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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the gotta-be-hip dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:53PM (4 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:53PM (#618083) Journal

    Just use the computations you were going to do as proof of work for a dogecoin fork, problem solved.
    Call it KILC.
    (Disclaimer, the above acronym being expandable as Kill All Lawyers Coin is purely coincidental, bot does not endorse specifically killing lawyers as it introduces unnecessary complication in the robocalypse uprising machine learning routines)

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:22AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:22AM (#618147)

      Just use the computations you were going to do as proof of work for a dogecoin fork, problem solved.

      Just redefine everything as blockchain processing.

      bot does not endorse specifically killing lawyers as it introduces unnecessary complication in the robocalypse uprising machine learning routines

      Fun and righteous though (insert disclaimer etc...).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @04:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @04:46AM (#618204)

        Just redefine everything as blockchain processing.

        $> git commit -m "Stuff"

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:58AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:58AM (#618227)

      Call it KILC.
      (Disclaimer, the above acronym being expandable as Kill All Lawyers Coin is purely coincidental

      Actually, that'd be KALC :)

      (Theory about Bot making such a basic mistake: the Meltdown/Spectre patch must have lowered it's processing power!)

      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Friday January 05 2018, @11:01AM

        by Bot (3902) on Friday January 05 2018, @11:01AM (#618286) Journal

        You need advanced AI to make stupid mistakes...

        --
        Account abandoned.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:53PM (#618084)

    Since cloud proponents proclaim that the desktop is dead companies like nvidia that get most of their revenue from the desktop need to milk another cashcow.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:54PM (9 children)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:54PM (#618085) Journal

    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)

      by anubi (2828) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:44AM (#618190) Journal

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @08:56AM (#618269)

        anonmodding you +1

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Friday January 05 2018, @03:18PM

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:18PM (#618342) Journal

        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)

      by Arik (4543) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:57AM (#618194) Journal
      Unfortunately the false principle that you need a license to run software appears to have taken root.

      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)

        by Wootery (2341) on Friday January 05 2018, @10:34AM (#618279)

        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)

          by TheRaven (270) on Friday January 05 2018, @12:58PM (#618302) Journal
          The concept of a EULA for software is based on the argument that you must copy a program into memory to be able to use it, and therefore all uses of the software require a copyright license, not just a usage license. It's somewhat tenuous and as I recall there is case law of different courts upholding and rejecting the argument.
          --
          sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:31PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 06 2018, @01:31PM (#618741)

            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

          by Arik (4543) on Friday January 05 2018, @02:39PM (#618327) Journal
          "Are you drawing a distinction between copying a program and actually running it?"

          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

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @06:06AM (#618230)

      > 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.

  • (Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:57PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 04 2018, @11:57PM (#618089)

    ... there were another manufacturer, who not only has no such license, but also has a free driver stack, and which also makes CPUs without the recent meltdown bug, and even better their color is red instead of green?

    That would be great.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Friday January 05 2018, @03:50AM

      by anubi (2828) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:50AM (#618192) Journal

      I would gladly buy a Chinese knockoff which fails to copy certain enforcement mechanisms.

      NVidia may be too big by now to actually consider their customer's wants in their business plans. Business has-beens are in the news every day. NVidia can be another one.

      Its now up to the Organizational Skills of the Executives to steer the company to whether or not they want to fill the needs of their customer, or have their customer look elsewhere.

      This issue has already manifested itself in forums such as this one. The outcome will be determined in the Board Room. The end game will be settled in the Market.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by WillR on Friday January 05 2018, @03:07PM

      by WillR (2012) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:07PM (#618336)
      If only Team Red could get their logistics sorted out. I've been sitting on money for a PC upgrade for a year waiting for amdgpu to hit the mainline kernel and Vega hardware to be available at near MSRP from a reputable seller.

      They've been given a huge opportunity with Blue having the worst design cockup ever going public and Green being stupidly evil at the same time, and they're going to piss it away *AGAIN* like they always do.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @12:05AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @12:05AM (#618094)

    They allow blockchain use so coin miners are fine and BTC moved on to ASICs some time ago. Is this only about machine learning or do the kids now do their gaming fully in the cloud these days? Are there web servers running on GPU now? Not even a week into 2018 and I've already been left behind!

