Sony's PlayStation 4 Is Running Modified FreeBSD 9

[ChrisXY]

What GPL resembles is communism; only GPL shall exist, nothing more, nothing less. In what universe is that freedom? NOT IN MINE.

I neither understand how this has anything to do with communism nor why how GPL supposedly wants to forbid you to have code under a BSD license. Take only X.org. It has chosen MIT as preferred license. I don't see how the GPL is in any way trying to prevent that.

[nir2142]

woow i read all the comments here and soo much bullshit about opengl i never heard in years.

DO you know how much advantages OGL+Linux distro have over Win+DX? and yes its not that simple to use opengl But if you guys talk about the disadvantages please do it right and write also the advantages that its have and if you Don't know ASK!!

And For the FreeBSD user i Hope that because PS4 based on FreeBSD Distro it will bring better Drivers (and don't forget that its still sony and they dont very friendly about this) .

i never read the all BSD license agreement soo anyone can write or point on what specific area in the agreement Sony choose the reason to choose BSD over other license? because it must be very good reason to choose BSD and not because the BSD license itself , it because choosing other distro can simplified things for sony . soo why they make always the hard choice ? (and believe me i'm happy about it for the FreeBSD users because it can help in this area)

[0xBADCODE]

And what exactly is THE definition of freedom? Why should that be THE definition.

Very good question in fact. If we'll look on current laws, we'll notice that most civilized people would agree definitions like this one or similar in spirit. That what makes laws to look like this. If everyone would be fine with anarchy/king of the hill model, shooting of 10 ppl on the street would go unpunished. However it's not a case. Community shows demand and then lawmakers have to respond. And this process happens to be quite universal. It's a basics of how groups of people are interacting.

What GPL resembles is communism; only GPL shall exist, nothing more, nothing less. In what universe is that freedom?

To some degree it's true. And there is reason: making a copy of program on it's own does not costs anything. That's what makes this approach valid and what makes it's odd to charge for copy of program on it's own.

And btw, communism in it's core isn't evil on it's own. And not anyhow worse than capitalism or anything else. It's bad when it's enforced. But look, in future, technologuical development could allow virtually unlimited copying of any material objetcs at virtually zero prices. It's nothing wrong to order some widespread automations to do the jobs and get results. Free of charge. And it would cost nearly $0 just as memcpy() costs you nearly $0. Because it could be just as common as memcpy() happens to be these days. This strange world will be world of all and nothing. Because you don't need to store or "own" objects if you can create them on demand. Should you need a car, it could be assembled where you need it and disintegrated where you no longer need it. So only your ability to create object's model suitable for construction matters. I can't tell what exact technology would be. Maybe molecular assembly devices/nanobots/whatever else is able form matter to pre-programmed shapes. But I can see families of technologies and I can see their final destination will be this point. At this point techs converge and give birth to new super-abilities. You see, in this world some ideas from communism are not looking too wild. In fact, everyone could get what they want by just shaping and transforming matter into desired object. Composing of objects under software control is probably doomed to become common and widespread as technology advances. Then what? At final point you can assemble anything that does not violates laws of physics. In such world some core ideas from communism could actually work. At least there are no reasons why they would not. So if we'll disregard fear and propaganda and will consider only some rational parts, it could map very well to technologies development.

And best of all: you can see early phases of all this today. 3D printers and CnC machines, robots, etc. All this is a very early form of new emerging technologies. But then techs will take a shape and will be improved. At some point they are doomed to reach destination endpoint: creation of any object, free of charge. It's promising to be very interesting to see how capitalists driven by greed have actually created set of technologies which can make capitalism really obsoleted. Just as it's getting obsolete to charge for a copy of program on it's own these days

NOT IN MINE.

