@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook that's nonsense. Fedora is actively telling people to buy hardware from a company that is actively hostile towards free software for financial gain.

You can hem and ha about it, but that's what's happening.

Telling MORE people to buy it only serves to make it less likely that alternatives get the mind and market share that need.

This is just all bad for free software, and it is embarrassing for the Fedora project.

@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook to be more specific: Fedora doesn't pick the specs of the lineup, but DID decide to do the partnership. Fedora didn't have to do that.

Is Fedora going to partner with a company selling windows laptops, and advertise them, if a percentage goes to the project?

What if they pre-load a WSL container with Fedora?

@hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook

Slimbook *does* provide the ability to purchase their non-branded models with Windows.

The Fedora Project *does* partner with other OEMs like Lenovo to make Fedora Workstation available as a choice of operating systems for several of their models.

@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook there's a big difference between "this vendor now offers Fedora as an option" and "buy the laptop at this link with Nvidia graphics".

I feel like you're being disingenuous.

@hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook I genuinely don't understand how what I've said could be interpreted that way.

1) "buy the laptop at this link with NVIDIA graphics" was never suggested anywhere. The OP *does* share what the new lineup consists of.

2) The link provided *literally* takes you directly to the non-NVIDIA option.

3) You have to specifically navigate Slimbook's store to select the NVIDIA variant.

4) It's *an option*. Neither Fedora nor Slimbook are forcing you to buy NVIDIA gear.

@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook the original post announcing the partnership did do that. I also expressed my displeasure about that, but nobody reacted then.

This is still framed as "save some money" and not "we recognize that promoting Nvidia hardware was a bad idea". And the project hasn't, because it's still happy to lend its name to a line of laptops that have Nvidia hardware.

Again, the company that has made the Wayland migration impossible for years.

It remains embarrassing

@hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook Thanks a very interesting take, but one I'll have to disagree with. Particularly since the post that prompted this discussion is quite literally saying "we heard you, and worked with the OEM to provide an option *removing* this feature that's unwanted by some."

You can be a free software purist, or you can be more pragmatic about your stance and how free software platforms like Fedora can be promoted to broader audiences.

@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook the post phrased it as a "cost saving measure", and the Nvidia models are still Fedora branded.

You can call it purism, but I also complained about this one the original post.

A Linux kernel running Nvidia drivers is not an open source operating system. It loses almost all of the practical benefits of being free, and it hampers fedora's ability to innovate.

Why not just promote windows machines with a Fedora WSL install? Pragmatically identical.

@hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook Suggesting that Fedora WSL and running a Fedora directly on the metal are "pragmatically identical" is very hyperbolic.

I also don't read the original post as promoting a cost saving measure. It's introducing a desired option that people clearly asked for. If the new option had the same pricing as its sibling I think many potential customers would be rightfully pissed off.

A tainted kernel or proprietary applications do not make a user's choice any less free.

@omenos @hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook You both realize nobody needs the proprietary drivers for the NVIDIA card on both generations of Slimbook Fedora models that have one? Nouveau (using the new GSP firmware) with NVK has been enabled since Fedora 40. The proprietary driver is fully optional now.

@Conan_Kudo @omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook I doubt very many people will actually run it that way, nvk isn't baked yet, and even if it was this line of laptops were promoted while this wasn't even an option for people who were willing to live with the pain.

Even with this, I'd be pretty shocked if the overall performance of the 4060 in that machine with that stack is good compared to a similar machine with a Radeon 7000 series mobile gpu.

So in that light it's just a bad buy.

@Conan_Kudo @hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook I was moving that topic from a previous comment to a follow up due to character limits.

But, for completeness, there do exist workloads that require the proprietary drivers. But it is definitely not required for operation outside of that.

But main discussion here, though, isn't about the software stack. It's the use of NVIDIA hardware at all in a partner lineup from Fedora and Slimbook.

@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook that's not what "free software" means, now you're just intentionally muddying the water.

People are free to buy the hard and software they want, but a project like Fedora should obviously NOT be promoting hardware actively hostile towards free as in freedom software.

@hp @metal3d @fedora @slimbook To be clear on this, I'm not trying to intentionally muddy anything. I have a fundamentally different stance on this than you do. It's okay to agree to disagree.

Would I prefer the partnership promoted models with Arc or Radeon? Sure. But refusing to promote a partnership that benefits the FOSS ecosystem just because NVIDIA is present isn't useful. From a different perspective, it also shows that the free software ecosystem works, even with hostile vendors.

@omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook what about "promote hardware that won't be usable with free software" shows that FOSS is working?

We can agree to disagree, but I won't agree that that statement makes sense.

It's just not pragmatic to tell people to buy a system that will prevent them from running free software if your goal is to promote free software. Especially since AMD makes very good GPUs that DO have free drivers.

Promoting a laptop with Nvidia graphics *instead* is not a neutral act.

@hp @omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook So you're literally angry at a laptop that has NVIDIA graphics while also having the Fedora logo on it? Bro I don't like NVIDIA either, but to be honest, there's currently no such thing as a fully 100% FOSS computer unless you pick a 10 or more years old Thinkpad with Libreboot (without microcode). Also AMD isn't completely free either, you still have the blobs in the kernel. When it comes to modern hardware we literally don't have a choice.

@hp @omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook But I'd have to agree with you that AMD would be a better option for a Fedora laptop. I still rather have a fully Intel system, but that's just me.

@d4r1us_drk the problem is not having a Nvidia card or logo. The problem is the CUDA drivers that are absolutely closed. The problem is that it's hard to fight such of licence on a so important component that is used on recent technologies (machine learning, games, graphic). E.g. We continuously make critics about Blender that has concentrate efforts on CUDA, while OpenCL or Vulkan are not in the pipe.
Of course we are happy to see the Fedora logo on a laptop...

@hp @omenos @fedora @slimbook

@d4r1us_drk continuing promote CUDA and Nvidia, knowing that we fight their licence for years, doesn't help to make them change, and doesn't help other open solution to be adopted.

@hp @omenos @fedora @slimbook

@metal3d @hp @omenos @fedora @slimbook That's a bit like the chicken and the egg problem. We don't want to promote NVIDIA and CUDA yes, but there's a reason why professional applications still have CUDA as their main option, which in turns makes most users also want CUDA support. I don't know how good OpenCL/Vulkan are at the moment, but I see that most users and developers prefer CUDA. But whatever I hate NVIDIA myself and if I used some of those tools I would make the sacrifice if there's any.

@d4r1us_drk @omenos @metal3d @fedora @slimbook And "You can't get a 100% FOSS laptop" is true, but you *can* get a laptop running 100% free software besides the firmware.

Why promote something that is worse than the best option? Why not only steer people towards the freest option?