Anonymous Will Award $200,000 for Xbox Linux

An anonymous reader writes: "The X-box Linux Project at Sourceforge reports today that an anonymous donor will award nearly a quarter of a million dollars to the individuals responsible for the completion of a two-phased effort to run Linux on the Xbox. One can't help but wonder if this will help or hurt the community. On one hand, it is likely to generate additional interest in the project, on the other, some people may be less inclinded to share their discoveries with money on the line. Then again, getting both Money and Glory sounds pretty good."

Comments

Full details and rules

[seanadams.com]

Note that the reward isn't all-or-nothing - it's partitioned into five distinct tasks, in two separate porjects. That also means that different people can claim the prize money for each task. If two groups solve the same problem, the "better" solution gets all the money.

Project A:
Task 1: Replacement BIOS - $55,000
Task 2: Kernel and XFree drivers
- 25,000
Task 3: Kernel logic: FATX and miscellaneous - 10,000
Task 4: XBE bootloader $10,000

Project B:
Run unsigned code on an Xbox without any hardware modification - $100,000

The State of the Art

[warmcat]

I did not see anyone mention XBOXHACKER yet, which is at

http://www.xboxhacker.net/

The BIOS hacking forums there is a focus of efforts to reverse-engineer the X-Box for the purpose of allowing Linux to run on it.

In the last few weeks we have successfully recovered the RC4 key used to encrypt the second bootloader in the BIOS, this has led to discoveries about the PIC chip that have allowed a minimal clean BIOS to run for the first time.

I also run a site at http://warmcat.com/milksop which has a variety of GPL hardware designs that are of use in getting the X-Box to run Linux (although they have many other applications).

On the prize, I worry it will change the ethos of people working towards this goal, which until now has shown the best side of people with a common, righteous purpose working together.