Here's why I used that language (and though I edited the comment, it was not because I rethought the use of the phrase): it is not the Chromium team's place to make this decision, and this decision actively harms the health of the Linux ecosystem. The decision of which driver to use is up to the user and up to the distro, and Chromium has absolutely no right to interfere with that. Nvidia is one of the worst actors on the Linux scene, and overstepping their bounds to prop them up is despicable.
Imagine if Google had blocked Tor users in China in favor of Project Dragonfly instead. The attitude of Chromium in this matter is directly supporting bad actors who actively do harm to their users and to the rest of the world around them. That's why they're sons of bitches.
What you're suggesting is actively harming users to put pressure on NVIDIA to become a better citizen in the Linux ecosystem. I don't find this very ethical, but I don't think this would work anyway. When Chrome crashes, users blame Chrome. But when Chrome runs slower on NVIDIA, users blame NVIDIA.
They aren't "interfering." They are falling back to software rendering when the GPU driver is incapable of supporting valid calls without crashing. If Windows or macOS started shipping buggy/crashing OpenGL drivers and not fixing them, Chromium would be entirely justified to fall back to software rendering there, and it would not be "interfering" with Windows or macOS development to do so.
>If Windows or macOS started shipping buggy/crashing OpenGL drivers and not fixing them, Chromium would be entirely justified to fall back to software rendering there
And they do just that, quite often! Just take a look at the list of drivers/hardware/os/feature combinations that are blacklisted in their file at [1].
Tons of MacOS and Windows things on there (and Android, and Linux!)
I have no idea how you interpret this as propping up Nvidia. They're blacklisting an (unofficial) Nvidia driver because it doesn't work. They're not telling users to use the official non-free ones; they're falling back to software rendering. Users who want acceleration can just buy an Nvidia competitor's card. Isn't that what you want?
They're blacklisting ice cream because they're lactose intolerant. They're not telling users to eat Brussels sprouts, they're falling back to plain bread. Users who want to eat something sweet can just buy some licorice. Isn't that what you want?
Imagine if Google had blocked Tor users in China in favor of Project Dragonfly instead. The attitude of Chromium in this matter is directly supporting bad actors who actively do harm to their users and to the rest of the world around them. That's why they're sons of bitches.