Sony's PlayStation 4 Is Running Modified FreeBSD 9

[shmerl]

Some key points.

...

I used to be a pro-GL bigot too back before I had any clue what the hell I was talking about. when I first moved to the games industry and was forced to Windows from Linux I came kicking and screaming. I still recall some of the long debates I had trying to arguing pro-GL merits to a variety of developers. After having every single point refuted, the sole two advantages I could keep for GL were "some platforms require it and it also works in Windows so it's 'more portable'" and "extensions give you early access to some vendor-specific features." Not much.

Thanks for an extensive review. The repeating point in your list seems to be the slowness of OpenGL to fix issues or to evolve. What's causing it? Bad stewardship? Lack of interest or etc? I have to agree with
BO$$ here. D3D is simply not an option going forward, because it was and will be Windows only. No matter how good DX11 will be, this aspect renders it irrelevant. So developers have to work with OpenGL and make it better (whatever the way to do it may be).

[Ericg]

Thanks for an extensive review. The repeating point in your list seems to be the slowness of OpenGL to fix issues or to evolve. What's causing it? Bad stewardship? Lack of interest or etc? I have to agree with
BO$$ here. D3D is simply not an option going forward, because it was and will be Windows only. No matter how good DX11 will be, this aspect renders it irrelevant. So developers have to work with OpenGL and make it better (whatever the way to do it may be).

Probably bad stewardship or more along the lines Khronos is a democracy, Microsoft is a dictatorship. If Microsoft says "D3D is doing this." Its done. End of story. Khronos has more hoops to jump through, more people to make happy, and they seem to care about backwards compatibility in a more direct way. Meanwhile with DirectX, you have DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX11... Microsoft promises compatibility within your major version, and thats it. If you need to run DirectX9..you ship directX 9, you don't ship DirectX11 and then count on backwards compatibility.

[johnc]

Thanks for an extensive review. The repeating point in your list seems to be the slowness of OpenGL to fix issues or to evolve. What's causing it? Bad stewardship? Lack of interest or etc? I have to agree with
BO$$ here. D3D is simply not an option going forward, because it was and will be Windows only. No matter how good DX11 will be, this aspect renders it irrelevant. So developers have to work with OpenGL and make it better (whatever the way to do it may be).

Sometimes development by committee doesn't work too well.

Fortunately there is some flexibility built into OpenGL for vendors to work around the system.

Another disadvantage of D3D is you have like 25-30% of people stuck on ancient DX9 and you still have to target those people if you want to sell software. meh.

[intellivision]

Wrong, the fault is completely with the BSD license and the BSD devs themselves. It is their responsibility to ensure the freedom of the code (with they didn't). They are even happy for their code to be closed up but will try to sue if it gets incorporated into GPL software. (See OpenBSD, Ryek Floaters Atheros drivers).

This shows that BSD devs made BSD to be adsorbed into proprietary ware not to give people freedom or make it usable.

Googling 'Ryek Floaters Atheros drivers' turned up nothing, LinuxAnalsBSD.
I mean OpenSLOWARIS
I mean UselessFileSystem.

Oh hell, there's no real difference, you're all the same petty guy anyway.

[shmerl]

Sometimes development by committee doesn't work too well.

Fortunately there is some flexibility built into OpenGL for vendors to work around the system.

Another disadvantage of D3D is you have like 25-30% of people stuck on ancient DX9 and you still have to target those people if you want to sell software. meh.

OpenGL can suffer from the same issue. Users of Mac OSX were stuck with OpenGL 3 years after 4 came out. Only now it's catching up. So it really depends on the system.

[intellivision]

I just found this really excellent article about BSD and I encourage people to read it and well as others in this blog.

http://aboutthebsds.wordpress.com/20.../bsd-vs-linux/

The author here knows a lot especially about BSD.

Like how he doesn't know how to start FreeBSD in single user mode so he can get around an xinit bug?
Yeah, real big on technical knowledge.

[Ibidem]

BSD is just flawed and it will get you into legal troubles far more then proprietary or GPL (see here: http://aboutthebsds.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/bsd-and-stallmans-four-freedoms/)

Until I see a public statement from Stallman to that effect, I'll just assume that he and the FSF have more of a clue than you

[lovenemesis]

Sony knows

Fact 1: Sony has a long history with Linux. Most of their products are actually Linux powered, including TVs and cameras: http://www.sony.net/Products/Linux/common/search.html

Fact 2: Majority of PlayStation family members are BSD based, even the portable ones: http://www.scei.co.jp/psvita-license/

So it's a company who knows how to handle complex open source licenses. It obliged to the license as what it supposed to be.

[deanjo]

Like how he doesn't know how to start FreeBSD in single user mode so he can get around an xinit bug?
Yeah, real big on technical knowledge.

Reading that article just screams of someone that hasn't even tried to use it even more then then initial bootup. The audit thing is just an outright lie and the monolithic kernel section says he doesn't even know what one is, and the Apple/MS throwing stuff out is a pure fabrication. Not much truth in an article that claims to be presenting the truth.

[Ibidem]

Wrong, the fault is completely with the BSD license and the BSD devs themselves. It is their responsibility to ensure the freedom of the code (with they didn't). They are even happy for their code to be closed up but will try to sue if it gets incorporated into GPL software. (See OpenBSD, Ryek Floaters Atheros drivers).

This shows that BSD devs made BSD to be adsorbed into proprietary ware not to give people freedom or make it usable.

Googling 'Ryek Floaters Atheros drivers' turned up nothing, LinuxAnalsBSD.
I mean OpenSLOWARIS
I mean UselessFileSystem.

Oh hell, there's no real difference, you're all the same petty guy anyway.

He actually happens to be referring to a real case this time(googling "openbsd ath5k" will get you a lot farther than the terms he referred to), which he does not have a clue about.

Specifically, he seems to think that it's hypocritical to object to a license violation if the license requires that the copyright notice be preserved, but not that the source be publicly available, and the violation is replacing your copyright notice and license with a GPL notice.
In fact, ONLY THE AUTHOR can change the license unless the license specifies otherwise.
The license in question requires only that you keep the copyright and license intact; if those terms were not binding, the GPL is worth as much as /dev/null.

For anyone who is curious, a couple links that may clarify some things:
http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=118881908304473&w=2
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resou...aboration.html
Note that many tend to view the "in-file" approach as questionable at best; the current ath5k policy is to avoid it.