GeoHot Retires from PS3 and iPhone Hacking...

[NBCraftsman]

http://www.ps3news.com/forums/ps3-hacks/geohot-retires-ps3-iphone-hacking-others-lead-111609.html

Today George Hotz aka GeoHot has announced he is retiring from Sony PS3 and Apple iPhone hacking, citing that the demand for updates from end-users will never stop.

In his exit from the PS3 scene, GeoHot left many legitimate PlayStation 3 users without OtherOS and without the promised 3.21OO PS3 Custom Firmware.

The good news? Others whom GeoHot shared the PS3 METLDR info and LV2 dump with are currently using his work to continue hacking the PS3 console, with rumors from IRC (for what those are worth LOL) indicating a public "end-user" PS3 hack may arrive before September 2010 from their camp.

Unfortunately though, just like the past Dark_AleX and "M33" PSP releases, an incoming PS3 hack will probably be from a fictitious group and won't include anything useful to PS3 Devs such as dumps, reversals, sourcecode, etc.

Hopefully once a hole that Sony can't block is public, other PlayStation 3 Devs will begin working on the PS3 though... and sharing all the juicy the technical details along the way for others who wish to learn.

This will help ensure the PS3 scene won't fall victim to the hypocritical and ridiculous "anti-piracy, users deserve nothing" attitude that began the downfall and led to the fate of the current PSP scene.

To quote: His PS3 username, Twitter account, and blog are all now shut down. His last tweet said, "it was a cool ride, and i've learned a lot about a lot. perhaps one of these days i'll do a more formal goodbye."

Along with that post, he wrote in his blog explaining his reasons for retiring from the scene. He says that he "didn't fully realize most of the current scene don't care unless they are getting something," but now he does.

He then continued a bit more in his post with the following: "The real reason behind no release isn't technical. It's just that it will never stop, after blackra1n, people demand unlock, after blacksn0w, people demand untethered. I miss the days when jailbreaking and unlocking were difficult, it attracted a much higher caliber crowd."

[ppietro]

Today George Hotz aka GeoHot has announced he is retiring from Sony PS3 and Apple iPhone hacking, citing that the demand for updates from end-users will never stop.

In his exit from the PS3 scene, GeoHot left many legitimate PlayStation 3 users without OtherOS and without the promised 3.21OO PS3 Custom Firmware.

I can't say I'm surprised by this. There hadn't been any forward movement from him since - what was it? - April or so? That wasn't a good sign to get us custom firmware to allow us to use PSN and OtherOS.

Looks like we'll be playing Sony's "PSN vs. OtherOS® (aka Upgrade or Die!)" game for a while longer, then.

The sad part about this is that Sony pulled the OtherOS because they perceived GeoHot as a threat. As some of us surmised, they really needn't have worried. What he did - if you believe he actually did it - was so obscure, it wasn't terribly dangerous, IMHO.

And now there are rumors that some of his photos were faked. Great. I feel even better about the removal of OtherOS now.

Now that he's retired, I fervently hope that Sony will feel free to bring back OtherOS. But - I know in my heart of hearts they won't.* And - that's a real shame.

Cheers,
Paul

* Well - unless the lawsuits work.

P.S. The OtherOS thread is getting so long that I'm splitting this out for visibility.

[ning]

What if we hold up together like the Amiga community, continuously pump up Sony and Fixstars with reasonable ideas and suggestions, then they may be eventually moved and bring back the machine one day

I see that Amiga community even tougher: their hardware had long died up; but they brought up a new OS during these years and may be soon to have a new Amigaone x1000, this machine would come with no cheap, they prefer to remain a small amount anyway.

I would like to suggest:
Name: YDLPS3E(nhanced)
Price: $800 to $1000
We buy from Fixstars with YDL pre-installed, they (Sony and Fixstars) can add whatever software hardware to protect their interests. The price could be high enough to feed them happy at the beginning then flatten when the market is formed.

We could post whatever we think to bring the machine back.

Last not the least, please chair this movement Paul.

Thanks.

[ppietro]

What if we hold up together like the Amiga community, continuously pump up Sony and Fixstars with reasonable ideas and suggestions, then they may be eventually moved and bring back the machine one day

Last not the least, please chair this movement Paul..

I'm flattered, but unfortunately, I'm also way too cynical to be the right one to head this up.

In other words - you might - stress might - get Fixstars on board with this idea. But Sony? Nah - that ship has sailed, I'm afraid.

They're not going to bring back OtherOS voluntarily. Not when the PS3 is selling decently for a change, and there are VAIOs to be sold. Instead of the inmates running the Sony asylum - anyone else miss Ken Kutaragi? - it's the bean counters now.

It's the same reason you're not going to see PS2 Backwards Compatibility in the PS3 anytime soon. They're just selling too many PS2s right now. You'll see PS3 remasters of PS2 games - the God Of War collection was the first in a series of remasters. They're preparing Ratchet & Clank and ICO/Shadow of the Colossus remasters right now. But - real PS2 BC is gone, just like OtherOS.

And - now that YDL for CUDA is available, I don't even think you can talk Fixstars into this anymore. The PowerStation was from TerraSoft, IIRC - Fixstars has normally shied away from that kind of hardware. I think Fixstars is going to be too busy with their H.264 Encoders, GigaAccels, YDELs and YDELs for CUDA to worry about old fashioned YDL anymore.

