Why is it a shame? They had been providing quality Linux drivers for years, when nobody else cared about high-end graphics for Linux. Remember fglrx?
Now AMD is opensource? Great! However, it's still very far from perfect. You only have to take a look at the list of AMDGPU issues at freedesktop[1]... because being opensource is easy, but working fine in a stable manner is another.
It's shame, because they hinder the progress of Linux desktop and prevent Nouveau from reclocking properly.
And what about AMD bug tracker? It's open, so you can see the bugs. That's a plus, not a minus. Nvidia blob has all the bugs hidden somewhere, so you don't see them. It doesn't mean the blob doesn't have them.
> It's shame, because they hinder the progress of Linux desktop and prevent Nouveau from reclocking properly.
I think it's the opposite. Some years ago, Nvidia was your only chance to have accelerated graphics on Linux. ATI/AMD didn't care about it at all, and Intel cards were not for gaming. So Nvidia made it possible to do things in Linux when nobody else allowed you to... how's that hindering the progress of anything? Specially when nobody forces you to get an Nvidia card.
> And what about AMD bug tracker? It's open, so you can see the bugs. That's a plus, not a minus. Nvidia blob has all the bugs hidden somewhere, so you don't see them. It doesn't mean the blob doesn't have them.
Yes, I didn't say Nvidia was bug free. I just said AMD drivers for Linux are, at the moment, far from perfect, despite being opensource. I'd say, for newer cards, they're worse than Nvidia's. I value opensource, but if I have to choose between having an opensource desktop crashing twice a day, vs. the Nvidia blob, of course I'd go for the latter, as much as I'd love to have a fully opensource OS.
I was Nvidia user for a long time due to the above, but today they aren't worth bothering with. AMD can be slower to fix bugs or have more of them on release day due to having smaller teams, but they are gradually ramping that up, and their current level of support already doesn't bother me, while they are providing a proper open source driver. Nvidia don't and have no plans to. I'd take AMD over Nvidia today any time.
Regarding slowing down progress, I was talking about modern desktop like Wayland compositors and so on. Nvidia was hindering it for years. And their attitude towards Nouveau is disgusting.
Well, I've been using Nvidia cards for years, and the last time I built a new computer (some months ago) I had a hard time deciding whether to stick to Nvidia or switching to AMD. Eventually, I chose to stay with Nvidia, because getting a new AMD card (apart from the fact that there seems to be no budget AMD cards...) seemed like a lottery in terms of having a stable Linux desktop environment, being my best bet to get an older generation card (RX570 or RX580), that had not much availability and they were overpriced here.
As for slowing down Linux desktop progress, I think it's not Nvidia's fault: you could always get a card from another vendor, although the alternatives were not as good. Well, maybe those other vendors are to blame, and not Nvidia...
I'd say it's their fault, since due to the above situation, there were a lot of Linux users with Nvidia cards. Nvidia didn't care to upstream things and that caused them not to support Wayland and many other modern use cases for years.
Today it's less relevant, since usage of Nvidia on Linux is gradually dropping, so their damage to the progress is also diminishing thanks to that. Wayland compositors' developers can simply say - we don't support the blob and don't plan to and be done with it. In the past it was much harder, due to how many Linux users had Nvidia still while alternatives were way less viable.
Now AMD is opensource? Great! However, it's still very far from perfect. You only have to take a look at the list of AMDGPU issues at freedesktop[1]... because being opensource is easy, but working fine in a stable manner is another.
[1]https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/amd/-/issues