It seems rather odd to me that macOS lost 5% of its users in one month while Windows gained 3%. Unknown went up by 1.5%. Were macOS users too busy going to Christmas parties during December?

1% is a significant jump. Way more than any single month in Statcounter's history.

More numbers better, of course.

QuoteIf we actually take ChromeOS directly into the Linux numbers for December 2023 the overall number would actually be 6.24% (ChromeOS is Linux after all).

I'm willing to accept this if programs built for ChromeOS work on Linux distributions like Arch, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE. Is that the case?

I don't know enough about software to know how much the kernel influences compatibility compared to, say, a C Library.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: nlborlcl

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI already own enough Linux machines.

(confused unga bunga) <meme>

I've probably said it before, but I don't have a use for the Steam Deck. I don't play games when I go outside, and if I did, I'd prefer access to a computer with a real keyboard, like a laptop. Same goes for going overseas. I can take my laptop with me around the house, and even take it to my bed if I want. And most of the games I play are not from Steam. And I'm usually jumping between a web browser, Anki, and the game I'm playing frequently, which is hard on a handheld device.

I don't think I'd care much for the desktop experience of SteamOS, either.

I'm happy the Steam Deck's success has meant more investment in Gamescope, Wine, DXVK, VKD3D, HDR, and tons of other things from Valve. I don't really understand the Steam Deck from where I'm sitting (nor do I understand owning a modern console), but I also understand I'm not the target audience.

Quoting: JRayLambI don't know if I want to humble brag or not. I started in late 1994 with the Yggdrasil release with kernel 0.99pl13. X was a seperate download and compile which took a looooong time on that 486DX50 with 4mb of RAM.

I spent New Years Eve installing Gentoo on one machine and trying to kdesrc-build the lastest Plasma 6 beta on another. It got me to thinking how bloody far the Linux ecosystem has come since 1995.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad I only got into Linux recently

I'm excited for Linux in 2024 in a way I haven't been before. Please work out, NVK...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Obligatory "the Steam Deck still isn't sold in Australia/New Zealand two years on" comment. Even though I'm not going to buy it because I already own enough Linux machines.

On another note, I've been a Linux user for four years this month. On the one hand, I never thought I would stay, but now I can't imagine going back.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: F.UltraOk, but that talks specifically about non-comercial use so I guess that commercial use which I wrote about still requires a license?

I was quite confused too when I saw that "commercial use" was okay according to that comment on Wikipedia. I think this is covered later on in your comment.

Quoting: F.UltraAnd I don't think that none of this means that there is no need for a patent license for the hardware since a GPU is a commercial thing and also it is the ago itself while the content is the result of the algo so to speak.

That sounds correct to me. A GPU doesn't only decode/encode patent-encumbered media on the web. I was more thinking that, from the perspective of Wikipedia which only operates on the web, they should already be fine to decode/encode without needing to even worry about NVIDIA/AMD/Intel paying for a license? Something like that. It's not really relevant to the Vulkan situation.

Quoting: F.UltraBut yes I'm with you that this is all hairy and I for one would gladly see software patents go, they only stifle innovation in a field that is moving way to fast for something to be locked away for 25 years.

I agree on all counts.

5 more years...then H.264 will be free of patents, and most of us can forget all about HEVC and VVC. Maybe AV1 will survive the Sisvel patent pool...

You know, I only know about any of this stuff because I was wondering why importing video into DaVinci Resolve didn't work? Because it doesn't have any licensed decoders for H.264 or AAC on Linux...

Quoting: F.UltraSo as of 2016 they see sw implementations is license-free, that to me tells that they still require a license for the hw implementation. So Firefox et al can use the hw implementation since AMD have licensed it and Firefox is not creating content, they are only using the API:s provided by e.g AMD. You for non-commercial don't have to pay a license but a commercial entity probably have to.

Well, there are two patent pools for HEVC with their own terms and you need to get a license from both. Does the MPEG-LA pool also allow sw implementations without a license? It sounds like they only allow that for the first 100,000, which free software like Firefox would not be able to satisfy because...it's free software.

But since Firefox doesn't want to ship a sw implementation anyway (and they will never be able to without Cisco stepping in again), they can just make use of AMD's hardware license without concern. And as you say, the commercial entity using Firefox is the one that needs to pay for the license(s).

Apparently Velos Media is a third patent pool for HEVC?! Please tell me I'm reading that wrong.

Quoting: F.UltraThis is always so damn silly. The same happens in the financial industry where I work. Over here in Europe the EU have standardised to use ISIN-codes as the universal identifier for financial instruments and they are completely free to use, but in the US they use CUSIP-codes instead (and they create the ISIN by prefixing the CUSIP with "US" and then suffixing a check-digit at the end) which requires a license in every single step, aka if you issue a instrument you have to pay a license, if you distribute that CUSIP/ISIN to some one else then they also have to pay a license and if they happen to whisper that code to any one then they are also required to pay a license and so on and on.

That does sound pretty damn silly. Licenses...

And on a completely unrelated note: while I might have Daria as my profile picture, Buffy is still my favorite TV show.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

An important point to take into account is that the $800 covers any games you contract W4 Games to port over that year. If you create 3-5 games a year (common for some developers on itch), it's $800 to get them all on one console of your choice. If you make a lot of games, it's a pretty good deal. From what Liam has mentioned about other console porters, this seems standard however.

