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Anonymous Will Award $200,000 for Xbox Linux

Posted by timothy on from the that'll-keep-you-in-cereal dept.

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."

14 of 525 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm by ThorGod · · Score: 2, Interesting

    /me wonders why they're annonymous?

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    PS: I don't reply to ACs.
    1. Re:Hmm by ThorGod · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's nothing they could do besides hire a hit man...not that that's out of their legal grasp or anything.

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      PS: I don't reply to ACs.
    2. Re:Hmm by rjamestaylor · · Score: 2, Interesting
      He's jealous that the Linux/Free/Open Source movement has gained the hearts of the young technical elite (h4X0r jokes aside), instead of himself. Remember the 80's when BillG was every nerds hero because he beat IBM? Now he's IBM of the 80's and can't stand being on the receiving end of the angst.

      [While written as if I know the man and have a basis for analysing his psyche, I really am just blowing air... But I bet it's not too far from the truth.]

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      -- @rjamestaylor on Ello
  2. Odds on who the anonymous donor is? by mattbee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Okay $200k is a hell of a lot; and we all know that MS loses money on every X-Box sale. A viable alternative development platform would hurt MS. This means it's somebody well-established (rich!) in the industry with a score to settle with Microsoft? Or a games company that wants to open up development for what I understand is a cheap PC platform without paying MS tax? Maybe even a potential coup by Sony or Nintendo? Completely intriguing; maybe we could have a sweepstake on who we think this anonymous donor is...

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    Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
    1. Re:Odds on who the anonymous donor is? by davew2040 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Don't rule out the possibility that it's Microsoft. The X-Box is a very new sort of project from MS, and I wouldn't be surprised if they want to iron out any possible "security holes" (that's what they like to call these things nowadays, ala Palladium "security enhancements" that only protect the entertainment industry) in their hardware before they hack out the next revision. You might suppose that they could figure this sort of thing out themselves, but perhaps they've decided that it's cheaper this way.

      The alternative is that this is so difficult that it never gets done.

      Either way, Microsoft stands to benefit. Do you really think that having people buy the X-Box as a cheap Linux machine is that bad for them? It would be a mild slap in the face, in exchange for rolling out more X-Boxen. Establishing a presence is their goal.

    2. Re:Odds on who the anonymous donor is? by alexburke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I bet the prize money is from Billy G. himself. $200,000 to have some of the smartest minds in the industry TRYING to break your unit's security so you can do it better next time? Positively cheap...

  3. This will hurt Open Source developers by kirkb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Right now, "underground" work on consoles is fairly open. Whenever "closed" hardware and firmware gets reverse-engineered, the results are typically documented and shared among like-minded developers. Won't the $200K reward encourage greedy developers to hide their work and end up reducing the amount of sharing that goes on? In the end, this would hinder efforts to open up the Xbox. I wouldn't be suprised if MS was behind this "reward" :)

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  4. Seems like a hoax by presearch · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In light of the slick ps2linux kit (which for me, works great) where's the huge market in Xbox Linux?

    There's a lot more ps2's out there and I don't see Sony going after what would have to be a $5mil market to make paying $200K worth it.
    With the Sony kit, you drop 200 bucks and Akio's your uncle. And it's even without the obvious market delays that the M$ lawyers would bring.
    But it's not exactly a hot item for Sony. Very, very niche sales numbers.

    Maybe back a few years ago when money didn't care where it went, $200k was no big thing, but today?
    Why the fuss? Because it's a x86?

    I smell a fish.

  5. Re:Bad news for Linux? by LordLucless · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In don't know about Stallman, but the actual phrase is "love of money is the root of all evil".

    Just a point

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    Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
  6. Big money to be made by hendridm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And as soon as you submit your code, you see it on KaZaa the next day with the file description, "The check is in the mail"...

  7. Re:Is Microsoft Behind This? by Erasmus+Darwin · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "Note that to get the full money, you have to make a copy of Linux that will run on an UNMODIFIED BOX. This would spurr sales, and give them a bigger installed base, but would still MAKR PIRACY HARD because there is no modchip."

    Harder? I think it would make piracy easier, as the same techniques used to run Linux on an unchipped box could be used to make games run on an unchipped box. Yes, individual games may have copy protection, but that can be bypassed on a game-by-game basis, which is still easier than chipping Xboxes on a box-by-box basis (and still potentially dealing with copy protection).

    We saw this scenario with the Dreamcast. As soon as people were able to get away with just burning games to disc (without risking performing tricky modifications to their system), piracy took off.

  8. Re:M$ will love this by Afrosheen · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yeah actually I think it's a good idea. I read about the modded Xboxen running mame. I have the whole 10cd set and was looking for something cheap and with decent performance to build an arcade cabinet mame box with...and this is perfect.

    As an added bonus if I buy an XBox and no games it causes MS to lose a few bucks. That justifies the purchase.

  9. Re:Is An XBox Cluster REALLY Cheaper? by gklyber · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you could develop an interface to the GPU and video memory, you could use the graphics chip in some rendering farms or for other, more generic vector calculations. Who says you have to use a video chip for playing games or even displaying graphics?

    Run the calculations more suited for the video chip's processing capabilities on the GPU and control the whole mess with the Pentium.

    Probably not worth it in the end, but it would be "fun".

  10. Re:M$ will love this by wheany · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But if you don't buy an Xbox, MS loses a few more bucks.

    See my journal: http://slashdot.org/~wheany/journal/9124