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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."
BSD license, I'm not sure you understand it.
So how trivial will it be to slurp the OS out onto a AMD card enabled PC and have our own "HackStation4"?
Or... how would one modify FreeBSD to run PS4 software?
I'm sure there'll be encryption up the wazoo anyway... and potentially software could specifically check that the graphics chip is not some off-the-shelf AMD card... ...but it begs the question.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
PS4 is on FreeBSD, X1 is on a Windows-kernel abomination, and the Steam box is going to be Linux. Interesting. Any chance the WiiU has secret Mac lineage to complete this?
Its good to see a BSD release picking up another major instance of commercial use. One of the obstacles the BSDs have faced is mindshare. Linux has had such an overpowering presence in the free/open world that it often overshadows the BSDs. That plays out in the commercial software that is available. If you look at high end vendor software, such as Oracle or other databases, or CAD tools, it is pretty rare to see much released for anything except Red Hat, or maybe Suse Linux. But getting the BSDs out where users are aware of it will definitely help.
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.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The fact that game developers will be able to recruit people who have several years of experience with the base of the underlying OS should result in better code than the usual half-assed guesswork near the beginning of a console's lifetime.
Is there *any* hope that Sony will push patches upstream? I would imagine not, but it would certainly be a nice gesture and could result in more PS4 sales if they did.
If this is true, I'm pre-ordering the PS4.
This godly OS is recognized for what it's worth.
The license war he's talking about would proceed approximately as follows:
GPL: had BSD been licensed under the GPL (I know, word salad), then Sony would have been forced to release the modifications to the kernel, and we would be able to better mod the PS4/overall cost to society would be lower since all the improvements would be available to everyone
BSD: had BSD been licensed under the GPL, Sony would not have used the kernel, they would never upstream any changes, and the overall cost to society would be greater since they would have been forced to develop their own, in-house kernel.
I'm trying to be neutral here, but I'm probably just starting the flamewar. You probably can tell what my bias is, but whatever.
This has been disputed over and over again. I think that after 42 years of trolling, we now all agree on which one is the best and why, no ?
The PlayStation 4 is x86-64 based now rather than Cell-based, which makes it easier to use FreeBSD
Funny how Sony tried to woo Apple over to the Cell architecture, even offering Apple Sony authored PS3 games for the Mac.
As it happens, Intel's was not the only alternative chip design that Apple had explored for the Mac. An executive close to Sony said that last year Mr. Jobs met in California with both Nobuyuki Idei, then the chairman and chief executive of the Japanese consumer electronics firm, and with Kenichi Kutaragi, the creator of the Sony PlayStation.
Mr. Kutaragi tried to interest Mr. Jobs in adopting the Cell chip, which is being developed by I.B.M. for use in the coming PlayStation 3, in exchange for access to certain Sony technologies. Mr. Jobs rejected the idea, telling Mr. Kutaragi that he was disappointed with the Cell design, which he believes will be even less effective than the PowerPC.
source: What's Really Behind the Apple-Intel Alliance / NYTimes / 2005
Other sources I am too lazy to dig up cited Jobs as stating that his main mover for this decision was that he in no way wanted any Apple product associated with a gaming console. Call it Platformism, but if that citation is correct, it was very solid reasoning from Jobs. Every PC pundit on the planet would have had a field day with that one. Never mind that the US DoD (and likely the NSA) has found the Cell architecture in PS3s most useful for clustering, since the Cell architecture is so very cheap and so very good at that. citation
After the IBM vs SCO fiasco, maybe Xenix can be put to good use.
You're a bit out of date. The video drivers were pretty crappy when AMD inherited them from ATi, but they've gotten steadily better since then. Neither AMD nor NVIDIA has perfect drivers, but they are now roughly on par with each other.
The exception is CrossFire, which is still inferior in several ways to SLI. But both CrossFire and SLI are dumb hacks (and aren't being used on any consoles), so it doesn't really matter.
Imagine being able to start up your PS4 to GRUB? Even just giving us the graphics driver this time around Sony would be nice, since you're playing the good guy this gen.
Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
Sony had formerly for 2 generations used linux-style elf/toolchain as it's preferred format, with native and hypervisor (respectively) support for the linux kernel on PS2/3 hardware.
With this generation Sony moves to FreeBSD, but given how they released source for the previous 2 systems, how much worse is it now that they release no source at all (Hint: PS2 toolchain is basically dead at this point, PS3 I haven't heard anything about in a while.) Where's the homebrew? Where's the outrage?
Does anybody even actually care?
I'm not biting. ;D
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Exactly. I would imagine this would be the first vector of attack.
READY.
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...(an)Other OS to screw users out of being able to use OtherOS!
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Funny on my Asus board nothing above 12.10 works. I read and found out other Asus boards too can't run a more recent driver. Bumber as I was planning to upgrade to a ATI 7790 later this summer and 13.1 is the recommended driver.
