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> Most large users of FreeBSD contribute patches back -- the great success of BSD as a license is the recognition that if you use open source, it makes sense to
by runeks 13y ago
> Most large users of FreeBSD contribute patches back -- the great success of BSD as a license is the recognition that if you use open source, it makes sense to contribute back any non-proprietary improvements, without needing any "encouragement" from the license.
I've had the same thoughts recently. At some point it must simply become unmanageable to maintain a fork, at least if you want to enjoy updates to master. But I suspect Sony might not be interested in future updates to FreeBSD, since they will probably prefer working on a static platform, and since the hardware will remain the same as well.
- cperciva 13y agoTwo answers come to mind about that. First, according to wikipedia, the PS4 has been in development since 2008 -- long before FreeBSD 9.0 was released -- so the "enjoy updates to master" argument would have applied during the development cycle even if not after the product is released. Second, even if they're dealing with a mostly static platform, I'm sure there would be some changes -- in hardware, replacing components with newer/cheaper ones, and in software, patching security vulnerabilities -- so there would still be some incentive to make merging easy (although not as much as if they were continuing development, to be sure). Of course, for all I know, they might be planning a PlayStation 5 based on FreeBSD 11.0 to be launched in 2017, in which case they would have very good reasons to merge as much non-proprietary work upstream.