4 ms·
PS3. Disabling Linux, as I remember it, basically instantly got it jailbroken. Suddenly not just pirates out to save/make money, but hobbyists too, wanted to
by knorker 4y ago
PS3.
Disabling Linux, as I remember it, basically instantly got it jailbroken.
Suddenly not just pirates out to save/make money, but hobbyists too, wanted to break it.
- yebyen 4y agoYeah, hobbyists like the US Air Force Research Lab (I imagine, I don't have any info to suggest they actually had to literally jailbreak their PS3s in order to build their supercomputer, but just making a jab) If it's good enough for the USAF, it should be good enough for hobbyists to have a go around with it!
- frozenlettuce 4y agoOil & gas companies as well, for their drilling and prospecting simulations.
- yebyen 4y agoSeriously a bit miffed at the characterization of people who have bought a piece of hardware to install Free and Open Source Software on it (and then been absolutely rugged by the manufacturer) as "pirates out to save/make money, and hobbyists too" Every business I have ever worked at has either been built almost exclusively on Open Source software, or a bank that ran almost exclusively on Microsoft. We're not just pirates and hobbyists!
- lapser 4y agoI think USAF and other companies were likely part of the reason Sony removed Linux support. Generally, a PS3 was a lot cheaper than the equivalent PC/server. Sony typically sells consoles at a loss and makes profits from the game sales. The likes of USAF, researchers, and other companies were buying PS3s in bulk, and using OtherOS functionality without utilizing the primary use of PS3s: games. Often these projects didn't need any GPU power, and OtherOS had nearly full access to the CPU (iirc it had access to the main PPE and 7 out of 8 SPEs). Thus, Sony likely was not making enough money from the consoles USAF et al. bought.
- yebyen 4y agoIMO that is Sony's problem, selling special purpose hardware that could be general purpose but locking it down so that your business model is secure... after the point of sale... seems a bit sneaky. I enjoyed many hours of gaming on the PS2 and I bought it (in part) because I would be able to install Linux on it. I still managed to become a Linux guy today, in spite of the rug by Sony, and I suppose there's nothing overtly wrong with clarifying with an update that the primary intended use of your product is in fact its primary intended use, but as a hobbyist (dang it, now I've gone and done that again)...
- kmeisthax 4y agoThere was actually a class-action lawsuit about this, but Sony played a lot of games to keep the rationale for locking out OtherOS out of the discovery process. It wound up being just another one of those kinds of settlements - i.e. a large-sounding number being awarded to so many plaintiffs in the class that its basically pennies per person. My guess is that they don't want to say the quiet part out loud: i.e. they took away OtherOS because they weren't getting the tariff exemptions they wanted and they don't actually want people using these devices for non-royalty-bearing activities (e.g. piracy and homebrew).
- dylan604 4y agoNow, if only someone could figure out how to make a printer useful in ways other than putting ink to paper in the same manner
- Narishma 4y agoIt's the other way around. Linux was removed as a reaction to it being used to jailbreak the PS3 and allow piracy.
- knorker 4y agoWell then that must be another type of jailbreak. If pirates managed to get from Linux to pirate copies running, then that's not the same exploit as getting from no-Linux to Linux. If it were, then there would be no point in Sony blocking Linux. So the no-Linux to "full" surely must have been invented post-Linuxblock?