It's an AMD chipset/cpu combo too!! ... but intel ones work fine?
http://saveie6.com/
so many people bash ati but i ran a gaming rig for 5 trouble free years though eventually when i was convinced it was viraly infected (despite concrete proof of it being fine) so i sold it. problem fixed. i had previously dealt with 2-3 ati aiw cards that the systems installed in them became 'obsolete' never any crash issues. i bought one asus nvidia card and the heatsink wasn't even touching the gpu bolted on the card. cause everyone was saying 'go nvidia' the 5 year fine system was the one that got the ati gpu because asus doesn't warrenty their products. sick that people think it is such a great company when you can't even rma devices. though i did forgive nvidia, but never asus they burned me twice on hardware and there will never be a third time.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
This isn't really news. The PS3 also ran FreeBSD, as did the PS2. They seem to have something that works for them and have kept with it. There's a great big FreeBSD Foundation copyright notice in my PS3 manual, and the filesystems for both the PS2 and PS3 are FreeBSD-flavored UFS.
I was under the impression that the PlayStation 3's OS was already based on FreeBSD, which means that this is not entirely unexpected news. According to the PS3 System Software page on Wikipedia:
The native operating system of the PlayStation 3 is CellOS, which is believed to be a branch from the FreeBSD project. The 3D computer graphics API software used in the PlayStation 3 is LibGCM and PSGL, based on OpenGL ES and Nvidia's Cg. The PlayStation 3 uses the XrossMediaBar (XMB) as its graphical user interface.
Emacs the answer is.
Since the original BSD license is a year (1988) older than the GPL v1, it's not possible for BSD to have been released under the GPL.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Indeed. The best is whatever works for you.
BSD: Good if you want high availability/adoption and don't care if derived projects are OSS.
Linux: Good if you want high availability but no closed-source spinoffs.
There aren't even many Linux Zealots left.
No need to gloat when you've conquered the world.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Wonderful news! Does this mean that I'll need to compile all the pre-requisites for the game, and the game itself, just to play the game on this console?
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.
BSD : Software Licenses = SONY : Companies
How does his second point assume altruism on Sony's part? Sigh. So quick to be right, you don't even know what he said.
GPL: Good if you want high availability but no closed-source spinoffs.
FTFY!
We're talking about licenses, not kernels.
I couldn't help but find it funny that the first result on Google for "Orbis OS" is this: http://orbisos.wikispaces.com/
You say it's funny, but it's the truth.
In construction: Your work is only as good as that of your worst sub[contractor].
If I do a bunch of work under my name, let's say Snormy, and hire parts of it out for others: I will be judged, not my subs, because I am cashing the checks.
If Snormy hires bad subs, Snormy gets a bad name. The subs might live on. It doesn't matter how well Snormy does their own work.
In anything, really: If I put my name at the top of the project, it is my project. If something goes wrong, it is my fault, even if the fault rests layers (see: Ogres or onions or Tor) beneath me.
Kid-proof tablet..
Who else thought the same?
Sony actually intended for it to be the graphic chips. Early on they were doing graphics demos of things running on a number of Cell chips. However, it wasn't good at that either and as the PS3 went in to hardware development, it was clear that they'd need a real GPU.
Well rather than just admit that the Cell wasn't ready for a consumer device (I mean who the fuck tries to put first gen technology in a consumer device) they decided to make it the CPU instead, and had nVidia make them a GPU.
Ultimately Cell's long term problem has been GPUs themselves. As you say Cell sucks as a general purpose CPU. No problem, that wasn't really its design. However as a stream processor it can't keep up with the new GPUs. That wasn't an issue when it was designed (this was back in the pre nVidia 8800 days) but now it gets out stream processed by GPUs.
Hence it has kinda just languished. IBM has chattered about it a bit, but nothing has happened.
Their drivers aren't crap, but they aren't up to nVidia's standards. I've a 7970M in my laptop, which I got when it was a brand new chip, and it has been a trial. So there are two big issues it has had, only which could be relevant to the PS4:
1) Issues with Enduro, that's AMD's hybrid GPU switching. The laptop can use the integrated Intel 4000 graphics for easy stuff and fire up the 7970M for hard stuff. Well until fairly recently, that didn't work that well. The 7970M didn't operate at full capacity, something with the drivers was inefficient. You could see it on other laptops which has a mux to allow you to switch off the iGPU. With just the 7970M they ran much faster. AMD finally got it (mostly) fixed, but it took for damn well ever. Also when it first came out, the interface for choosing GPUs was really clunky.
2) OpenGL issues. AMD has sucked at the OpenGL for as long as I can remember, and it never seems to get better. They SUPPORT it, but it doesn't work well. On nVidia, GL and DX run equally fast. They are both first-class APIs and there really is no speed or capability difference between them. On AMD, not so much. Recently the issues I've seen were with Brink and HFSS. Brink was a shit (man it was a waste of money) game that used iD Tech 4. As such, OpenGL. On my AMD GPU, it never ran well despite being WAY passed the spec needed. Tried it on a lesser spec nVidia system, flawless. Said problems were all over the forums. With HFSS we set up a desktop at work with a cheap AMD chip, a 7570 or something like that, just for basic graphics (it was server class hardware, so no good iGPU). The user reported HFSS worked over RDP, but not local and sure enough, that was the case. So it occurred to me: HFSS will use OpenGL to accelerate its interface. Out came the AMD card, in went a cheap nVidia GT 210, and HFSS worked fine.
