New drivers are MIT/GPL2 dual-licensed: https://github.com/NVIDIA/open-gpu-kernel-modules

Doesn't that still require the closed source user space driver to function? I'd love to be wrong on that one.

In the short-term yes, in the long term the user space driver would also get open (or replaced with nouveau, since it will be on equal footing with the closed one, when communicating with kernel; just like the open vs closed amd drivers).

However, what will be left is a blob, that runs on the dedicated core on the GPU. The stuff that Nvidia doesn't want to open is moved there, and that's why the open kernel driver works only on Turing and newer.

> However, what will be left is a blob, that runs on the dedicated core on the GPU

But that basically firmware, right? So not all that different from the firmware loaded by a NIC?

Yes, exactly the same thing.