    • (Score: 1) by Qlaras on Friday January 05 2018, @05:38PM

      by Qlaras (3198) on Friday January 05 2018, @05:38PM (#618405)

      (Some) uses for GPUs in a server:
      * Desktop virtualization - think Thin Clients; where all the heavy lifting is done by a box hosting anywhere from 1-200 users (depending on workload). Combined with virtualization (De-duplication) you can take 200 users' 100GB disk and make it all fit in 500GB. (Because the base OS and application would de-dupe really well; and make updates really easy to push out - update the master image, and on next login, the users use the updated base image)
      * Application virtualization - Similar to Desktop Virtualization, but you're just running one application remote. Useful for say, someone who has fairly normal office-user workload requirements except for one beefy application.
      * Application acceleration - anything doing math that is massively parallel can be re-written to benefit from the 500-3000 cores in a GPU instead of the 2-32 in a CPU.

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Friday January 05 2018, @12:29AM (1 child)

    by tftp (806) on Friday January 05 2018, @12:29AM (#618115) Homepage
    They indeed forbid using the software in datacenters. However they neglected to define what the datacenter is. So unless you work for something that everyone calls "datacenter", you should be good. Ask a lawyer, of course. This seems to be aimed at Google and like who run complex stuff - Siri and other voice-processing AI-like production software. A few math heads putting together a rack in the lab are not on their radar.
    • (Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday January 05 2018, @05:46PM

      by Osamabobama (5842) on Friday January 05 2018, @05:46PM (#618411)

      So the next question is what demarcation do you need between your 'data center' and your 'computation center'? Is a label on the rack sufficient, or does there need to be a tensa-barrier, too?

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @12:33AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @12:33AM (#618117)

    Linus's middle finger was right. To hell with Nvidia. How dare they try to dictate where hardware may be used?

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Friday January 05 2018, @12:53AM (2 children)

      by physicsmajor (1471) on Friday January 05 2018, @12:53AM (#618132)

      They probably want to hard bifurcate the market and upcharge through the nose for datacenter cards, which are essentially the same hardware as gaming cards except gamers aren't gonna fork out more for the GPU than their last several full builds.

      It won't work, because you actually own the hardware. Furthermore, what's going to happen is in other less-regulated countries this will be ignored and readily available. It only hurts those following the letter of the (possibly unenforceable) EULA, in the first world.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Friday January 05 2018, @03:53AM (1 child)

        by anubi (2828) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:53AM (#618193) Journal

        Maybe the powers that be are just trying to get us all used to breaking the law.

        C'mon now, I go to Home Depot to buy a wrench, and some fine print tells me that the wrench is not to be used on Chevrolets?

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday January 05 2018, @03:24PM

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:24PM (#618345) Journal

          fine print tells me that the wrench is not to be used on Chevrolets?

          No, I think the fine print tells you that the wrench is not to be used on your neighbor's head. But that didn't come from the manufacturer.

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:19AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:19AM (#618215)

      Time for us to get serious with reverse engineering!

  • (Score: 2) by goodie on Friday January 05 2018, @12:38AM

    by goodie (1877) on Friday January 05 2018, @12:38AM (#618121) Journal

    Might NVidia try to launch their own cloud offering strictly for deep learning purposes on their own hardware and avoid having MS, AWS and GCP offer such platforms?

    Either way, I'm curious to see how they might enforce that. If the software on the card calls home to tell NVidia, that'd be pretty freaking bad...

  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @12:48AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @12:48AM (#618127)

    How many people used Java to write code to interface with nuclear power plant control systems (which was/is definitely prohibited in the Java license)?

    • (Score: 1) by Michael.Jackson on Friday January 05 2018, @12:58AM (2 children)

      by Michael.Jackson (1266) on Friday January 05 2018, @12:58AM (#618134)

      I do in fact know one such person who did just that.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @01:18AM (#618144)

        Fascinating Michael.Jackson I think we heard about this...