Now of those, the OpenGL problem could be problematic to the PS4, since that's what it uses. Maybe they won't have a problem since this is ONLY a GL driver and they've had time and all that, but I worry. The PS4 may lose its, on paper, graphics advantage due to driver issues. It would suck for Sony if their console which has more graphics units and more memory bandwidth had lesser GPU capabilities because AMD can't work out a good GL driver.
At any rate the overall situation is AMD still has problems nVidia drivers don't. I really like AMD's hardware, it is often faster and is nearly always a good price, but I get continually bit with driver issues. Not something huge like "The system blue screens and won't run," but things that are very real and very annoying. Hence I have nVidia in my desktop and I've seriously considered replacing the card in my laptop (it is a Clevo laptop and the card is field replaceable). They aren't perfect, but I find them WAY less problematic.
And don't even get me started on Linux drivers. There is NO comparison there. nVidia binary drivers is lightyears ahead of anyone else.
Nothing wrong? From the previous /. article: "Starting last summer, however, AMD began having trouble with high-profile game releases that performed badly or had visual artifacts. Rage was one high-profile example, but there have been launch-day issues with a number of other titles, including Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, Bat Man: Arkham City, and Battlefield 3".
;)
Those are all recent popular titles. You need to look a bit harder
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
All the world's problems are solved here on Slashdot, didn't you get the memo?
... whatever
I heard on the internets that version 6 of Emacs was going to be called VI
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
Sony grows up and decides not to hack up their own crappy OS any more, finally entering the 21st century. However in a nod back the PHB nest that traditionally comes up with their PHB strategies, they decide to go with the second best free kernel out there because it allows more scope for doing evil. Nice one Sony.
Oh well, it could be worse. The other guys have to use Windows.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
BSD license, I'm not sure you understand it.
I think OP means that there will be a war over the merits of BSD vs GPL, bot that there will be some dual licensing issue
In construction: Your work is only as good as that of your worst sub[contractor].
My worst subcontractor is better than me you insensitive clod
Given that it's almost done and this news is only now coming out, I doubt Sony has or will ever submit upstream changes.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Personally, from my point of view, it's more like:
GPL: had BSD been licenced under GPL, then I would not just have worked as free labour for Sony, but Sony actually had to give something in return for using my code (not money, but improvements).
BDS: I don't mind being free labour for multinationals and them making large amounts of money off of my work, as long as I am being credited in the code (which is not open sourced so nobody will actually see who wrote what).
I prefer GPL myself and I know that it's actually a more selfish choice, I do actually somewhat admire people who do seem to be completely selfless and use the BSD licence, the world would be a better place if everyone was like that. However, not everyone is like that and I am sure that if both BSD and Linux were both using the GPL licence, Sony would still not have gone through the trouble of developing their very own. That's called leveraging existing technology, where the main goal is saving money by not having to re-invent the wheel.
Sony now had the choice of:
- Some Free software, where they actually have to put effort in to provide their improvements back to the community
or
- Some free software, which they can use in which ever way they want without having to do anything in return.
Easy choice.
Nihil in publicum sputa.
Even if I ever considered Playstation worth my time (I'm against consoles as disposable crap which leaves me with games I can never play again)....
:)
If Apple moves to ARM, it doesn't really matter. Will still just patch the kernel to boot on other hardware anyway. Within a generation or two, there should be enough differences between the different systems that the OS should be generic enough to make it easily patchable.
Use TPM all you want, that's of little significance. TPM is more useful for blocking software from running on your hardware than it is useful for making an OS which won't run elsewhere. This is because of the beauty of patching.
UEFI secure boot again blocks software from booting on your hardware, not running software on other hardware. It's all an issue of how difficult or useful the system will be without an account to use it on.
So, all that matters is that there's a way to get your hands on a copy of the OS which I'm guessing will be accomplished within hours of release of PS4. Then it's a matter of popping it up inside of VMware with kernel debugging and trap unknown hardware calls (general protection faults) and step through the sections looking for TPM code... this takes a shit load of time since it's probably quite obscure, but it's just a matter of patience. I think I had the knowledge to crack through this sort of code when I was around 15 years old... had the patience too. Now I'm like 100 years old and can't be bothered to care... but I'm sure there is someone out there who will
Most recent issues I've come across with AMD cards have come down to them not liking some other component in the PC.
That's not an issue in a bespoke console using predetermined hardware configurations.
Are there any Sony fanboys here? I only see negative comments about them.
...was how fast it booted up. One of the worse was how many times it needed to be restarted whenever it had an update. I thought Linux didn't need to be restarted ;)
I heard that Steve Jobs used to use VI. He switched to EMACS couldn't kick the habit of hitting the i key before typing.
Back in the day, all my servers ran NetBSD, but I have gradually migrated to Linux for hardware compatibility. AMD is going to have to write chipset and GRFX drivers for Sony. I hope the licensing terms will let them release them. I would love to run BSD on my AMD laptop. Considering AMD's past Linux support, this is probably just wishful thinking.
We don't need Wayland! X already does everything we need.
