[ILUG] sony issues

[Justin Mason]

Kae Verens writes:
> Chris Woods wrote:
> > I don't understand, why do you have the 'beef' with Sony ?
> > I've heard that they've been pretty good, their PS2/PS3 sdk's are all Linux
> > based, and even their PS3 will ship with a version of linux preinstalled.
> > Although at €599 / €499 I think might give it a miss.
> 
> this is probably totally off topic (doesn't concern CD players), but I 
> personally despise Sony for their Sonic Stage debacle (who ever heard of an 
> MP3 player that can't play MP3s??), but also like them for their Vaio series 
> (which I've been lusting after since they first came out - one of these days, 
> my precious...).

It's quite wise to avoid Sony -- they have a policy of selling
consumer-hostile, crippled hardware.

For another example -- the Sony DVD{+,-}{R,RW} burner I bought cannot set
the book-type bits, unlike most of its competitors.  Needless to say this
is not made public, and I only found out after I found that my burned
DVD+Rs couldn't be read on some drives.

apparently they are rethinking this policy after the rootkit debacle, but
until then, I'd advise being very wary.

Regarding the PS3: the PS3 will be a DRM-supporting hardware platform,
which is an easy way for them to preinstall some kind of linux base
without offering a genuine open platform.  (see point 18 of
the TCPA FAQ - http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html .)

--j.