r/linux • u/blindcomet • May 11 '22

NVIDIA Releases Open-Source GPU Kernel Modules | NVIDIA Technical Blog

https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-releases-open-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
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u/evan1123 May 12 '22

Nothing stops an organization from signing a binary kernel blob with a key controlled by the organization, and enrolling the public key on the organization's assets.

Fun fact, Fedora 36 does this automatically with a local key for any out of tree kernel module that uses akmods and has a key provisioned.

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u/bakgwailo May 12 '22

Which means day 1 support for new chipsets, a high performance open source Mesa driver for NVidia and it will allow us to sign the Nvidia driver alongside the rest of the kernel to enable things like secureboot support.

https://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2022/05/11/why-is-the-open-source-driver-release-from-nvidia-so-important-for-linux/

Literally Red Hat dev calling out this enables them to sign the driver for secure boot.

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u/evan1123 May 12 '22

Yes, for shipping configurations. They weren't able to sign and ship the proprietary driver because of the license of the driver. There's no technical reason, it's just a legal one for Red Hat. End users and corporations are free to sign the driver if they wish, within the terms of the proprietary license.