The PS4 wasn't even developed in Japan or by a Japanese, hell it will even be released earlier in the US and Europe.
While I agree with most of what you said I'm pretty sure this is false, at least for most part. During E3 they introduced the Japanese guy who designed the PS4 case. Also there is an interview with a Gearbox programmer(forgot his name) he says that they needed 8GB(instead of 4GB) or the PS4 would be dead. So they sent a guy to Japan headquarters in order to get a new devkit. Finally, the new controller was also designed by a Japanese team (there is an Engadget article about it with some AR demos). I don't think the PS4 was entirelly developed in Japan, but most of it's main features came from there. I have no idea about the exact date the PS4 will be released, but it makes sense releasing it first in the West because the holiday season. The Japanese release will follow in a few weeks max(as it's still supposed to come this year) so this fact is not really relevant.
Of course since the kernel is under GPLv2 and not GPLv3 they can restrict it to run only binaries signed by Sony. Any significant code they can put in blobs like AMD and nVidia do with their proprietary drivers. They'd have to show you the changes yes, but it wouldn't run anywhere but an emulator - which is probably what they're most worried about since this is now rather standard PC hardware.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Console drivers are nothing like their PC counterparts. They are very lightweight and expose all the functionality the specific hardware provides, nothing more and nothing less. It's up to the game developers to make sure their game runs as it should, not the driver developers.
Mada mada dane.
Some of us need the network transparency that Xorg provides, and wayland's alternative seems to be based on some propietary protocol that's half reverse-engineered!
Even so, I think the Linux for PS2 didn't worry Sony for a couple of reasons - 1) it was very expensive to buy the Linux kit (£120 IIRC for the DVD, hdd and keyboard) and 2) the bios could not be flashed. So the chances of using it as a successful crack were pretty low.
With the PS3 and Other OS, Sony relied on a hypervisor to protect the firmware because if the firmware were flashed the PS3 could be owned in software. So when viable hypervisor exploits began to appear and via Other OS, was clearly only a matter of time before the feature would go. Someone would have eventually perfected a bootable DVD which did nothing more than run the exploit and install the custom firmware.
So it's a hardly surprising turn of events. And while Sony did it purely to protect their multi billion platform, there are reasons for console owners to be glad they did too. After all, if piracy and cheating became endemic then the platform would have turned into a sea of shovelware shit because the margins wouldn't be there for publishers to try any harder. A bit like what happened with the DS and Wii.
Had FreeBSD been GPL licensed, Sony would have developed it's own OS from the ground up. Most likely resulting in lots of security issues, which is bad for the end-user.
As for returning the code to the community... FreeBSD can live with not getting it back: that's why the chose the license they use.
Anyone else worried about AMD developing the drivers? AMD has never had good drivers.
While I agree with you (ATI graphics drivers have been crashing Windows for me since Win3.1, and the Mach32) there has been one case where AMD drivers didn't suck, on OSX. Because Apple was heavily involved. This time, Sony will be heavily involved. And there's only one GPU to support. It should be fine.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
To judge such cluster**** based on a handful of experiences(regardless of being bad or good) is just impossible.
No, it's easy, you make a decision based on how you personally feel about an issue and stick with it.
An assistant in a store was rude to me once, I decided not to shop there again. I've never been in the place since. She may, or may not, still be working there - I've made a decision and I'm sticking with it.
Same with Sony, I decided that one arm of the conglomerate commited an act heinous enough (to me), that I wouldn't buy Sony products - I voted with my feet.
In reality it's practically impossible to avoid Sony products since they have their corporate fingers in so many pies. But if I see a product has a Sony logo on it, I won't buy it.
Some of Sony's products are excellent, but I've decided that I won't give them my money. Some would say that I'm cutting off my nose to spite my face - but that really is the essence of voting with your feet this way.
I'll explain why I don't buy Sony if anybody's ever interested in listening, some understand my position some don't, or don't consider that it's an important enough issue (to them) - that's fine by me.
Of course, as it's purely a personal decision, I can reconsider my stance at any time - and even change my mind. So, based on my experiences, I don't buy Sony or Toyota, and I don't shop at B&Q. Your experiences will differ.
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
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.
When they opened the bootloader for android, it was still SonyEricsson. For example, I have right here a SEMC Xperia Play. It says "Sony Ericsson" right on the face.
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.
There's a good reason for that.
So it may be that the removal of the OtherOS for piracy reasons was more valid then the so called hatred for Linux suddenly.
Valid? No, there was nothing valid about depriving users of an advertised feature for which they paid. That is some sort of theft. As for combating piracy, this is why they did it, but it had nothing to do with game piracy. It was because the PS3 was the finest Blu-Ray ripper available. The driver included in the PS3 made Blu-Ray ripping trivial.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
A little known fact: Windows notepad is actually a full clone of vi, albeit with some of the features disabled.
Other OS was removed for fiduciary duty to developers, as it is used as a successful attach vector: phase one to actively exploit the PS3 hypervisor.