Ok, then I definitely should live in your universe. Because there should be freedom to shot you and go unpunished, isn't it? I want to have my absolute freedom too in this case, if you can have it. Though, ideally, I would prefer freedom to order bunch of nanobots do slow disintegration of your butt. It should be more fun and you will have enough time to actually enjoy by your own logic applied to your own butt in most literal sense I can imagine. Then we'll see if you're really serious about giving everyone absolute freedom to do whatever they want to...

Sure, thats what everybody says. The truth is that i've rarely found such a vague 'definition' of freedom; basically you use freedom in the definition of freedom. It's not as simple as that.

There are no better definitions anyway. Some freedoms HAVE to be restricted just to prevent even more restrictions caused by using these freedoms. You see, it tends to self-balance at some point.

The point is that freedom si a controversial term.

Somewhat you're right. And I even agree that just as it's bad to enforce communism with a guns, it's also generally bad to force you to give up your freedoms. However, if your usage of your freedoms begins to harm others, I see no reasons why force should not be applied. It's completely fair to harm you in return.

Again, you fail to define precisely what freedom means. And it's not your fault; it is really REALLY difficult to do so. That's why I see BSD as providing freedom, and GNU as resembling communism, while you seem to think that GNU provides freedom. Well, that's why the controversy never ends.

BSD provides anarchy (which is considered by some people as form of freedom, even though it usually leads to dictatorship after some time). GPL provides civilized interaction of equal entities (which more or less resembles modern ways to apply laws). I clearly prefer second option.

Let me just quote this guy Benjamin Franklin: ?Those who surrender freedom for security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.?

Very good quote. One of my favorite ones. The only thing is that to actually implement this principle, the Constitution has been created (or similar sets of laws and/or international treaties quite similar in spirit). And look, the Constitution actually DOES limits SOME of freedoms to some degree. Just to make sure other freedoms are remaining available to everyone and nobody can seize them. You see, freedom needs protection. GPL does the very same thing - it places so

Anyway, stop dictating what freedom is and accept once and for all that the best you can do is say what freedom MEANS TO YOU.

Oh, immediately after all laws cancelled and perfect freedom (aka anarchy) takes place. If it's not a case, let's stick to civilized approach and encourage it while discouraging "king of the hill" methods of doing things.

Basically your speech implies that you're able to see your freedoms but absolutely failed to understand that evereyone else should have equal amount of freedom and that your use of your freedoms could impact freedoms of others. Hence your view seems to be biased - it's excessively egoistic (which is common for BSD nuts, looks like in the very deep of their spirit they're proprietary and greedy by their nature).

[0xBADCODE]

DO you know how much advantages OGL+Linux distro have over Win+DX?

There are at least some major advantage: no vendor lock-in. Portability. Basically, OpenGL is more or less the same in win, linux, mac, ios and android. WebGL is also very similar. So if program uses GL it's relatively easy to port it to whatever could run it and you not really depend too much on particular implementation, so you can have dozen and half of fallback options. OTOH in case of MS and Win they can completely screw you up by their decisions and there will be no way to override it. Furthermore, if you're not MS - you can't implement DX support in your own system because ... because MS thinks they can compete with a whole planet. And MS licensing terms and conditions are inconvenient and costly for many scenarios. I wish them luck in this approach. It looks like if they're rather would EPIC FAIL in each and every market I can imagine. Tablets? FAIL. Phones? FAIL. Supercomputers? FAIL. Web? FAIL. Desktop? Notebooks? Oh, they failed so hard that this market probably will collapse and tablets/phones will instead become mainstream computing devices for most users, seriously reducing role of desktops and notebooks in common life of usual people, shrinking PC market a lot. And most funny fail: MS learned us there is only x86 and win32 for years. Now they paid a good price for doing so. Market changed. ARMs become really good. But WinRT will die by horrible death because win32+x86 devs proved to be utterly incapable to switch to ARM and new api. This literally crashed winRT. There is no software. And no any single reason to use this system. LOL.

And For the FreeBSD user i Hope that because PS4 based on FreeBSD Distro it will bring better Drivers (and don't forget that its still sony and they dont very friendly about this) .