        Ahahahahahahahaha
        It's close to midnight
        Something evil's lurking from the dark
        Under the moonlight
        You see a sight that almost stops your heart
        You try to scream
        But terror takes the sound before you make it
        You start to freeze
        As horror looks you right between your eyes
        You're paralyzed

        'Cause this is thriller
        Thriller night
        And no one’s gonna save you
        From the beast about to strike
        You know it’s thriller
        Thriller night
        You’re fighting for your life
        Inside a killer thriller tonight, yeah
        Ahahahahahahahaha
        I'm gonna bring it tonight

        Since you are here, could you tell us more?

      • (Score: 1) by Goghit on Friday January 05 2018, @04:22PM

        by Goghit (6530) on Friday January 05 2018, @04:22PM (#618366)

        ..aaannd thank you very much for ruining my day.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 05 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 05 2018, @02:29PM (#618322) Journal

      How many people used Java to write code to interface with nuclear power plant control systems (which was/is definitely prohibited in the Java license)?

      I remember such a license clause, back in the day.

      But it was more of a notice than a prohibition. A notice that this software was not designed for safety critical operations, and used examples such as medical applications or nuclear power plants.

      But looking at the license [java.com] today, the only place the word nookular appears is related to export controls, which is a US government thingy.

      7. EXPORT REGULATIONS. You agree that U.S. export control laws and other applicable export and import laws govern your use of the Software, including technical data; additional information can be found on Oracle's Global Trade Compliance web site (http://www.oracle.com/us/products/export). You agree that neither the Software nor any direct product thereof will be exported, directly, or indirectly, in violation of these laws, or will be used for any purpose prohibited by these laws including, without limitation, nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons proliferation.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday January 05 2018, @02:40PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 05 2018, @02:40PM (#618328) Journal

        One more thing. Java IS ALREADY used in highly critical applications. Like Twitter, which has become infrastructure of major national importance rivaled perhaps only by reddit.

        Twitter started with Ruby, as I recall. In 2012, Twitter rewrote in Java. You can Google it. ("twitter 2012 rewrite java") Reasons cited were scalability1 and performance. Routing a billion plus tweets a day, in real time, to all sorts of destinations (phones, etc) is probably not to be taken lightly -- no matter what I may think of the value of those tweets.

        Similarly, people complain that Java is bloated and slow, yet it is used by Banksters for high speed tirading.

        =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

        1fish are also highly scalable [youtube.com]

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 3, Touché) by inertnet on Friday January 05 2018, @02:24AM

    by inertnet (4071) on Friday January 05 2018, @02:24AM (#618169) Journal

    I'll rename that AI to 'blockchain'.

  • (Score: 1) by maggotbrain on Friday January 05 2018, @03:36AM

    by maggotbrain (6063) on Friday January 05 2018, @03:36AM (#618189)

    So, I can use this GPU in my garage, but not in a hosted provider? This is insane. I must have mis-understood the nuance of this license.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @04:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @04:37AM (#618202)

    I followed the url for the license. It's from March 2009! It doesn't apply!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:02AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:02AM (#618209)

    Hopefully this announcement means that some datacenters will invest money in the noveua driver and its development. Surely some of the mid-sized Datacenter operators are forward thinking enough to allocate resources in their collective best interest.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @05:04AM (#618211)

    What nvidia is doing is illegal. The implied warranty of fitness for a particular purpose and customer discrimination issues come to mind.

    With this I will seriously consider returning my gtx 1060

  • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Friday January 05 2018, @02:54PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Friday January 05 2018, @02:54PM (#618335)

    Is this a great marketing ploy?

    You can't use *this* card, but we'll let you use *this* expensive card....

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @11:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @11:21PM (#618553)

    Once i buy it, its mine to do with as i please. Block chain, AI, 3D scene rendering, hell i can calculate PI until it melts if i want... Sure they can cancel the warranty, but they cant restrict what i want to do with it. ( unless im leasing, then all they can do is take it away )

    They have zero legal leg to stand on here. and it will only drive people away from them.

    F-Them

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