
PlayStation 4 runs modified FreeBSD 9.0 - jorgecastillo
http://www.vgleaks.com/some-details-about-playstation-4-os-development/
======
josephg
As someone who works on BSD-licensed opensource software, this is fantastic
news. Regardless of your opinion of Sony as a company, this is exactly why I
love licenses like BSD & MIT - you enable engineers everywhere to build better
products.

~~~
zimbatm
It would be interesting to know what made them choose that OS. Is it because
FreeBSD was better adapted to their needs or because unlike Linux they
wouldn't be forced to contribute back to the enormous pile of work that they
inherit ? I hope it's the first one and that we'll soon see commits from Sony
flowing in.

~~~
4ad
Everyone talks about licensing but nobody talks about technology. DTrace is
something you'd want on such a device. We know that Sony is interested in
DTrace, they ported to the PSP a few years back.

~~~
mwcampbell
The absence of DTrace in Linux is ultimately a licensing issue, because the
CDDL and the GPL version 2 are incompatible.

~~~
th0br0
For Linux, there's actually SystemTap which has some features than DTrace
according to [1]. Sadly, I believe it's only on Fedora/RHEL/CentOS currently.

[1]
[http://sourceware.org/systemtap/wiki/SystemtapDtraceComparis...](http://sourceware.org/systemtap/wiki/SystemtapDtraceComparison)

~~~
bingaling
Also perf can do some interesting dynamic tracing on linux.

This talk (by one of the dtrace guys) discusses methods of linux performance
analysis:

[https://www.joyent.com/blog/linux-performance-analysis-
and-t...](https://www.joyent.com/blog/linux-performance-analysis-and-tools-
brendan-gregg-s-talk-at-scale-11x)

------
sigil
Hey Sony, you should consider:

[http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors](http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/donate/sponsors)

I guess they could be the big anonymous donor, although I always assumed that
was Apple.

~~~
avar
Why would any public company make anonymous donations? Isn't it going to
become public anyway via public accounting? I'm not familiar with U.S. law in
this regard.

~~~
gilgoomesh
Apple doesn't make many public donations as a matter of policy. Steve Jobs was
famously against publicly declared donations – he thought it was hypocritical,
stole credit from the recipients and diminished the concept of selfless
giving.

[http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/steve-jobs-
secret...](http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/steve-jobs-secretly-
gave-millions-to-charity-publically-criticised-for-not-doing-
enough/story-e6frfmd9-1226650636880)

~~~
devcpp
1\. I don't see how it would be hypocritical.

2\. It should steal credit form the recipient. The money is what makes
charities work, more than the work in itself.

3\. What's so great about selfless giving? If donations can increase by
publishing the donor's name, so be it! Is there even a single downside to
selfish giving? Money is money, no matter the intent.

~~~
icebraining
Are you arguing with Steve Jobs? Because I should warn you not to expect a
reply.

------
huxley
It reminded me that 3 years ago Sony started working with GNUStep to add touch
support and build their SNAP platform, they put the project on hold/cancelled
it not long after it became public, but you can still see the code at:
[https://github.com/deliciousrobots/gnustep-gui-
sony/](https://github.com/deliciousrobots/gnustep-gui-sony/)

Some of the background: [http://blog.deliciousrobots.com/2010/11/27/sonys-
changes-to-...](http://blog.deliciousrobots.com/2010/11/27/sonys-changes-to-
gnustep-gui-library-adding-touch/)

~~~
synchronise
Did any of these changes get merged back into upstream GNUStep?