Ha-ha, you wish. While you "hope", Linux guys are rather not going to depend on Sony or someone else. And are writing opensource graphics stack instead. It's really interesting to see how some new powerful graphic subsystem takes shape in Linux kernel and how other parts of open stack are starting to use it. The only right way to do the things and the only safe way. And BSD guys started to consider KMS and so on only when open drivers ditched all old interfaces and things gone really hard so BSD nuts completely lack drivers. That's what called a bad project management. Not just guys unable to define their future, they also have to depend on someone else. Bad fate. It will be toy OS and free stuff for greedy and DRM inclined corps like sony/apple.

As for me I can only wish to worst enemies to depend on sony/apple/... good will. That's what they deserve... .

[0xBADCODE]

GNU -- Free Software Foundation owns your code, you'll get sued

Wrong. Unless you chose to transfer copyright to FSF, you remain the copyright owner. In this case FSF will be unable to sue violators on your behalf but if you can handle it yourself, not a big problem.

So in fact, "everyone can used code on equal conditions". I think it's perfectly fair. If you use my code, I should be able to use your code either to keep things fair. Else you're e-parasite, sir.

There is one notable exception though. If author wants to make some data format widespread at cost of code development success, it could be smart to release reference implementation under BSD license to ensure widest possible coverage data format can have. Caveat here is that someone can make project better and close source, effectively overtaking majority of users and don't contributing anything back.

BSD -- You can own it, they can own it, anybody can own it.

And at the end of day it sounds like that:
- Either you get third-rate "free" crap and do all the things yourself (up to writing half of drviers/features again even if someone already did it but not opened their source),
- Or you pay for commercial solution, give up all freedoms and only commercial solution vendor is who haves freedom to pwn you as they will.

[0xBADCODE]

Your life is totally dominated by Stallman. Brainwashing at its best. Those terrorists that brainwash people in blowing themselves up couldn't have done a better job than the Stallman Cult...

Negative. I've come to most of these conclusions myself with my own brain. By just working in software industry for years and observing different approaches and their results. If they're matching Stallman - fine for me. But I never bothered self to read Stallman statements anyhow seriously. I only bothered self to read different licenses and then take a look on outcome of various projects in more or less equal starting conditions. Linux clearly outperformed all BSDs for example. Even if BSDs had 10 more years to get things right. And even some corps were using them. But sure, they did not commited back. So at some point Linux outrun them. Most ironic example is WindRiver who messed up with bsdi and then... then they were forced to put it to garbage bin and use Linux. Because else others will do it and who would buy proprietary BSD fork when you can get opensource Linux? Very simple, isn't it?

[mrugiero]

Right. But there is only one reason to close code: it's become better than original. It was improved. So one who closes it haves reasons to think they're now king of the hill. Else they would not need to close their source, lol.


Sure. But in fact by default all corporations are greedy up to degree where it could impact project success. It's so funny to see BSD nuts are claiming it's "unfair" that so many corps are working in Linux and actually contributing to it. As for me, it appears GPL is a really good cure, which converts e-parasites into e-contributors. Much better form of life for sure.


Sure. If I will buy PS4, I would lack any freedom to change source and use BSD "freedom". Hopefully you're not going to offer me to


They refuse treat community as equals. Community put their job for everyone. They refuse to do the same. This what makes free BSD versions third-rate crap which is mostly unusable and losing to other OSes. Is this so hard to understand? Every decision haves it's price. Sony wins. Everyone else loses.


Specifically, I have a freedom to show middle finger to those morons who want to get my money for their device and then dares to dictate me what to do, limit my rights with nasty DRM schemes and not giving rights to change system software to suit my needs. Effectively it looks like it is me who owes Sony something after buying their crap. This is really flawed approach to my taste.


That's why there was GPL invented. It ensures that everyone can get equal set of rights. That's what makes game fair for all sides, both big and small. And we see, GPL worked better. BSD nuts had 10 more years to make somethinh worthy but in fact, free BSD versions are still complete crap. And only couple of commercial derivatives are anyhow able to do the things.

