Sony forced to pay for removing other O/S Support on PS3

andshrew · 7 Jun 2010 at 16:20

wannabedamned said:
Thats kinda the point being made... He didnt get that far. The machine was a mess, hooked up to alsorts. No way for realistic use at present.

The point is though, it had been done. Sony saw it had been done, and how. So they closed the gap, before it was taken advantage of. Good on them

But what exactly had he done beyond probing memory which he shouldn't have been able to access - he never produced anything 'real' and there's no indication if he would ever have been able to - I still stand by my original post in that they were no more at risk than they were 3 years ago - they just used this as a convenient opportunity to dump a feature the management no longer cared for.

I respect Sony's right to protect their platform - but at the same time I do think that consumers that used OtherOS in addition to other features on the PS3 got a raw deal. I'm disappointed in the way Sony handled it.

Robert1986 · 7 Jun 2010 at 17:37

KNiVES said:
To balance that out, I've had Ubuntu before, and I will never use a Linux client ever again. None of the casual things I wanted to do with it worked properly out of the box like it did with Windows, and the official Ubuntu forums are chock full of the same complaints. I can't sort my subwoofer out (the alta mixer can't disable it so I had an almighty bass on every single sound), chat clients won't work, no games work on it, folder system is crap, updating is horribly awkward and not so user-friendly... I could go on and on. I seriously gave it a chance but it's just a horrible OS that's about as inviting as Antarctica.

Windows 7 is vastly superior. I can't even _imagine_ Ubuntu on a limited system like the PS3. I bet it would have been slow and clunky as hell.

Not had any of those problems. Updating is pretty easy on ubuntu... just download > install > reboot. Not ran into any problems with that.

I had to find a few work arounds to get some of my hardware to work right but got it in the end. I had a nightmare trying to get my ATI drivers installed correctly... that was my only real major problem I've had with ubuntu but it doesn't even compare to the amount of problems I've had with windows.

10 or so years on windows...2-3 months on linux. Don't see myself ever using windows as my main OS ever again.

Nanoman · 7 Jun 2010 at 17:42

KNiVES said:
To balance that out, I've had Ubuntu before, and I will never use a Linux client ever again. None of the casual things I wanted to do with it worked properly out of the box like it did with Windows, and the official Ubuntu forums are chock full of the same complaints. I can't sort my subwoofer out (the alta mixer can't disable it so I had an almighty bass on every single sound), chat clients won't work, no games work on it, folder system is crap, updating is horribly awkward and not so user-friendly... I could go on and on. I seriously gave it a chance but it's just a horrible OS that's about as inviting as Antarctica.

Windows 7 is vastly superior. I can't even _imagine_ Ubuntu on a limited system like the PS3. I bet it would have been slow and clunky as hell.

Yea Ubuntu was probably painful, the Yellow Dog distribution is different as it was developed for cell architecture, still slow but I found it was only painful with multiple programs open. If I wanted to web-browse, ICQ, legal torrent share or legally emulate some SNES games I never ran into issues.

A lot of users that use Linux use it for different purposes than what is deemed typical for a Windows user. Networking for example I found much much better on a Linux based system simply due to the terminal. Windows is also known for security issues. Software and updates I find much better in a Linux environment i.e.repositories. If I had to choose though it would be Windows as the main thing that Windows has over Linux is the compatibility with other software and hardware.

andshrew said:
Because a EULA cannot infringe on the rights of the consumer, for a start. The bottom line is we won't know until this is tested in court - and this is clearly going to drag on for a number of months yet.

Do you use OtherOS a lot? Because that is the only reason I can think of as too why it bothers you so much. Enless you have some sort of issue with Sony?

Robert1986 · 7 Jun 2010 at 17:51

I'll admit, at first ubuntu was very frustrating for the first few weeks and I almost wiped it off my HDD but I stuck with it and learned how to use the terminal. Now, I find it really easy to use. Its also a lot faster than my windows 7 install. Boots up in almost 8-10 seconds faster and shuts down in 5-8 seconds.

I only really use ubuntu for browsing the internet, media , networking and some other stuff that isn't really hardware demanding. There are some programs on ubuntu that are much better than the paid programs I used on windows. Lottanzb for example is much better than newsbin.

Also, free software. I hated looking for some software on windows and only to find it wasn't free. So annoying.

Vonhelmet · 7 Jun 2010 at 17:58

Stop trolling!

cb_linus · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:11

Nanoman said:
Do you use OtherOS a lot? Because that is the only reason I can think of as too why it bothers you so much. Enless you have some sort of issue with Sony?

An advertised feature doesn't necessarily mean it get used straight away in a products life-cycle. I suspect some people (minority I would think, including myself at one point) will have bought their launch ps3's with the idea of playing games on them, then perhaps when the ps4 or whatever comes out it could be used as a Linux box.

I think Yellow Dog Linux even has / had a business model around the advertised Other OS feature.

