Open Source DRM free nVidia and ATi in development

[lightshadow]

With HDCP and other nasty DRM entering the graphics drivers, there are light at the end of the tunnel.

Nouveau (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/) is the open source 3D driver development for nVidia cards and AVIVO (http://tirdc.livejournal.com/) is the 3D project for AMD/ATi cards. AVIVO doesn't really have a website, but they have a git server (http://gitweb.freedesktop.org/?p=avivo/xf86-video-avivo.git;a=summary).

I don't think they realize the DRM issue with the closed source drivers, they at least don't talk about it, but these will op course be DRM free =)

If you have an nVidia card, the best way to contribute to the project is to send a dump of your nVidia card. It is easy to make. Just run RENouveau (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/REnouveau) and send the output to their GMail account.

So with these drivers, they can't lock us in a cage with HDCP =)

Btw. When Nouveau talks about DRM it is not Digital Restrictions Management, but Direct Rendering Module (or something like that).

[lightshadow]

Replying to my own post.

I was just thinking. With an open source gfx driver for Vista, does that mean that it could be used to break the HDCP DRM?

As I have understood HDCP it works like this:

Vista <---> GFX driver <---> GFX card <---> HDMI cable <---> Monitor

[KoD]

I doubt. As far as I know, drivers and other components involved in playback of protected content on Vista need to be digitally signed. And I doubt Microsoft would sign any open source driver that claims to be the antidote to DRM.

[lightshadow]

I doubt. As far as I know, drivers and other components involved in playback of protected content on Vista need to be digitally signed. And I doubt Microsoft would sign any open source driver that claims to be the antidote to DRM.
Are you sure about the signing part? Wouldn't that require that each new driver update would have to be signed by MS?

I thought with an open source gfx driver it would be possible to sniff the traffic from Vista to the gfx card, and then be able to implement a routine, so the gfx driver pretends to an original ATi/nVidia driver?

If that is possible, I would assume that being able to establish a HDCP trusted connection, could be useful for Linux users???

[Gusar]

Btw. When Nouveau talks about DRM it is not Digital Restrictions Management, but Direct Rendering Module (or something like that).It's "Direct Rendering Manager"

With an open source gfx driver for Vista, does that mean that it could be used to break the HDCP DRM?These drivers are strictly for linux (and maybe FreeBSD), they will not work in Windows. I don't think anyone has ever attempted to write open source graphic card drivers for Windows (is it even possible?). And yes, drivers need to be signed, at least on Vista64.

Besides, to break HDCP on Windows all you need is an open source player that doesn't give a damn about DRM - like MPlayer. Of course you need to decrypt the disc before MPlayer can play it, but DumpHD or DecryptHD will take care of that.

[Fahzuu]

Of course you need to decrypt the disc before MPlayer can play it, but DumpHD or DecryptHD will take care of that.

Or you'll need AnyDVD for that matter to decrypt while MPlayer plays it :)

[lightshadow]

It's "Direct Rendering Manager"
Thanks =)

These drivers are strictly for linux (and maybe FreeBSD), they will not work in Windows. I don't think anyone has ever attempted to write open source graphic card drivers for Windows (is it even possible?).

Yes, they are for Linux right now, but they are very much programmed with cross platform in mind.

From Nouveau's very interesting news letters (http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/Nouveau_Companion_21):
Returning to text mode does interesting things but text mode is none of them :) So KoalaBR tried to steal code from NV using the int10 code to call the BIOS. Marcheu stopped this because stealing is immoral and scolded KoalaBR for trying. (Well to be honest, the reason is more technical: It is simply non portable to other architectures than Linux x86 and x86-64).

And yes, drivers need to be signed, at least on Vista64.

Okay.

Besides, to break HDCP on Windows all you need is an open source player that doesn't give a damn about DRM - like MPlayer. Of course you need to decrypt the disc before MPlayer can play it, but DumpHD or DecryptHD will take care of that.
So from a Linux' or Windows' users point of view, we have no interest in being able to open a trusted HDCP connection?

[NanoBot]

Hi,

for me the most interesting thing in the development of open source drivers is the possibility to use the hardware decryption of MPG2 and possibly h.264 and vc.1 streams using XvMC

I spent a few days when trying to compile libxine with xvmc and xmmc support to be able to use hardware decoding with my 8500GT based card. And at least I managed to compile libxine with both xvmc und xmmc enabled, but when I tried to use xvmc or xmmc within kaffeine, it crashed all the time.

Later I found that those crashes have a simple reason: NVidias closed source drivers do not support xvmc together with a Geforce 8 card at all. :devil:

Of course I know how difficult it is to build an open source driver from scratch without informations from the chip manufactor. Nevertheless it is a step into the right direction to try it. :thanks:

C.U. NanoBot

[Gusar]

@lightshadow:
The other architectures mentioned in that quote are PPC processors (old, pre-intel Macs), and FreeBSD. These drivers are way too much tied to X, DRI and DRM (architectures used on *NIX), they will not work on Windows, sorry to destroy your hopes but that's just how it is.

So from a Linux' or Windows' users point of view, we have no interest in being able to open a trusted HDCP connection?No, why should we? HDCP is crap forced onto us just like any other form of DRM. By breaking AACS, HDCP becomes irrelevant. Only proprietary apps (PowerDVD, WinDVD) care about it, MPlayer and other open source players (xine, VLC) do not.


@NanoBot:
XvMC is strictly for mpeg2. For vc-1 and h.264/avc a new framework will have to be created. One of the intel developers has a very early draft of such a framework, so we might see something someday, but not very soon I'd say.

I was surprised too that Geforce 8 doesn't support XvMC. The excuse from nvidia is that they would need to code it from scratch, because the 8 series cards are so different. It's actually a valid point, but it clearly shows nvidia's priorities - they do not care about video on linux at all. So yes, you're right, it will be up to the open source community to create GPU assisted video decoding on linux.

[HyperHacker]

Excellent. One of the things that annoys me most about HDCP is that you can't very well support it and provide open-source drivers or technical specs to support other OSes at the same time. It's nice to see people are doing something about it.

It's "Direct Rendering Manager"Too many TLAs! :p

I don't think anyone has ever attempted to write open source graphic card drivers for Windows (is it even possible?).Assuming you're not using one of those versions that requires signing, or can get around that, it's entirely possible.