The GLX libraries are the elephant(s) in the room. Open source kernel modules mean nothing without these libraries. On the other hand AMD and Intel uses "pltform GLX" natively, and with great success.
Mesa already provides good open source GLX and Vulkan libraries. An open source NVIDIA kernel driver enables interoperability with Mesa exactly like Intel and AMD.
Half of the trade secrets NVIDIA has are living in their own GLX libraries. Even if you install the open source kernel module, these GLX libraries are installed (just did it on a new cluster).
I’m not holding my breath about these libraries to be phased out and NVIDIA integrates to the platform GLX any time soon.
I think NVIDIA will resist moving to a firmware only model (ala AMD & Intel) as long as they can, preferably forever.
