Sony Announces Version 1.0 Of Linux for Playstation 2

ResearchBuzz writes: "Sony has announced the May 2002 release of Linux (for Playstation 2) Release 1.0." He quotes from the press release: "The company expects the kit to sell for about $199 USD when it is made available in May 2002 exclusively through its website, http://www.us.playstation.com."

Comments

Yuck!

[wkurdzio]

If Sony had done this "right," this kit wouldn't be horribly out of date. glibc 2.2.2? gcc 2.95.2? XFree86 3.3.6? Cripes! Can any of the maintainers comment on whether they've recieved any patches from Sony or not? It'd be interesting to see if Sony's going to actually commit to the Linux community or if they're going to leave it to the rest of us to keep the PS2 port up to date. It blows my mind that Sony didn't go w/ XFree86 4 as it's got *so* many performance improvements over 3, especially in the area of 3D graphics.

Re:Don't fret the $199

[hacker]

I can't believe people on Slashdot, of all places, still don't understand the GPL at all. If I wanted to, I could make my own Linux distro and charge you $1 million for it, the GPL only requires I provide you with the source code.

Have you not seen my rants aboutSony blatently and knowingly being in direct violation of the GPL. You can be certain that they are not going to give you a single line of that source code.

After those stories were posted, and my comments made their way around the world, I received HUNDREDS of emails from people who worked with and for Sony, both as employees and contracted partners. They are doing this in a lot of places, not just with the PDA stuff I support and have consistantly called them on.

Here's an excerpt from one of those emails, sufficiently anonymized to protect the innocent:

For what it's worth I don't think that's the only GPL violation Sony is making. I work on [very high profile Sony gaming product] development tools here at [insert very well-known tool development company here] and I have several patches from Sony to [very well known GNU toolchain item here] for the [high-profile gaming product] but not their original sources to patch against. Plus some sources they compile/link into [same GNU toolchain item here] which they claim are proprietary and not provided.

I don't trust them as far as I can throw their Aibo, 43" flatscreen HDTV, and 200 of their PDAs, and I also would not pay them a single dime to help fund their further violating of a license I believe in strongly, and also to line the coffers of the RIAA (note how "proudly" the RIAA touts Sony on that page) and support more of their audio copy protection schemes.

Where do you think this $199.00 really goes?

Re:Something about this doesn't feel right.

[KwamiMatrix]

Um, your an idiot. Try reading up on the specs of the Japanese PS2 Linux kit.

Cool! Now games will run better.

[SIGFPE]

I can't wait to get the stuff and play Final Fantasy X under Linux. Now that the PS2 has a real OS FFX will run much faster and crash less often. And with a preempting multitasking OS I'll be able to play Silent Hill 2 in another windows during the boring cut sequences FFX. This has to be the greatest thing that's happened in video games.