It is nothing more and nothing less. I'm tired of fanboys projecting evil or other nebulous intent on to Sony when the truth is plainly evident.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Maybe that might be true for the DS at some point but the Wii had shovelware from the start, piracy and cheating weren't a factor. It's just that most of the game publishers thought the PS3 and Xbox 360 was where all the money was and mostly phoned it in on the Wii. They didn't expect the Wii to be as popular as it was. Once they realized that there was serious money to be made, they made better games as time went on.
I think the PS2 / PS3 originally supported another OS more as a tax ruse than anything else, to sell their consoles as computers and therefore avoid import duties in Europe.
Why oh why does this rumor never die.
It wasn't Linux, it was YaBasic on the EU PS2's that was the attempt to get around the tariff. It failed, but the tariff was abolished shortly thereafter, BEFORE Linux on the PS2 or PS3.
Sony supported Linux because their preferred dev environment was Linux. Those PS2 dev TOOL machines ran Linux. RedHat 5 IIRC. Those GScubes that were basically 16 PS2's in parallel were controlled from a Linux machine. The similar Zego's ran Yellow Dog Linux.
I remember reading some complaint, perhaps on ars technica or gamasutra from a developer that the PS2 dev-machines didn't have good IDE's or documentation... some other guy said, "you've got GCC and vi, what more do you need?"
Don't sit here and tell me you were switching back and forth between linux and the ps3 software, you weren't, you know you never used that feature and probably only heard about it when they "removed" it.
I personally WAS switching back and forth between OtherOS and GameOS as I wanted. Though, as you probably know, the partitioning schemes offered were not optimal at all. Either 10GB to GameOS and the rest to OtherOS, which cripples GameOS. Or 10GB to OtherOS and the rest to GameOS, which restricts Linux and prevents some compiles from finishing unless you decrease the root partition further to add a bit more to swap.
I wasn't happy about the removal, but I understand the why of it and updated my PS3 after about a month or so, after transferring my /home over to an X86 Linux box I had picked up.
Personally, from my point of view, it's more like:
GPL: had BSD been licenced under GPL, then I would not just have worked as free labour for Sony, but Sony actually had to give something in return for using my code (not money, but improvements).
This is the same fantasy of music and games industry regarding DRM "If we can just force those pirates to pay, we could have gotten something in return for listening to my music / playing my games".
But the fact is, most pirates would simply NOT buy the music/games if they HAVE to pay.
Thinking that Sony would adopt a GPL software and release all its derivative code is the same kind of wishful thinking. Without BSD, they would just develop their own.
The licensing screen on the PS Vita says it is running a modification of FreeBSD too.
*Nix AND Mac joke all rolled into one? Someone give this Coward a cigar and positive mods!
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
Removing the OtherOS option from the PS3 didn't stop piracy. And it didn't make it less easier. That was just a BS move made by a BS person. Also, they removed support for unlicensed controllers. What for? People had to buy new spare controllers when friends just want to play some casual stuff. Fk u, Sony.
It's not that clear cut. Sony is actually distributing the binaries, but for a lot of potential contributors the GPL doesn't force anything: they use their derived work internally, never distribute it, so don't need to share any changes. One the other hand, they will often avoid GPL'd code because of the potential for it to affect their ability to turn something into a product later. In this case, they'll either develop their own or, more likely, license a proprietary version.
Without the legal constraint, there are still reasons to push changes upstream. Maintaining a fork is expensive. Bugs get fixed and new features introduced upstream and the more you've diverged, the harder it is to pull the changes. This is why Juniper has recently been pushing a lot of things to FreeBSD - they've realised how much it was costing them for JunOS to be significantly different to a modern FreeBSD.
Even with the GPL's constraint, there are lots of ways around it. Companies ship mobile phones with Linux kernels and binary display drivers, by only using the public kernel interfaces and loading the driver late in the boot process, with most of it running in userspace. At worst, they're required to release the code for their shim that exports the hardware registers directly to userspace. For other code, you can run it in a separate process and the GPL doesn't apply.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Doesn't GPL3 fix those loopholes? Or did it only fix the 'problem' of TiVoization?
What all the OtherOS idiots seem to forget, the PS3 didn't originally include it. It was added later (1.60, I seem to recall), and then taken away once that idiot GeoHot started using it as a attack vector.
If any of these idiots had actually used OtherOS, they wouldn't be embassassing themselves by beating on about it. It sucked badly for most tasks.
No, if you don't distribute the binary then you still have no obligation to distribute the code under GPLv3. Similarly, if you only use a program via file descriptors then GPLv3 doesn't require you to do anything except point your customers at an upstream URL.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That is what most of us would call evil.
It served someone other than the owner of those consoles.
As for returning the code to the community... FreeBSD can live with not getting it back: that's why the chose the license they use.
Often times companies using BSD find it in their best interest to contribute back. Sometimes very publicly with lots of publicity, other times privately with almost none. People working at Sony have contributed changes over the years to the FreeBSD project, but I have no idea if they are connected to the PS4 or not.
Often times companies using GPL'd software find it in their best interest to not distribute the code. Just try to get the full sources to the kernel on many of the cheap tablets. You can't, despite this being a clear violation of the GPL. Tracing back to the maker of the chipset through four layers of resellers, rebranders and middlemen is hard.