So what? Couple corps won. Community lost. And since I'm not Sony and I don't like to be on losing side, I would rather stick to Linux. There are no "losing side" at all: everyone wins together. At the end of day, collaboration just proven to be more efficient. Fairly predictable outcome, should I admit .

Let's see. We agree in believing the GPL is a better license. I guess we agreed in that BSD is a free license, too. I don't know of those that claim it's unfair that Linux gets more help from corps, if so, well, they are wrong because they chose the license who say "I'm not really that interested in anyone contributing back, if you want we are OK, but if you don't it's OK, too". If they cared about others contributing back, they should have chosen a license that enforces this. Otherwise, don't whine. I agree on that. The point in which we don't agree is that most coders on that camp really want (as in expect them, not as in welcoming them) contributions. If they choose the BSD license, I'm inclined to think they want to make a gift of their code, so anyone is free to make any use their code, without forcing to give something back, since that's basically what that license is for. I can't make an opinion about the actual tech things, because I didn't try it. I'm OK with Linux so there's no need for it.
About being parasites, well, I have mixed feelings. I feel they SHOULD give something back, but they don't MUST give something back. The original author wanted it that way (or was pretty misinformed about the license he/she chose), so I'm no one to expect anything. The point is, they are allowed to use it without giving anything back, but it's not the polite thing to do.
And about the freedom to show the middle finger, damn right you are. I do use that freedom, too. But I don't give the middle finger to the ones who made the BSD code, I think that's pretty noble of them.

Also, even though I have no faith in Sony in regards of giving anything back (I remember they even banned installing Linux on their PS3, when they previously used the fact it was possible as one of their marketing strategies), AMD has nothing to lose releasing the binary driver. So, if at the driver level the PS4 OS is similar enough to the original BSD used and there's no IP issue, I believe it's possible they release a driver for BSD, which would be good for them.

[yogi_berra]

Yes, they beat up a strawman:

No, a toe-jam eating hippie lied about them in the 'media', was called on it, then ran away after an incredibly long thread: http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=119730630513821&w=2

[XorEaxEax]

no, you've been holding BSD license to GPL standards, expecting that it should offer you the same things, which it does not. nor should it. (since it is a completely different license).

Exactly, these licences serve different needs, there is no better or worse licence as 'better or worse' totally depends on the needs of the one who is evaluating them.

Now if we look at how these licences are typically used at large, we see that permissive licencing if often used when it comes to framework/component style code, and copyleft is often used when it comes to full application/solution style projects.

Again, different needs being reflected.

[XorEaxEax]

What GPL resembles is communism; only GPL shall exist, nothing more, nothing less. In what universe is that freedom? NOT IN MINE.

What the heck are you babbling about? By your definition everything carrying a EULA out there is communism.

You choose to use GPL licenced code, whenever you use someone else's code you are subject to their conditions, in the case of GPL the conditions are that you release derivatives under the same licence terms.

Unless you choose to use someone else's GPL licenced code you are not subject to these licence terms. That isn't communism by any stretch of the imagination.

Why is it that BSD and GPL fanboys are so quick to spew bullshit in the other direction? It's not a win or lose situation, these are DIFFERENT licences catering for DIFFERENT needs. They both serve their purpose.


As for the whole 'freedom' debate, it's just a propaganda word, what we are talking about here is rights, nothing more and nothing less.

The 'four freedoms' should be called the 'four rights' but I guess it didn't sound as catchy.

The rights in question are that of end user rights, this is what GPL is about. From a programmer perspective this means that they are end users if someone modifies their code and distributes it, which in turn means that they will benefit from those modifications should they want to.

This makes for a tit for tat mechanism which can often be beneficial to projects where lots of developers cooperatively create something.

But again, it's not the one true way, there is no one true way, just preferences.