts to sort out. But regardless, the customers need to tell Nvidia to go to hell, they will use their equipment as they see fit!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 4, Insightful) by anubi on Friday January 05 2018, @03:44AM (2 children)
Maybe we need to invent a currency to use to pay for these kind of products, where we can set limits on what the currency can be used for.
Would NVidia accept this currency with these limitations?
Will we accept NVidea products with their limitations?
All this does is make make disrespection of law to be even more an acceptable practice, encouraging evermore automated compliance enforcement by the very machines we paid our earned money for.
Thank a Congressmen for passing the laws which foment such a mess.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @08:56AM
anonmodding you +1
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday January 05 2018, @03:18PM
Thank a Congressmen for passing the laws which foment such a mess.
No, let's thank the voters for keeping 95% of them every season. With numbers like this, don't expect much for the future.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday January 05 2018, @03:57AM (4 children)
This is the logical consequence of that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday January 05 2018, @10:34AM (3 children)
Are you drawing a distinction between copying a program and actually running it? Or are you just expressing your dislike for copyright law?
(Score: 4, Informative) by TheRaven on Friday January 05 2018, @12:58PM (1 child)
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:31PM
What fun, that means that books can now also be covered by EULA's since the process of reading them involves making a copy of the current page on your retina!
(Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Friday January 05 2018, @02:39PM
Indeed. See theRavens post.
Also note that you similarly could be argued to copy books into memory when you read them, yet you don't need any license to read a book you bought. As many times as you want, in any location, for any purpose. This is true of all copyrighted media. Licenses are required to exercise rights that law reserves to the copyright holder - like distributing derivative works for instance - but not needed for normal use of the media (reading books, playing back recordings.)
Then we got some big companies with big pockets that managed to bum-rush the law and simply *seize* our rights by confusing the courts.
It's ridiculous and clearly contrary to law. Sheer corruption.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @06:06AM
> Can people tell you how to use the things you bought?
You're just "licensing" stuff, and it forms the entire legal basis behind EULAs and DRM. For a fun read, check the DRM anti-circumvention clause, and the things that are allowed exclusively because of the periodic (every 3 years, IIRC) renewal of exceptions, which therefore may become illegal at a random point in the future. This includes basic stuff like rooting your phone.