LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Thiele, Nicholas Wayne - THINW002 <THINW002@students.unisa.edu.au>
  To  : Dale Long <dalel@picknowl.com.au>
  Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 15:20:15 +0930

RE: Linux on Xbox (or playstation)

If this is true they could have thought of worse ways to further their market
penetration!  

Looking at these sites
-http://www.technology.scee.net/cgi-bin/scee/scee.pl?ps2linux,
http://au.playstation.com/technology/linuxkit.jhtml I am optamistic and believe
that they (Sony) do truely wish to encourage open source developement.  They
seem to have really put some effort in to allowing full open source use of the
PS2 hardware.  It also seems that there is no way that the kit can be used to
facilitate piracy (is this what you were talking about impairing the market?).
I am sure that they don't feel the developers (who the $500 kit is aimed at)
represent a substantial market for propietry games.  Even if the kits did
result in some top games (which would be great), Sony would either profit from
increased development kit sales (which could be just as profitable as propietry
games sales) or from sales of a port to the original system.

Either way they are promoting open source and providing some decent hardware to
play with.

Good to hear your thoughts,

Nick



-----Original Message-----
From: Dale Long [mailto:dalel@picknowl.com.au]
Sent: Thursday, 30 May 2002 11:24 AM
To: Thiele, Nicholas Wayne - THINW002
Cc: Linux (E-mail); 'd_delyn@eml.cc'; Mark Wetton
Subject: Re: Linux on Xbox (or playstation)


Thiele, Nicholas Wayne - THINW002 wrote:
> I agree, I'd also rather support a company that officially supports Linux and
> show them that there is a market for this.  If you do (or anyone on the list)
> get a Linux kit let us know how you find it, I am sure everyone will be
> interested. 

Is it possible that Sony are only using 'the current perceived rage' 
(ie: Linux) to further their 'grand scheme' and market penetration? And 
then ultimately not honour the 'Linux spirit', by not allowing any 
useful development for PS2 Linux? That is, using it as just a marketing 
ploy with no real delivery. Ultimately, OSS games on Linux would 
potentially impair the market for commercial DMCA copy protected 
software. Is it possible to have both an open platform run in a useful 
manner on the PS2 (or Xbox etc...) AND control the market and restrict 
copying and piracy?

Just a few thoughts.

Dale.

> http://www.linuxworld.com.au/news.php3?nid=1451&tid=2 - Article about Linux
PS2
> kit in Australia.
> 
> PS. When I first brought up the subject of Linux on Playstation someone
brought
> up this interesting idea!
> 
> "*imagines an ISP running solely on PlayStation II's*"
>  -David Lloyd [lloy0076@rebel.net.au]
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dcd [mailto:d_delyn@eml.cc]
> Sent: Wednesday, 29 May 2002 17:36
> To: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
> Cc: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
> Subject: Re: Linux on Xbox
> 
> 
> I agree,
> 
>     I'd prefer to pay Sony, for the PS/2 who are prepared to officially 
> support linux than Microsoft for another xbox to support their sales. ie 
> Every sale to one side, is one less for the other.
> Why else do you think their prepared to support a loss?
> 
> For someone who is into games and has a P/S already the $499 AU is a 
> fairly cheap way of getting a  reasonable starting computer, the fact 
> that they then start with linux, instead of having to be enlightened 
> (substitute any other suitable word ),  is a major bonus in favour of this.
> 
> dcd
> 
> 
> Anthony Symons wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 13:42, John Edwards wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What's more interesting are some of the mod chips coming out for the
>>>microsoft Xbox. It already has hard drive and Ethernet for something
>>>like $399, and one of the xbox hacker groups has discovered a backdoor
>>>bios hook to allow it to load arbitrary x86 code.
>>>
>>>In English, that means there's a strong possibility that it will be able
>>>to run Linux, despite all the crypto requirements for booting the OS.
>>>
>>
>>Hmm. Paying microsoft for hardware to run linux on? Even if it does save
>>you money Im not sure if I like that idea :(
>>
>>Ant
>>
> 
> 
> 
> 




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