Slashdot Mirror
PlayStation 4 Will Be Running Modified FreeBSD
jones_supa writes "This discovery comes nicely alongside the celebration of FreeBSD's 20th birthday, for all the UNIX nerds. The operating system powering the PlayStation 4 is Orbis OS, which is a Sony spin of FreeBSD 9.0. It's not a huge surprise FreeBSD is being used over Linux, in part due to the more liberal licensing. The PlayStation 4 is x86-64 based now rather than Cell-based, which makes it easier to use FreeBSD. BSDs in general currently lack manufacturer supported full-feature AMD graphics driver, which leads to the conclusion that Sony and AMD have likely co-developed a discrete driver for the PS4. Some pictures of the development kit boot loader (GRUB) have been published too."
This will also probably also be good for FreeBSD in terms of its codebase as well. I expect Sony will probably be feeding back some patches.
This man is in denial.
--
BMO
This will also probably also be good for FreeBSD in terms of its codebase as well. I expect Sony will probably be feeding back some patches.
This man is in denial.
-- BMO
Not really. It is much less expensive to allow the patches to be integrated into the parent project then it is to patch the project after every update. In addition, others will be able to test/verify that changes don't break the patches if they are given access to them. So it makes sense to feed back as many patches as they can as it greatly reduces the effort required to maintain their port.
It is funny how there are many definitions of Sony . When they opened the bootloader for Android the Slashdot crowd reasoning was "it was the Ericsson part" (even if the Ericsson was dropped) that is the reason they play nicely. But the Sony - BMG rootkit scandal was Sony doing, even if you can seed the same doubt. I think when they opened up their smartwatch (http://developer.sonymobile.com/services/open-smartwatch-project/smartwatch-hacker-guide/) is also Ericsson doing I presume ? Companies can change you know especially if they did some wrong in the past, the world isn't always black & white.
That being said, I don't know if you are aware that a lot of the older people (that made the PS3 decisions) with regarding the SCEE are out of the picture. The PS4 wasn't even developed in Japan or by a Japanese, hell it will even be released earlier in the US and Europe. If you follow the news a bit you will see Sony has a massive attitude change regarding the PS4. You just need to look how they are handling Indie's these days. You must read the humbling interviews with a guy like Cerny, what a chance in comparison with the arrogant Sony.
With regarding the OS a lot of people seem to forgot that Sony also supported linux through the PS2 lifetime (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_for_PlayStation_2) and they never took it back. So it may be that the removal of the OtherOS for piracy reasons was more valid then the so called hatred for Linux suddenly. There are strong opinions about linux, but does opinions never involve the fact of the possibility of that method being abused as an easy way to pirate. Or what should be the real reason that they removed OtherOS support anyway ? Because they hate linus or RMS ?
You are right there should be other mod options like "living in the past" that I would gladly reward you with.