Exactly. Maxwell and later Nvidia architectures contain internal CPU cores that manage parts of the GPU and I believe even job scheduling. They refuse to run anything not signed by Nvidia, so developing an open source high performance driver would require obtaining their root keys. If someone does that and can't prove they did it by brute force or some other vulnerability in Nvidia's software, they're going to be in a world of hurt.
Yeah but my point was to develop a tool to extract NVIDIAs proprietary signed firmware, make nouveau capable of interfacing with said firmware, and distribute the extractor tool as part of a Linux distribution.
That way you'd have both high-speed acceleration and an as-far-as-possible open source driver.
