Someone needs to be reminded that anticompetitive practices are illegal
It's cool I fixed it now.
America, moments after outlawing IVF
Just as an aside, I'm an American that emigrated to Canada. My province (BC) is currently passing a law to make one attempt at IVF free for everyone (starting midyear in 2025)... laws actually can be used for good.
Yeah this is cool and all but how can it benefit the wealthiest people in the country more? ✊💦✊💦
I'm very happy to hear that at least some in the US understand what is being done to them
Lots of us know, but we mostly live in urban centers where life is better (and often a bit less car centric, for example). Our voting and election finance laws erase lots of our voices.
Just be lucky that when motivated, we still vastly outvote the right wing nuts.
California tries its best... There's a bunch of pro-consumer laws that other states don't have. There's the CCPA which is similar to GDPR (including the right to know and the right to be forgotten). You must be able to cancel a service easily online if you can sign up online. Store gift cards aren't allowed to have expiration dates. Gift cards with less than $10 on them must be redeemable for cash. Stricter laws against false advertising. And a bunch of other useful laws.
Not as good as the Australian Consumer Law, but better than pretty much every other US state.
Actually probably not. Not without major concessions. The pound will have to go which they will never accept unless they have absolutely no other choice
Because countries that join nowadays have to adopt the Euro. Denmark, for example, joined when that was still allowed, so they still have their DK.
Apparently it's dependent on the signing of a certain agreement before a certain date, which the UK did sign, so it's actually debated on whether or not Brexit made that signature null or not.
Yeah I'm confused about this statement... There's several EU countries that don't use the Euro, like Poland and Czechia.
Some joined when the rules stated that you could choose. Some others are just waiting to meet conditions that will allow them to enter the Eurozone (like Croatia did last year)
That would be such a mistake and only serve to cause more division, because as you say, the UK would never accept it. Neither would multiple countries already in the EU that also use their own currency.
The EU, generally, are pragmatic. They'd much rather get other concessions than wasting political capital on trying to enforce the Euro on the UK.
E: downvote all you like, but that's realpolitik. The EU isn't going to pass up the second largest economy in the continent over something so trivial that they don't even pressure much smaller countries into it. Pure fantasy from people who don't have a clue.
The UK adopts various EU rules, a lot of stuff even sold in Northern Ireland has to abide by EU rules (so just say that Apple did make separate lightning and USB C phones, they'd have to use separate operations to sell specific ones in parts of the UK and not others, it probably would have been easier for them to just sell the European models)
Nvidia: bans platform translation layers for CUDA
Meanwhile AMD: is forbidden from releasing an open source HDMI 2.1 driver supporting 4K@120hz because of HDMI Forums requirements.
At least it is royality free compared to HDMI which has a large annual fee + per unit fee for manufacturers
Oh. It's absolutely superior on the royalties side. Just incredibly frustrating that what should be an open standard that anyone can tinker with is not.
It's at least partially because the specification was designed to detect and thwart attempts to tee the video and audio data in order to bypass copy protection on DVDs and Blu-Rays, iirc.
It is indeed and the fact that I don't care about any of that makes it that much more frustrating. I got bored with piracy nearly two decades ago and just want to implement my own open-source virtual display systems in hardware and gateway I shouldn't need to either cough up thousands of dollars a year or find a copy of a PDF that someone "accidentally" left at a public location in order to do so with an established protocol standard.
Accidental DisplayPort guy checking in. I didn't even know it was a thing until I bought my graphics card. It seems like I dummied my way into some good tech.
sadly not, but GPUs (at least those I used) do not support that over HDMI as well, which is kinda frustrating :/
It was hilarious seeing Intel bent over the proverbial barrel for a while after AMD put out Ryzen, be nice if they could do the same to nvidia.
These companies are wielding way too much power if they are not afraid to act like this in the open. Bring back making the board of executives and C Suites lives hell when a company so much as inconveniences you.
I want to see fines that have real teeth. No flat rates. Some defined amount per violation, in addition to forfeiture of all revenue derived from or connected to the violation(s). It might be complex to figure out what revenue that applies to inside a large corporation, so to help with the assessment you get a group of government auditors attached to your company for as long as the assessment takes. You pay their wages and provide them with whatever office space &etc they require, and they have a position on your executive board and full oversight of company operations until your debt to society is fully paid.
Regulatory violations should risk ending the company. If you can't run a profitable business legally then you shouldn't be running a business.
Personally, I think it would be easier for all involved to just fine based on a percentage of global annual revenue from the date of the violation to present. If they want personhood so bad, then they can have this too.
Edit for an example: let's say Intel does anticompetitive behavior 15 years ago and a court case finds them liable for damages today. Add up the last 15 years worth of global revenue, and take a percentage of that.
