Sony's PlayStation 4 Is Running Modified FreeBSD 9

[Guest]

OMFG FreeBSD! Sony must be Satan! I am curios what the linux zealots will say to this one. Hahahaha they chose FreeBSD over Linux. This is really fun. Linux is really being adopted by the people. See what happens when you are fanatical? It drives people away. Which is the opposite of what we want...or say we want.

They didn't choose Linux, because they wouldn't be able to do nasty things with it. With bsd you can do whatever you want and most of the time bsd developers can only watch and pray someone will give them back few bits of software. There's no other explanation, because choosing bsd over Linux as a gaming platform is no brainer.

[mrugiero]

One could also argue that there's something wrong with the companies themselves, when they don't see the benefits of the open source development and business model. The BSD lisence is more liberal than GNU GPL anyhow, so that it lets the companies choose whether or not they want to contribute.

And one could argue that you want them to contribute, thus enforce them to or they can do their own software without the community's work. But as already said, this really depends on what the programmer want his/her code for. If one want just to be helpful as Elanthis said, then BSD is far more successful at that. If you care about the project being contributed back, well, as I said it's probably better to enforce it. Another reason why a dev might prefer a copyleft license is because he feels if he doesn't charge his work, nobody should charge it. Although if this is the concern, then one could just add a clause that says derived works must be free as in beer, which at the same time would allow Sony's use (because they charge the console, not the OS) but not an hypothetical Windows' one, since they charge licenses to the software. IIRC id software used a (more restrictive) license that didn't allowed using the code with commercial purposes.

[Ericg]

I second that. This GL bashing sounded more like a rant, than something real.

The usual complaints against OpenGL is that its very verbose, and its very "Why cant you do this for me?" Imagine spending your entire life coding in C# or Java or Python (D3D11) and then having to code in pure C. Suddenly you're much closer to the hardware, which is great when you need to leak out those few percentage points of power, but when you're just trying to get something done quickly and cleanly and with as minimal amount of effort as possible to save time... its not so great.

Those are the usual complaints I hear, personally if I would have a choice on a project I would go OpenGL just because I would want to hit as many platforms as possible.

EDIT: Here's the story from the horses mouth... http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/...better-opengl/

Speaking to bit-tech for a forthcoming Custom PC feature about the future of OpenGL in PC gaming, Carmack said 'I actually think that Direct3D is a rather better API today.' He also added that 'Microsoft had the courage to continue making significant incompatible changes to improve the API, while OpenGL has been held back by compatibility concerns. Direct3D handles multi-threading better, and newer versions manage state better.'

Emphasis mine. That's a big deal... Microsoft did have the balls to break backwards compatibility with DirectX 10 and 11, they knew they needed to and they did it. OpenGL has kind of become like the X server... We're wrapping it in more and more and more extensions but the Core is still there, Khronos hasn't had the balls to be like "Fuck it. OpenGL X(5?) is a clean start, we're scrapping everything. Lets do this right."

EDIT 2: http://seanmiddleditch.com/journal/2...-5-0-wishlist/

Notice how a lot of his Wishlist involves breaking the fundamental legacies and traditions of OpenGL

[Guest]

It's only a "problem" if that bothers you. Personally, I'd be way more stoked to have code in the BSD kernel (if that is indeed running on the PS4) than I would be for Linux.

I consider it a huge win when I get an email or a message or just hear about how my code has made someone's life better by existing and letting them create a higher-quality product with less headaches and nonsense. Rather than worrying whether or not you're ever going to get back some hacked-together budget-and-schedule-limited "contributions" you probably don't want to waste your time hassling with in the first place, just release bits and pieces of code you find useful permissively and just _stop giving a crap_ how it's used; either let it just float out there uselessly like most publicly available source or let it improve someone's life (either saving a developer a lot of headaches or resulting in end-users having higher-quality products) whether or not they're proprietary or Free.

Great, let's support our competitors. This is what <smart> people do. I can just imagine how bsd developers are happy when their code is used all over the places and they have nothing form it. Simply brilliant! But hey, I heard similar propaganda to yours from Apple and MS, so they must love stupid people.

[Guest]

As Elanthis said, that's only a "problem" if that bothers you. The BSD license isn't some conspiracy no one knows about. its quite clear and concise and basically says "Do whatever the fuck you want." Those are THOSE developers choices. No one is FORCED to use BSD code. If you don't like it, don't use the BSD license, but don't hate on others just because they disagree with you.

Not everyone is aware of it's evilness and if someone's pointing facts about this license he's doing us a great favor.

[blackiwid]

I dont really get it... it makes not much sense for me.... If they would have portet the free linux drivers, if that would even possible because of lisensing (I think not) they would have needed to make many changes to it to be fast... so why would they not release that under linux.

So that did not happen I guess.

So what else... the catalyst. Its a pretty garbage driver totaly unstable... so if they are not able to make that thing usable under linux, how did they do it with a port to freebsd? Is it easier to create stable drivers for freebsd?

Or is in LInux the Xserver the problem and the use some framebuffer thing thats way more primitive and because of that maybe more easy to make stable?

[brosis]

There's no other explanation, because choosing bsd over Linux as a gaming platform is no brainer.

Slight, but important correction - not as a gaming platform, but as a toolbox to creating a gaming platform that is completely disconnected from parent.

[peppercats]

PS3 was on a modified BSD too, wasn't it?
Will be interesting to see how emulators work out this time around since the code will be for x86, I wonder if there will be a native-esque BSD/Linux emulator.

edit:
anyone saying they chose BSD because "it's a better platform" is fooling themselves, they just wanted to steal someone's hard work without giving any credit.
Not to mention Linux already has the Steambox on the way anyways... Valve has already helped the Linux community a lot(improved drivers, working directly with canonical, etc), what has Sony given to the BSD community?

[Guest]

Slight, but important correction - not as a gaming platform, but as a toolbox to creating a gaming platform that is completely disconnected from parent.

Exactly, thanks for pointing that.

[Ericg]

Please back that up with evidence

Evidence? Just check the logs for FreeBSD 9, Apple contributing some tech back was a big deal for that release.