------
kryptiskt
The PS3 also has FreeBSD onboard (they call their version CellOS or
something), so this is not hugely surprising.

~~~
profquail
According to Sony's licensing page, the PS3's OS is based on FreeBSD 8.2:

[http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-license/](http://www.scei.co.jp/ps3-license/)

They've also apparently used FreeBSD on the PS Vita:

[http://www.scei.co.jp/psvita-license/](http://www.scei.co.jp/psvita-license/)

------
sciurus
The original source (as far as I can tell) is [http://www.vgleaks.com/some-
details-about-playstation-4-os-d...](http://www.vgleaks.com/some-details-
about-playstation-4-os-development/)

------
m_gloeckl
Keep in mind that the final software for the console can differ from the OS
that the development kit is running. The Playstation 2 development kit was
running Red Hat Linux and shipped with a custom system software once it was
released. The Playstation 3 development kit was also running Red Hat Linux,
but it shipped with CellOS, an operating system that has supposedly been
branched off of FreeBSD during development.

------
nathanb
This article doesn't cite a source. I'd be interested to see more information.

(The article also claims that you could install Windows on your PS3, which I
never tried but I'm reasonably certain would not in any way actually work).

------
elwin
> We aren’t sure if this will bring again the “Other OS” functions to
> Playstation 4

It will at least have to be possible to install other systems. The screenshots
show GRUB 2, which is under the GPLv3, so it should be unlockable.

~~~
gsnedders
The _devkit_ will be unlockable — but that's not interesting. What bootloader
the devkit runs has no relation to what the final console will (and I expect
that will be locked down, even if it allows other OSes).

~~~
runeks
Isn't the point that it _has_ to be locked down? I get the impression that one
of the merits of a gaming system is how well it protects unauthorized copying
of game titles (seen from the game developers' point of view).

~~~
speeder
Actually, the point was to prevent unauthorized self-publishing...

This is what doomed the market in 1983, people made so much shovelware and
shipped to actual stores, that when someone arrived on a store and grabbed a
random title, it was 99% of chance of it being utter crap, thus people stopped
going to stores.

Nintendo that came up with the idea to just outright make hard as possible for
people to self-publish games, going to the extent of even limiting large
publishers amount of allowed games per year.

Thanks to indie renaissance this is being relaxed now, but not too much...
Companies are still scared by the prospect of repeating 1983 or repeating
iTunes (that has thousands of shovelware games and discoverability outright
suck)

~~~
wmf
Also, I think console makers count on license fees from games to recoup losses
on hardware.

~~~
speeder
Not always. Nintendo usually don't rely on that for example, and the first two
PlayStation did not needed that either.

------
skizm
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this just for the dev tools? I think the
actual OS will be something different (although I assume some sort of Linux
Kernel).

------
jjcm
Any idea if this means there's a potential to play PS4 games on a standard
linux box?

~~~
chc
That seems pretty unlikely. The Mac OS X core operating system Darwin is also
based off FreeBSD, but there's a whole lot on top of the core OS that they
don't have in common, so Mac programs are not very easily ported.

~~~
merlincorey
Darwin includes a separate kernel and binary image format.

The question is the Sony OS using regular ELFs and the FreeBSD kernel with
modules, or did they replace it entirely as well.

~~~
mortehu
They used ELF (or actually SELF, Signed ELF) for PlayStation 3.

~~~
jevinskie
Correct. A SELF file is just an ELF-ish header with crypto abilities that
wraps a normal ELF file. Many fields are duplicated... some are checked for
validity while a different copy is actually used! ;-)

[http://ps3devwiki.com/wiki/SELF_File_Format_and_Decryption](http://ps3devwiki.com/wiki/SELF_File_Format_and_Decryption)

------
mariusmg
PS3 also used a BSD fork (called CellOS or something like this). I would have
been impressed if they had they own embedded low footprint OS. Forking BSD and
"eating" a lot of RAM for the OS in a game console is hardly interesting.

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bni
Seems like its common for Japanese consumer electronics companies to use
FreeBSD as a base. For example the Panasonic plasma TVs of recent years
contain FreeBSD.

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osivertsson
"It is a modified version of FreeBSD 9.0."

Is this obvious from the screenshots?

Or are they just claiming this without any arguments to back it up?

------
phryk
<Generic opinionated argument on BSD vs. GPL>