Making it easy is precisely not the point. Having to deal with auditors combing through your accounting records and overseeing your operations until every dollar of illegally gained revenue is accounted for is the point.
The consequence should be onerous, cumbersome and embarrassing for the company.
I get what you mean, but I prefer massive fines due immediately vs expensive and drawn out processes. Using my example, the very absolute bottom of the barrel Intel's fine could be is a percentage of over $500B (Intel's revenue in 2009 was $35B, multiplied by 15). Even at 1% based on this floor, the fine would be over $5B.
Just to play Devils advokat here: Wouldn't that just completely discourage anyone from taking up a new CEO or similar role since you are now liable for some illegal activities that might have happened without your knowledge and long time ago.
You would at least need very good evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the person in question actively put into motion the illegal activity and knew that it was illegal.
Placing blame on a single individual might feel satisfying but does not nessesarly punish the correct responsible. When cooperations get as large as Nvidia, Intel etc. it functions in my opinion like one giant complex organism and legal issues like these are often systemic and involves hundreds of people who took decisions.
I think massive and progressive fines are in fact a good tool because it punishes the "organism" that is truly to blame and not an individual who might be to blame.
No, stop putting randos in the positions of power.
Selling everyone and everything to the highest bidder should be discouraged and punished. The yes-men bellow will fall in line.
Then who do you suggest should be in power instead? I'm just asking because I would not know. To me personally they will always be a "rando"
Alright, let me rephrase that.
Stop putting power-hungry people into positions of power. Put there people who care about others, and don't want the power. Works for government too.
Exactly. Same in every club, society and whatnot. The power hungry with strong narcissistic traits (not the mental health diagnosis, mind you) are those who promote their buddies and do everything to stay in power. Its essentially the single biggest problem we have. You can pin mostly all and everything that is wrong with our world on those traits (basically the dark triad), yet they are promoted everywhere. You need to have „elbows“ even in primary school. Just a fool wouldn’t see the outcome of that.
I agree but yet here we are... And I don't think just putting people in jail helps. But it should definitely have consequences, that's for sure, but they must first be effective for what they are trying to solve.
I am all for rehabilitative care and what not.
But psycho- and sociopaths should be behind bars. I'm not even sure if they can be helped.
And you played the devils advocate well but the reality is very different. As a former CEO I can tell you that there definitely are jail sentences possible for rather minor offenses (where I live, mind you) like not answering a letter by the government because you were busy. Granted, you do have to be very overwhelmed to not answer those for an extended period but it happens.
But its the same for small companies that male no profit as it is for multi billion dollar companies.
I suppose you get the problem here. We have always pinned it on the individual because fines are a corpos wet dream. Same readon why the country I live in has mostly fines for speeding (so it doesnt affect the rich).
So, mandatory jail sentences, increasing with the companies profit.
Disincentivizing people taking up massive responsibilities that affect the wellbeing of more than a hundred people, sometimes billions, is absolutely the best way to insure that only selfless and competent people take the position.
Fuck em, CEOs are a waste of space, just make everything a cooperative or something.
I think it is naive to think that only selfless and competent people will take the role then. If properly competent you'd see the massive risk of jail and be highly discouraged to take the position. Noone in their right mind would risk jailtime for a job position.
On the other hand, billionaires, risktakers and gamblers would be more than willing to take such a role for the power it gives. They don't really care since billionaires manage their risks with all the money they have, and risktakers and gamblers simply just dont care about it untill it hits them.
So it solves nothing
If selfish or incompetent people take the role they go to jail, if highly ethical people take the role they don't go to jail. Generally how laws are supposed to be written.
In general, it translates instructions into something readable by whats accessing it. A popular translation layer on Lemmy is Proton. Its how the Steam Deck can play all those windows games.
Got a Windows app you want to run on Linux? Wine and Proton are well known translation layers.
I guess Graphics Cards are similar. CUDA is basically the NVIDIA equivalent of .exe I think.
Cuda is an Nvidia specific method for using a graphics card to do computation (not just graphics), like physics simulations.
Translation layers would let you use software designed for other graphics cards to work with Cuda, or to let Cuda software work on other graphics cards
CUDA was there first and has established itself as the standard for GPGPU ("general purpose GPU" aka calculating non-graphics stuff on a graphics card). There are many software packages out there that only support CUDA, especially in the lucrative high-performance computing market.
Most software vendors have no intention of supporting more than one API since CUDA works and the market isn't competitive enough for someone to need to distinguish themselves though better API support.
Thus Nvidia have a lock on a market that regularly needs to buy expensive high-margin hardware and they don't want to share. So they made up a rule that nobody else is allowed to write out use something that makes CUDA software work with non-Nvidia GPUs.
That's anticompetitive but it remains to be seen if it's anticompetitive enough for the EU to step in.