I think Sony should offer a legacy version of it's firmware just for the use of Other OS (you would not be able to connect to PSN but should / would / may be able to play games offline)

"andy" · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:16

Abooie said:
If you advertise a certain feature i.e. linux OS and then remove it someone could argue they bought it for that feature and demand a refund.

Sony are on dodgy grounds.

im sure sony and many lawyers they pay thought about it . they arent forcing people to update its the games that eventually force people to update

and if your updating for games then linux wasnt the main feature you needed

cb_linus · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:20

"andy" said:
and if your updating for games then linux wasnt the main feature you needed

It's a feature you might want to make use of in the future, when games are no longer supporting the product.

"andy" · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:22

cb_linus said:
It's a feature you might want to make use of in the future, when games are no longer supporting the product.

they could promise to add it back in in 5-10 years if they wanted but people would still moan

cb_linus · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:27

"andy" said:
they could promise to add it back in in 5-10 years if they wanted but people would still moan

I would probably accept something like that

edit: and there are people on both sides of the argument who are moaning

(as well as those who are not

)

ZG002 · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:43

andshrew said:
But what exactly had he done beyond probing memory which he shouldn't have been able to access - he never produced anything 'real' and there's no indication if he would ever have been able to - I still stand by my original post in that they were no more at risk than they were 3 years ago - they just used this as a convenient opportunity to dump a feature the management no longer cared for.

I respect Sony's right to protect their platform - but at the same time I do think that consumers that used OtherOS in addition to other features on the PS3 got a raw deal. I'm disappointed in the way Sony handled it.

No one apart from SONY know how close he got! Maybe there was something he missed and they got lucky.. so closed the gap right away?

Maybe he didn't, only Sony know. Why would Sony dump the feature on older consoles? if not for security risk? Fair enough on new consoles sold.. but why would they actually go to the bother on the older consoles?

Robert1986 · 7 Jun 2010 at 18:57

Why is it when Sony had the OS feature, no one cared but now that they have removed it... everyone cares?

I really doubt anyone used Linux on the PS3 on a daily bases like a real OS.

ZG002 · 7 Jun 2010 at 19:06

I gave it a try once, Was pretty pointless tbh. They all smell a hint of refund and jump on the bandwagon imo.

Bigpig · 7 Jun 2010 at 19:07

heck dint care about it but if they where forced into handing out refunds I would be the first in the que

Insanties_birth · 7 Jun 2010 at 19:33

msmalls74 said:
You still can use that feature though, you just cant connect to PSN or update your PS3. So if thats why you bought it just to use linux then your OK.

Yes but many new games need those updates so you're losing out on any functionality from the updates and any new games so you lose out on functionality again. People like to back sony but the truth is if they just made the software more secure and fixed that specific loophole they wouldn't need to get rid of the entire feature.
They have restricted functionality no matter which way you go so it was a bad solution that has put them on iffy ground.

Robert1986 · 7 Jun 2010 at 19:34

I never understood why they even had the feature to install an OS. Everyone knew it would just end up like this way back when it was first announced.

andshrew · 7 Jun 2010 at 19:53

Robert1986 said:
Why is it when Sony had the OS feature, no one cared but now that they have removed it... everyone cares?

What exactly are you basing that on - I see very few people here who care.

Robert1986 said:
I never understood why they even had the feature to install an OS. Everyone knew it would just end up like this way back when it was first announced.

Why not have the feature. They offered it on PS2 (albeit as an add-on package because of the hard disc requirement). They were obviously fairly confident that the security in place would protect the GameOS - they'd have been fairly ignorant not to have expected people to rip the system to pieces trying to use the OtherOS function to exploit the system. It's a shame that we probably won't see anything like it again on a Sony console.

"andy" · 7 Jun 2010 at 21:01

Robert1986 said:
Why is it when Sony had the OS feature, no one cared but now that they have removed it... everyone cares?

I really doubt anyone used Linux on the PS3 on a daily bases like a real OS.

if you can be bothered to do some searching id put money on some of the people moaning being the exact same people who called it pointless whenever it was pointed out as a plus point in ps3 versus xbox

andshrew · 7 Jun 2010 at 21:04

"andy" said:
if you can be bothered to do some searching id put money on some of the people moaning being the exact same people who called it pointless whenever it was pointed out as a plus point in ps3 versus xbox

I think you'd find the same people who called it pointless then, still calling it pointless now.

Vonhelmet · 7 Jun 2010 at 21:26

Robert1986 said:
I never understood why they even had the feature to install an OS. Everyone knew it would just end up like this way back when it was first announced.

Word has it that they did it with the PS2 back in the day, as it allowed them to claim it was a computer and take advantage of a particular EU import tariff, or something. No idea why with the PS3, as apparently that tariff was long defunct. It might have just been to show off the versatility of the CPU or some such rubbish.