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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."
I pay you $50 to get Linux running on my TRS-80
Second, assuming someone succeeds, a large cash infusion has proved to be the downfall of many Linux companies. Roger Stallman was right, money is the "root" (ha!) of all evil, just look at companies like RedHat and VA Linux Something.
Third, even if they succeed and no one is killed in the process, what possible use could Linux be on an XBox? I heard they use some kind of proprietary game format that Linux won't be able to read anyway. "DVD" or something.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
... if he/she purchased 1000 XBoxes and used them for something that would normally require a $400 Intel based computer.
Xboxes are are priced at $200, but really contain the guts of a typical $450 PC.
A cluster of 1000 Xboxes would be mighty cheap computing power.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
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...
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
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" :)
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
sigh... i guess 1/5 of a million dollars just don't have that "zing" or "cha-chin!" to it...
hell... this is why we have enron scandals... 50 grand short and we are calling it "nearly"
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Microsoft takes a monetary hit on each Xbox sold ($150+ I believe ?), so that would be a really bad idea, because people would be buying them without the intention of using them for games, but rather for porting linux. If people don't buy the games, Microsoft doesn't make back the money it lost on the unit.
I would guess that it's not Bill Gates (at least not for the reasons you gave)
-kwishot
I'd like to see that cash in escrow before I believed anything this "anonymous" donor said.
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
This is just some speculation on my part. But let's face it, it does make a little sense.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Ahem.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
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"...
A cluster of 1000 Xboxes would be mighty cheap computing power.
I'm too lazy to actually calculate this, but I have to wonder about the $$ feasibility of an XBox cluster. Okay, I could believe it's a better value to hack an XBox than to buy a PC for gaming, if you don't take future upgrades into account. (GeForce 6's and Radeon 12000's probably won't have a USB or ethernet interface; just a guess.)
But if you want to make the ubiquitous Beowulf cluster of XBoxen to crunch numbers, is it really more cost effective? Even if someone figures out how to put Linux on there without a hardware mod, you need to consider that the graphics and sound capabilities built-in won't be used in the cluster.
Don't compare an XBox cluster to a cluster of Linux gaming machines but to a cluster of bare-bones dual-cpu boxen or rackmount servers with no or minimal video, sound and i/o capability. Plus compare the power consumption, cooling and space requrements of the two since this becomes nontrivial with a cluster.
Plus, who with such high number-crunching needs would put up with the dearth of hardware support for Linux on XBox. You can't just swap out a motherboard, power supply or ethernet card on those puppies, at least not as easily as a desktop, tower or rack PC.
I don't think an XBox cluster is reasonably feasible beyond the geek in me saying "that's so cool that someone did that!" However for us Linux geeks and gamers I'd love to have Linux on XBoxes. (Not necessarily to own one, before you Linux Dreamcasters jump on me.)
If you mod the xbox to run Linux, you're doing it because MS loses money on the hardware. Buying the games that let them make their money back isn't really on your List of Things To Do Today.
This sounds like a federal program; if MS subsidizes the purchase of your new (Linu)Xbox, then you'll subsidize their silly business plan?
I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
THIS again? I've got karma to burn so why not. He who writes the code chooses the license. Get over it. Don't like GPLed code? Don't use it. There are strings attached to commercial SDKs and libraries that are far more obnoxious than the GPL. And I don't see you charging any of Microsoft's windmills.
Most of us here are fully capable of seeing when the GPL is appropriate and when it isn't. For that matter, many of us don't give a crap about RMS' polemics either. The GPL is an often useful tool. Yes it is for some people. Get over it. The last time I checked, I didn't start hemorraging internally the last time I fired up a shell linked against readline. So much for the viral thing.
And no whinging about how it hurts somebody's development business. That is sooo annoying. Any idiot who can't be bothered to read COPYING should be canned anyway. You want the functionality of some GPLed code? Don't like the terms? Tough. Find or write a replacement. This is no worse than the terms on the commercial code you seem so concerned about.
Oh yeah, in case anybody missed it. Not all GPLed code is owned or controlled by the FSF. The GPL lends itself to agendas other than theirs. So spare us the stuff about RMS' integrity or lack thereof. It's a non-issue when one chooses a licence whose properties are certainly well understood by now.
As for that hurt coming to Linux you're so pleased about, do you think that if Microsoft somehow succeeds in driving a stake through Linux' heart that it will cause a migration to BSD code? I doubt it. Once Microsoft scavenges all of the BSD code they have a use for, that development model will be targeted next. That's right. Once target numero uno is taken out (if they can that is), they will come for BSD. Better watch out for the frag damage. Sheesh! RMS is justifiably a target of derision. You don't have to be as well.
Oh yeah, the main point of all this. He who writes the code chooses the license. Licences are merely tools. Can we expect polemics against chainsaws just becuase some psychotics like the mess they can make?
Furthermore, these guys are in Germany, not the US.
This is the third time I quoted from the page, and I did it the first time entirely to encourage reading before writing.
Maybe I was too subtle...
I reckon it's Bill. He's actually a bit of a liberal at heart (look at Slate and all the money he donates to UN health programs), and now he's horrified by what Microsoft has become. Having lost control of the company to the brutal apelike Steve Ballmer, he's looking for ways to subvert it.
Bill is trapped, a prisoner in his own machine. His best chance for freedom is to destroy it. Won't you help Bill? Won't somebody think of Bill?
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
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.