I guess I'm missing who owns/developed Cuda, then. Like, why does Nvidia think they can disallow anyone else from using Cuda if Cuda was made and broadly used as the API before Nvidia.
CUDA was developed and launched by nvidia. The predecessor was lead by the same person and developed in the open, as opposed to CUDA.
Less that they don't want other companies using it and more so they don't want other other companies translating it into something they can use.
Basically, translating an instruction manual from German to Spanish.
No one is breaking any copyright laws or IP to do this. It's the same how Steam created Proton to run Windows games on Linux. It's translating code from one language to another that's readable.
If Linux becomes the dominant gaming platform for gaming (not gonna happen, wish it would tho), there is no reason for a "Proton for Windows" could/should emerge.
Hey now. That all depends on how popular Steam Deck handhelds keep getting and if future versions of windows keep getting worse and more ad intrusive like windows 11 has done. Gaming on Linux has gotten much easier and at some point the chunk of people on Linux will be high enough (it's gone from 1.6% in 2019 to 4% now) that devs will decide its worth it to make Linux compatible games. I have a desktop at home that still works as a pretty good gaming rig at home, but win 11 isn't supported by my processor. Once win 10 stops getting support it will be running Linux only. A lot of preventing a full switch over now is the anti cheat software some major studios use on their online games that won't run on Linux.
/useless rant.
Oh, I drive Linux only. I have Windows 10 running Atlas playbook on standby but hasn't been booted in months.
I think the entry barrier for installation/setup is what will be what stops Linux fully taking over. If OEMs start loading a very user friendly Linux on their "normal" desktops/laptops (Best Buy, Amazon, etc.), then I can see Linux being the majority.
With all that said, I want Linux to be the majority and running on everyone's computer. I'm just being a realist at this point in time.
I'd singlehandedly bring down the car manufacturers in my country if I could. They have the strongest lobby in Germany for sure.
https://youtu.be/uErKI0zWgjg?si=kOQ5xUtJHcJvVaMj
Stealing it one piece at a time seems to be celebrated by the same generation of people that are concerned about copying media
Europeans People Party, large political party within the EU which is largely full of conservative right-wing folks with the german Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen at it's top. She is also currently president of the European Commission and has been known to be involved in corruption and to favour company interests, as well as the rest of the fuckers in the EPP.
So I guess the context is: If EPP stays in power, that's good for top-business-people, but bad for everyone else. Thereby detrimental for such competitive-practise-laws.
Europeans People Party, large political party within the EU which is largely full of conservative right-wing folks
First the EPP is center-right, not conservative right-wing.
So I guess the context is: If EPP stays in power, that’s good for top-business-people, but bad for everyone else.
Second there's too much leftists' bullshit already in EU member states and all that power vacuum created by key keep such as Angela Merkel leaving governments created all the right conditions for the US, Ukraine and Russia to start a war at the EU border that only benefits the USA and has a large economical impact on the EU.
First the EPP is center-right, not conservative right-wing.
As far as I can see it, they are conservative-right wing. It's even clear from the first sentence of the Wikipedia article you posted further down:
with Christian-democratic,[4] liberal-conservative,[4] and conservative[5][6] member parties
Second there's too much leftists' bullshit already in EU member states
You mean like those competiveness laws discussed in this post?
that only benefits the USA
Sounds like a conspiracy myth to me. Feel free to elaborate.
As far as I can see it, they are conservative-right wing.
I'm sorry, that's not what they identify with...
They do include a LOT of people from doc-dem parties in EU member states. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_People%27s_Party
Not sure if you know how the EU "parties" work but the members aren't directly elected like in other places. They simply have a bunch of chairs that get filled with people from member state parties that applied to be part of that EU level organization. We most likely shouldn't even call them political parties.
A guarantee of deploying to europe would be great for military retention! Everyone is tired of fighting forever wars in the desert
Yeah take me back to the early 20th century, that was when you could get some good warring in
I give it about 10 years before the EU is invaded by the US after corporate lobbying
No need. The US most likely pushed Ukraine and Russia into a war that essentially is a way to put so much pressure in the EU economy that things will fail one way or the other.
Russia (and Putin) are so weak the USA forced them to invade their neighbour?
I'm not saying that is or that isn't the case. What I know is that in this war, right after Ukraine, the EU is the most affected party. The US is the one that has most to gain from destabilizing the EU economy and weakening the Euro.
Politically sure, but economically the USA is hurt by this war. You may as well make the case that it’s in China’s interest, or Indias.
But that wouldn’t align with Kremlin disinformation that you’re spreading. Wilfully or not.
The US promptly forgot that Ukraine existed once they gave Russia their nukes back, and didn't bother to think about them again until Russia invaded. The major exception being Hunter Biden, and he has never been in politics so he doesn't count.
