Hello and a belated welcome!
Nvidia does not release technical interface specifications for their video cards. They produce drivers as Binary Large Objects ('blobs") for Windows, OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Even if they produced a blob for OpenBSD, which would be a very small market, the project would not accept it pursuant to its
requirement to provide full access to all OS sources. This is such a strong principle, the project even has a
song about it. Here's an excerpt from the detailed introduction to the song's lyrics:
Quote:
OpenBSD emphasizes security. It also emphasizes openness. All the code is there for all to see. Blobs are vendor-compiled binary drivers without any source code. Hardware makers like them because they obscure the details of how to make their hardware work. They hide bugs and workarounds for bugs. Newer versions of blobs can weaken support for older hardware and motivate people to buy new hardware.
Blobs are expedient. Many other open source operating systems cheerfully incorporate them; in fact their users demand them.
But when you need to trust the system, how do you check the blob for quality? For adherence to standards? How do you know the blob contains no malicious code? No incompetent code? Inspection is impossible; you can only test the black box. And when it breaks, you have no idea why.
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