Then again, I've made millions of dollars in my career having made my naming giving away my source code in FreeBSD. I don't feel like free labor for anybody. I do FreeBSD to scratch an itch, and if people can use it great. If they give back even better, but I don't get dogmatic about it. If people want something specific, then my consulting rates kick in: that's the only time I let others control the pace, direction and scope of development.
Agree, best nerd joke on slashdot 2013. :w :q
Having a legal contract to shareholders, publishers, developers and retailers, and the legal framework through which to remove compromised features IS NOT EVIL. It's called responsible business practices and jurisprudence.
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What about to the people who bought the fucking things?
No legal framework can remove the evil from this, it is just theft. They should have offered refunds to the impacted buyers at the very least.
If they want to be able to do these sorts of things and not be evil, I suggest they rent the consoles out not sell them.
According to current trends, BSD has clearly won the "war", if there ever was one.
Only a few flagship projects use the GPL.
The EULA you "signed" digitally permits this. Furthermore, any argument predicated on you "physically owning the hardware" is moot. You do not, nor did you ever receive a license to access the hypervisor, to which access via Linux had to be removed to retain the "trusted computing" aspect of the platform.
If you think you bought the right to use a console's software (ie it's hypervisor, or a feature which runs in software on top of it) in any way you wish, you were grossly misinformed as a consumer. The only people aching over this (still ironically) are the ones who least understand what they bought, and what they received.
I DO expect more out of Linux gurus, who it would seem currently have not yet grown beyond utility balls and sand buckets.
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I am sure that you're wrong. Sony would have licensed some embedded OS, like every other device before them.
Just because the BSD doesn't FORCE everyone to contribute back to the project, doesn't mean they WONT. Maybe code, maybe cash, or maybe they'll release some in-house project as BSD-licensed.
And companies that follow the GPL to the letter doesn't actually benefit anyone. Apple's changes to Webkit didn't get integrated back upstream until public pressure made them go above and beyond just releasing a tarball with code. Google's changes to the kernel for Android didn't get included upstream until many months later, when Google worked and worked on making them acceptable for the kernel dev team. Xen kernel changes were kept separate from Linux for years as well, until they put in lots of effort to integrate them.
The GPL doesn't may ANY of this happen. It would have happened with BSD licensed code just the same. The difference with the GPL is that, if there's ONE LINE OF CODE MODIFICATIONS that a company just can't release, they simply can't use GPL licensed code at all, so they'll work with the BSD-licensed equivalent project instead, or build one themselves. The GPLv3 license change for GCC compelled the BSDs and Apple to develop LLVM into a viable alternative. Despite there being nothing in the license to force them to do so, Apple has spent lots of money on the project, and contributed lots of code to the project.
You'll find innumerable similar examples out there. The GPLv3 which is supposed to give you more "freedom" from corporate "opression" is instead just making everyone flee from projects that use the new license, to no-one's benefit.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Netcraft confirms it!
uhhh
what?
Unlicensed controllers still work fine in the latest versions of PS3 firmware.
I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
That is why I have windows.
"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."
Really? What about the BSD-like Mac OS X and the ATI nee AMD Graphics chipsets used in the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro? Or is that relationship so far removed that AMD couldn't use that intellectual property in partnership with Sony?
$ man woman *
-bash:
You sir are the one that bought "trusted computing" while still expecting "untrusted computing".
I'm not using weasel words: you are somehow expecting an orange when you bought an pear. There is no in between. Legally you do not own the encrypted operating system software licensed to you. When that license was publicly broken, Sony had NO CHOICE but to remove the feature, lest they be opened up to countless liabilities and lawsuits.
You're right about one thing, when the survival of their trusted computing platform and the company is on the line- they do not care about you the consumer, and some backwater feature they have zero legal obligation to support. I am ok with this, and I do not wither away in my own bitterness over it. In fact, at no time as a Linux professional, did I care to install YD on one of my many PS3s, mainly because I was fully aware of the complete and utter pointlessness of it all.
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Sadly there are some companies that WOULD sue over that.
Indeed, I'm assuming that's why you hired him instead of doing it yourself.
I'm curious to see if people will still continue to use the old tired argument that Linux isn't ready for gaming. Sony and Valve seems to think so. (Yes, I know BSD is not Linux... but they are close enough, that porting between the two is trivial.)
Sounds like it.
There were reports of some PS2->PS3 adapters breaking and some USB controllers breaking, but not all did. Usually the cheapest, crappiest controllers stopped working.
However, a lot of good unlicensed PCBs still worked well after the 3.50 FW which supposedly broke everything.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
>They had a choice to make and they chose against the consumer.
I don't think choice means what you think it means. They had a fiduciary duty to close the security hole. The only way to secure the PS3 was to remove the attack vector, which required Linux. Sony did this to prevent illegal exploit, and potential civil and criminal liability (DMCA).
If you are going to blame anyone for this mess, blame GeoHot, who broke US, Canadian and Japanese law and forced Sony to remove the feature from all future firmwares.
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If you think there is truth in this conviction of yours, find ONE instance where Sony ADVERTISED the PS3 OtherOS feature.