But until a government steps in there's potential civil liability for violating the terms. And even winning a lawsuit against Nvidia could be very expensive and take years. And even if they lost it would be worth it to Nvidia to go through the long, expensive process because they'd making sales that entire time.
Probably depends on your country's laws. Here in Estonia most EULAs aren't valid because pressing accept on those isn't legally binding.
What if we don't accept the EULA? Like why do we need to accept Nvidia's EULA to create translation layer of cuda?
You probably don't but it depends where you are. Reverse engineering software without permission isn't illegal in most places but in the US I'm pretty sure it is.
So its for reverse engineering it only? They can't restrict creating a translation layer if no reverse engineering is involved right?
No idea, I'm not from the US and don't know the laws beyond what I have previously looked up. Here in Estonia you can make the translation layer without accepting any EULA and even if you did it wouldn't be legally binding. You can alse reverse engineer anything you want.
If translation layer can be banned with EULA how is wine not dead yet? M$ loves Linux or what?
"...because it makes us money" could be put at the end of any slogan to make it 100% honest.
The EULA of the CUDA SDK bans reverse engineering output of the SDK to make translation layers (and such compatibility aids in general).
That makes it more legally dangerous and/or harder for devs. It has no effect on anyone not using the SDK.
How is that Nvidia can ban reverse engineering and for example Nintendo can't. I'm sure they would love to just say in EULA that sorry but reverse engineering Switch is prohibited therefore every emulator is illegal
Well, maybe they can't. This clause would probably not hold up in a lot of countries/courts. OTOH it would in others. It might take years of litigation to figure out.
So, if you want to work on this kind of thing, better consult a lawyer first. It will have a chilling effect and that's something.
US situation: https://www.eff.org/issues/coders/reverse-engineering-faq
I'm willing to bet that Linux is irrelevant to Microsoft. It doesn't threaten them, Microsoft has it's core business elsewhere
Microsoft do make money from Linux though. For example, Microsoft SQL Server runs on Linux, and you can use Linux in Azure (both of which are part of their core business).
Microsoft's operating system accounts for a vanishingly small percentage of server hosting, and their deathgrip on personal computing is starting to slip. (Particularly as Android has already replaced Windows as the most popular operating system.)
Microsoft is well past "not worried", looking at "too late to do anything about it" in the rear view mirror, and barreling toward "cease to exist if they don't continue to stick the landing on interoperability with Linux and Android".
Microsoft's long term relevance plan counts on cloud tools on Linux and their Office Suite on every platform.
Yeah. I can't say I blame them, in that front.
As someone who often runs apps on hardware the app was never meant to run on, it's not great.
There may be a unified Android / Linux package type coming, when more laptops are touchscreens and more phones are dockable workstations. But I doubt the Windows kernel will have much to do with either.
Microsoft is earning crap loads of money from Android. The more Android phones are being sold, the more money Microsoft gets.
Yeah. To be clear, I'm not calling them out. Just pointing out that Microsoft is very aware that Windows isn't the future of the company, anymore.
This has been said time and time again but fuck Nvidia. Preventing compatibility layers ensures games and programs that need this stuff are extra unreliable, bloated and enshittified.
They can prohibit whatever they want, but how enforceable is it? Does Nvidia intend to play whack a mole by checking for translation layers?
If AMD and/or Intel took leadership of the project the Nintendo move wouldn't work and they'd have to actually test it in court
"How dare you use software on your hardware," says another worthless gaggle of bastard morons.
Just have Jensen Huang flop his dick out and say CUDA is an anti-competitive tactic. It wouldn't be less obvious.
Now imagine Microsoft banning the translation of DirectX to Vulkan. Could they do that? That would kill gaming on Linux in a snap.
Who said anything about heroes? Villains sometimes want to stop other villains, too. In fact, probably often.
To be fair thor is undoubtedly firmly in the hero category, and they are depicted as him in this meme Thor Ragnarok.
top slider is hella (villain) middle is Thor (hero), bottom is Surtur (villain)
I would argue that the meme has long lost that particular aspect of itself and the character alignment is ignored. In this instance, clearly indicated by Surtr being EU, while the context heavily implies that EU is the "hero".
Yeah it's definitely up to interpretation, it doesnt read as the middle slide being bad/villainous.
Bad meme format I guess
You took my comment too seriously, it was just a joke.
But you also singled out Intel. Corporations aren't heroes in general and AMD is also there. And EU is depicted as the villain, although it's implied it's the hero in the context of the meme.
ZLUDA originally only supported on Intel since it was designed by an Intel employee, but AMD hired him to make it work for AMD instead. So in a way Intel is somewhat important here.
Here's the problem:
Doesn't matter the country/countries. Due to bureaucracy and lobbying, this will take forever for anyone to get anything done. And by the time it's done, something better will have appeared and will be using any and all loopholes present in whatever bill they pass to do the exact same shit that is happening now.