Q: What if my company publishes/updates more than one game per year?

QuoteA: You can publish and update as many games as you want as long as your license is current.

And if you stop paying, your game will still be available on the console from what I understand. You just won't be able to update it. It might eventually get taken off if you need to update it to comply with the console's standards, but I don't know how common that is. And anyway, they actually permit you to update the game for that express purpose (but it would probably be pretty hard without access to the repositories):

Q: What rights do I lose when my subscription ends?

QuoteA: Under the Starter and Pro licenses, when you stop paying, you lose access to the W4 console repositories. You are also not permitted to publish or further update any game you have published with our ports, as long as you’re using any part of the W4 Games codebase for that specific platform. If your company desires more permissive terms, this can always be arranged with an Enterprise license. For non-content patches (with the exclusive intention of keeping the game compliant with the current SDKs), post-launch, no license is required. However, keep in mind you won’t have access to the repositories if you don’t have an active license.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Brisse

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualNVENC would be nice, but I'm fine with not having it. CUDA might be necessary for some of my workflows at some point...

Vulkan Video Decoding (and encoding) is a thing and might be a good alternative for NVENC at some point, especially for people opting to ditch the proprietary driver.

Probably, the things people are going to miss out on is CUDA and maybe DLSS, which I assume will not work without the proprietary driver.

I wasn't even thinking of decoding until you mentioned it, but now that we're talking about it, I hope Vulkan Video Decoding is able to work as a replacement for some codecs. I do wonder about VP8/VP9 and other codecs, though; it only seems to be focused on H.264/5 for now?

I don't know if anyone at Collabora is crazy enough to build an alternative implementation of CUDA/DLSS (is that even possible?), but I can hope.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheRiddickGuessing these open-source nvk drivers will never get DLSS, HDMI2.1, and possibly no RT acceleration from the RTX cores.

Do you know what the situation is with the AMD drivers? My understanding is that the HDMI standard prevents a free software implementation of the standard (due to patents, maybe?) so the AMDGPU PRO drivers need to be used for that?

I'm probably fine with not having most of these features in the drivers so long as my Wayland desktop is less buggy. CUDA might be a requirement for Blender/DaVinci Resolve but I don't use either of them (yet). I've never used DLSS and I don't know what RT acceleration is despite having an RTX card, so I assume I don't use it..?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Ardje

Quoting: ArdjeWow, so I can actually use my steam machine again? Or are those too old? There was vulkan support on the steam machine. But taking it out of the hands of nvidia is only positive.

Ah, only new cards. My 2012 laptop with an 2014 AMD on the express card bus was more capable than my 2016 steam machine with unswappable unsupported nvidia :-(.

NVK is looking to add support for Maxwell-era cards (2014+) once they have Turing onwards working properly.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I hope the NVK driver properly implements all the Wayland things NVIDIA has been dragging their feet on. NVENC would be nice, but I'm fine with not having it. CUDA might be necessary for some of my workflows at some point...

I am thoroughly sick of using the proprietary drivers. It's great to see this much progress on NVK in such a short period of time, with the implication that NVK might be a viable replacement for the proprietary drivers sometime next year. The proprietary drivers have been a pain point for the desktop for so long, even if they're better than the AMD drivers in some ways.

Also, cheers to Collabora for making big inroads with Wayland by funding development on both the Wayland Wine driver and NVK this year. Or whoever is funding Collabora to fund these developers. Or both. Apparently Google was funding some of this work on the Wine Wayland driver..?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: F.UltraThey are however most likely licensed to cover only "personal and non-commercial use" since they really want to extort a license from commercial content creators as well (that is where the big license money is).

But that is no different from any other software, aka it doesn't matter if you use macOS, Windows, Adobe or whatever. If you are a content studio compressing H.264 content then you need a license regardless of what hw or sw you use.

I seem to remember MPEG-LA allowing all web content (even commercial?) to use H.264 without a license. From that time Wikipedia voted on whether to use H.264:

QuoteCommercial use of MP4 videos contributed to Wikimedia sites with a CC-BY-SA Creative Commons license appears to be authorized under the terms of MPEG-LA’s royalty-free Internet Broadcast sublicense, as outlined below. Since using a proprietary format would be a departure from our current practice of only using open formats on our sites, WMF has opened this Request for Comments to seek community guidance.

So it's something that is already implicitly granted by the H.264 patent pool, so NVIDIA/AMD/Intel wouldn't even need to provide a license. The link to this sublicense is dead now. I wonder what exactly the terms were. Wikimedia was also apparently offered a special deal:

QuoteWhy is this happening? WMF was offered an MP4 license so attractive WMF had to consider it. The deal was so unprecedented, part of it included non-disclosure of the exceptionally beneficial WMF terms so as not to alienate its other customers (who pay through the nose for their own MP4 licenses). Commercial enterprises don't give anything away for free because they are nice, they do so only when it will lead to increased profits in the end.

To add to this, Google Chrome and recently Firefox added support for hardware decoders for H.265. Firefox in particular should not have been able to do this unless making use of hardware decoders does not require them to have a license.

I love talking about video codec patents. I always end up more confused than when I started.

View this comment - View article - View full comments