It doesn't have to be in print or on television. They made statements about it before release. Then later they said they were committed to maintaining it. Then they removed it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"If people want something specific, then my consulting rates kick in: that's the only time I let others control the pace, direction and scope of development"
That would be a lovely way to work.
PS: I don't reply to ACs.
>No, he did something to his own PS3 ...and illegally release the data required to permit others....so yes, as a matter of fact, GeoHot played chicken with Sony (and lost I might add).
>I do not care about their fiduciary duty anymore than I care about how you pay your bills
No, but you blame me for 'paying my bills' before agreeing with your twisted ideal as to how the world should work?
> BTW their change did not secure the PS3, modified firmwares are still available
No- their change made Sony less liable in agreements with publishers, retailers and developers, in the case of modified firmwares. This is called fiduciary duty. Which, you know, you ought to care about if you are working stiff for an actual business with shareholders or depend on customers that are. You should thank your lucky stars a company like Sony takes their fiduciary duty seriously....
without fiduciary duty, there would be no corporate jobs (in fact no corporations at all), compensation, shares to buy to beat inflation, retirement savings, insurance on your car...... I'm sure you'd get a long fine building your local community's version of an OUYA (which of course, doesn't play the same games as the OUYA from the next town over). But that's ok. Back when I was a kid we made our own games and that's how we liked it.
Christ the sheer amount of "moron juice" oozing from the cavities you call a brain is astounding. Maybe you should just drop this as it's clearly too heavy of a topic for you to carry.
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Look at the article again...
Tomorrow is another day...
Illegally release data? Try to remember that breaking a contract is not generally illegal.
I only blame you if you want to take my stuff to pay your bills. How the world should work is to treat the customer as #1. Sony failed at that.
I like this no corporations idea you have. You will be glad to know I work for a nice private company. No shareholders to appease. So we can treat the customers as job 1.
So do you work for Sony or do you just dream of sucking some corporate dick?
Why do you care what sony wanted or had to do? What exactly do you gain other than sounding like a douche?
There's nothing in the linked story that proves that its running FreeBSD. It could just very well be running NetBSD, MINIX, Haiku or a Sony Made OS.
Title is a lie.
---- GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I agree completely. My point above was mainly that FreeBSD dev are generally used to not getting changes back, and will most likely let it pass if they don't get anything back. In no way did I mean Sony wouldn't do it (and they seem to have pushed some stuff back in the past, surprisingly).
i require medication as i have a mental illness, and while the meds make me able to do some things better, the illness had me convinced that there was a virus and i couldn't detect it. at the time i could only sell it... to appease my paranoia.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I was hoping more for Insightful instead of Funny.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
You'll find innumerable similar examples out there. The GPLv3 which is supposed to give you more "freedom" from corporate "opression" is instead just making everyone flee from projects that use the new license, to no-one's benefit.
Again, I know this is quite selfish, but if I wrote code and I had the choice of writing code that's used by a smaller user group whose members have the same ethics and getting something back in return in the form of improvements OR writing code that's used by a huge group of users without ever getting anything (not even kudos) back *ever*, I'd go for option number one. Getting something back with BSD is not a requirement for companies, companies' only goal is to make money, ergo the time that a company actually does give something back is because it's cheaper to give something back than to keep it in-house.
Option number one is not to 'no one's benefit' it's to the benefit of members of a like minded group, with that group growing once the benefits become clearer to people outside that group, the alternative is benefit to corporations ONLY, without them ever being required to give anything back.
The actual divide in mindset deciding between GPL and BSD licencing, is priorities; BSD minded people probably believe that furthering technology is more important than freedom. I would rather not have cool technology if it meant that it's completely closed off and non-free.
Nihil in publicum sputa.
Are there any Sony fanboys here? I only see negative comments about them.
They're here, there just isn't many of them.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Your mistake is conflating what each license supposedly requires, with what actually happens in the real world. You're likely to get MORE back from BSD licensed code. Many companies contribute code and/or money to BSD/MIT licensed projects (e.g. Apache is doing just fine). And as I've said, there are very commonly network effects that the GPL can never get.
You can't claim the GPL's superiority IN THEORY. You've got to actually prove it in practice, and I've given several counter-examples that directly undermine your claim.
And if what MUST happen according to the letter of the license is all you've got, which seems to be the case by your repeated emphasis, then you're not so much an open source advocate, as you are an obsessive compulsive, micro-managing busybody.
No, usually the projects completely die off in short order, and all the work benefited no-one. Back before NFSv4 came out, NFSv3 was showing its age, and there were TONS of GPL-licensed network file systems shuffling to take its place, with improved features like encryption, clustering, better security, etc. There were TONS of such projects, and every single one simply disappeared.
Those big companies you are actively seeking to harm (you said so yourself) are big supporters of open source, and are big enough forces to establish defacto standards. Sabotaging their use of your project works against your own goals.
Utter nonsense.
"BSD-minded people" MAKE freedom... They made it. It's there. You can hold it in your hands and do whatever you want with it.
"GPL-minded people" make lock-in. They yell loudly and swing a club, threatening all others out there. They don't want freedom, they want compensation in exchange for allowing anyone else to play in their sandbox. They (like you) may criticize BSD/MIT licenses left and right, but they're only too happy to take it, and lock up their changes under the GPL, never contributing anything back.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
An assistant in a store was rude to me once, I decided not to shop there again.
