Sony Playstation

[Liam Proven]

On 23 June 2010 05:35, Conrad Knauer <atheoi at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 7:40 PM, J. Michael Morse
> <jmichael.morse at jaguar.tamu.edu> wrote:
>
>> http://consumerist.com/2010/05/sonys-removal-of-linux-ps3-option-screws-air-force.html
>>
>> Was there ever any explanation given by Sony as to why they removed the
>> ability to install Linux?
>
> A vague reference to "security concerns"
>
> http://blog.us.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-update/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS3#Removal_of_.22OtherOS.22_support
>
> In reality, what Sony feared would happen, namely "a hack that uses
> [...] the OtherOS feature to take control of the hypervisor" was
> eventually developed and Sony would rather drop support for something
> they don't really care about anyway rather than let people touch their
> proprietary stuff (goodness knows, we can't let consumers mess about
> with things that might break DRM, etc.)
>
> See also http://geohotps3.blogspot.com/

That is indeed my understanding. PS3 Linux was crippled, essentially -
no proper access to the underlying hardware, so you couldn't develop
games or other apps that might compete with Sony's official ones
developed with Sony's official tools.

This also made it less than hugely popular, of course. After all the
box does media-playback etc. natively without needing a "proper OS".

Once it looked likely someone could break out of the Linux sandbox,
the sandbox was taken away, /toute suite./


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