Did you complain to the manager? I've worked with quite a few people who were rude, and the managers didn't even know. Supervisors can't watch each employee throughout the entire shift.
Might want to share a few of those experiences rather than hold a grudge forever.
Here you go.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Here you go.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
A manager at a dealership was rude to my wife. It might not seem like a big deal, but if you're in the customer service business it pays to be polite. This one's not a biggie, I'm unlikely to be in the market for a Toyota anyway.
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
On that occasion I didn't complain to the manager, although I have complained on other instances - makes me sound like a moaner, but I've only felt the need to complain about something once every couple of years or so. I've also called on managers when I've received what I considered to be particularly good service - probably slightly more often than I've had to complain actually.
God: An invisible friend for grown-ups.
Any chance the WiiU has secret Mac lineage to complete this?
Nintendo is so against having external help with it's hardware, they probably have their own OS. TubeOS? NintenDOS? I have no idea, but I do know that Nintendo would much rather have complete control over the hardware aspect than let any other company involved. Hence why they dragged their feet with going from cartridge to CD/DVD.
If Apple got involved, it'd be an act of some deity to make Nintendo do that. Considering that Nintendo would rather keep all the money they get rather than pay Apple, I can't see this being viable.
Nope, that is NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT
Ok, I knew Layne's law of debate will need to be applied before long. Though dictionary.com agrees with this being an advertisement, especially according to the third definition, second is also somewhat applicable if web is considered digitization of print. If you are stuck on partial application of first definition, you just need to read up.
That is just a section from the Manual/User's Guide, which you see AFTER you buy the PS3.
Yes, I am sure archive.org bought PS3 to be able to archive this.
IF there really were an advertisement, I would assume it WOULD be on YouTube
Right, exactly like all other web advertisement is on YouTube.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Or you could learn what an advertisement means and save all the insertions of your foot into your own mouth.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I had a Juegos Para games gaming and what I say about its awesome features with best gaming advantages. After using it, I have recently got a juegos para Games and it is finest at this time. I think if anyone is thinking play a gaming , then don't go for other than Friv Games because it has a best gaming ability.
It fails the third definition as well: it says, "the action of making generally known; a calling to the attention of the public". The manual does NOT make this fact generally known, and it does not call to the attention of the general public, only that of somebody who reads the manual (print or online) to learn how to use their PS3.. So nope, still NOT an advertisement.
Running a public server about all the products of a company, putting information about a product there IS making it generally known. How is it not?
What an idiotic strawman. Let me make an idiotic assertion to match yours: Can you prove they didn't?
You know they didn't. Anyway, I didn't and I still found the information, so your assertion that it is necessary to buy the product to see this information is clearly false however much you try to deny it.
I see crap ads from the 80s there
Posting "I see crap ads from the 80s there" is making it generally known that an AC thinks that crap ads from the 80s have been posted on YouTube. I can't find on YouTube that an AC is making generally known that he/she thinks that crap ads from the 80s have been posted on YouTube. Try again.
or indeed, ANY PLACE ON THE WEB
Any honest debater would have to agree that archive.org is a place on the web. Not you, though.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Definition of advertisement is your own (though false), but at least it has been established that one needn't have bought the product to see the information. So you are wrong.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Any sane, rational, honest PERSON, would understand that a manual (i.e. help or support document) posted on the Internet that you have to LOOK FOR, is not something that can be considered an advertisement.
The judge in the public interest litigation agreed that Sony "advertised" about OtherOS, though the litigation had other faults so it was thrown out and there can be only one litigation of this category for the event.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Still, it has been proven beyond doubt that one doesn't need to buy the product to see the information. Knowing which, fully well, you argued otherwise.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I see you happily avoided my counter that, going by your facile argument, everything on the Internet - including that Oracle documentation - constitutes advertising
What is there to avoid about it? Of course it is advertisement. When I told you your post amounts to advertisement being an act of making something generally known, it is to be understood that Oracle documentation is much much more generally known so much more of an advertisement. You are just too thick to get that.
I have worked in Oracle, been involved in documentation efforts and publishing it to customers, and it is unthinkable to ever take back features that are promised in documentation. Didn't happen in my tenure, but it was understood that if it happened it would be an enormous blunder on the part of involved employees as well as Oracle as a whole. Oracle would arguably be taken to courts, by much more capable litigants than Sony's idiot customers, and be in a heap of trouble.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
A few. Like Linux, glibc, GCC, Mozilla, MariaDB, etc.
Heck there are more new projects using the Apache license than the BSD license.
Mozilla is triple-licensed, among them is a BSD-like license.
MariaDB is GPL-licensed because of the MySQL business model, that has apparently failed.
The only real GPL projects are Linux, glibc, and other GNU-related things.
MariaDB is GPL-licensed because of the MySQL business model, that has apparently failed.
Failed? More like worked. For many companies their ultimate objective is to get acquired and they managed doing this extremely well. Their model was not that different from the Aladdin Ghostscript business model FWIW.