Jeez - listen to me. I sound like Scrooge! Bah - humbug!

Oh well - I'll head to bed soon and see if my mood improves after a good night's sleep. (That small dish of ice cream I just ate can't hurt either. )

Cheers,
Paul

[aguilarojo]

What if we hold up together like the Amiga community, continuously pump up Sony and Fixstars with reasonable ideas and suggestions, then they may be eventually moved and bring back the machine one day

Last not the least, please chair this movement Paul..

I'm flattered, but unfortunately, I'm also way too cynical to be the right one to head this up.

In other words - you might - stress might - get Fixstars on board with this idea. But Sony? Nah - that ship has sailed, I'm afraid.

They're not going to bring back OtherOS voluntarily. Not when the PS3 is selling decently for a change, and there are VAIOs to be sold. Instead of the inmates running the Sony asylum - anyone else miss Ken Kutaragi? - it's the bean counters now.

It's the same reason you're not going to see PS2 Backwards Compatibility in the PS3 anytime soon. They're just selling too many PS2s right now. You'll see PS3 remasters of PS2 games - the God Of War collection was the first in a series of remasters. They're preparing Ratchet & Clank and ICO/Shadow of the Colossus remasters right now. But - real PS2 BC is gone, just like OtherOS.

And - now that YDL for CUDA is available, I don't even think you can talk Fixstars into this anymore. The PowerStation was from TerraSoft, IIRC - Fixstars has normally shied away from that kind of hardware. I think Fixstars is going to be too busy with their H.264 Encoders, GigaAccels, YDELs and YDELs for CUDA to worry about old fashioned YDL anymore.

Jeez - listen to me. I sound like Scrooge! Bah - humbug!

Oh well - I'll head to bed soon and see if my mood improves after a good night's sleep. (That small dish of ice cream I just ate can't hurt either. )

Cheers,
Paul

Hey Paul:

This is as close I've noticed anyone receiving public laurels and accolades in a long time. Smile, lay back and enjoy it. You deserve it.

This community we participate in can be quite a lot to deal with, as Geohot found out. He and others failed to understand this community's history. This community, whatever remains of it, was built up over many years by Kai Staats as CEO of Terra Soft Solutions who insisted that his engineers and even Kai himself participate directly with the growing YDL community via the mailing lists. This approach which Kai took, and led his company to implement, was deeply appreciated by me and many others across all levels of Linux/Unix experience. Their effort provided a uniquely competent, warm and friendly virtual meeting space where everyone could submit questions regarding their particular concerns and receive reliable technical answers directly from company engineers and more often than not, a response from Kai himself. These were great times of learning and sharing which lasted for years up until Kai left Fixstars.

Developing or expanding the community of YDL so that it can exist without a company to provide gravitas for it may not be impossible but such a journey requires an awful lot of work to keep and support any project imagined to become something like what YDL was -- one problem would be how to maintain the engineering talent needed to support or improve the project which would be seen to replace or surpass YDL. Like Paul, I would like to avoid being the bearer of bad news but along with the facts Paul pointed to earlier the following also apply:

• Fixstars formally announced that YDL 6.2 is the last version of YDL that will support PowerPC systems.
  
  
  
• Without Fixstars someone, certainly a skilled team, will have to develop, test and put together all packages beyond YDL 6.2 which could run on Power systems AND whatever that became would have to be named something other than YDL because everything TSS owned including YDL was bought by Fixstars and therefore Fixstars owns the YDL name itself, as well.
  
  
  
• Let's say that a collection of astute people could be organized to do the above -- even if somehow they succeed amazingly, doesn't mean that what they produce will have the reliability of all the previous releases of YDL or come anything close to it.
  
  
  
• The last problem is one's professional reputation if this imagined product is either too close to YDL or the effort becomes so buggy it is a complete failure.

Anyway sometimes it is best to see a hornet's nest for what it is - as opposed to blindly walking into any space where one may reside. Well done, Paul, well done.

[ning]

If YDL of Fixstars no more, can be select Ubuntu
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-7 ... 3272.shtml
as our next OS?

Thanks.

[ppietro]

If YDL of Fixstars no more, can be select Ubuntu
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-7 ... 3272.shtml
as our next OS?

Sure - or Fedora, or Gentoo, or Debian... etc.

Although - no one's probably going to have a thriving PowerPC distribution with the PS3 out of the picture. There's just no growth in the platform anymore - your hardware choices are old Macs, un-updated PS3s and a possible phantom Amiga board from Europe.

Compare this to the number of ARM & Atom systems being unveiled, and you see where I'm going with this. (I'm not even factoring x86 systems in this equation - I'm looking at the non-standard architectures I'd be interested in. )

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. Even though YDL is no more, I see no signs that YDEL is going away for Power architecture. Unfortunately, I doubt many of us will be able to afford it. Maybe Fixstars will, at least, provide YDEL on public mirrors, since they seem to be selling support services as their main model. At the very least, they must provide the source code on their mirrors, since it's GPL code. We could possibly do the same thing CentOS does, and re-compile YDEL without the trademarks. Food for thought, anyway.

[aguilarojo]

If YDL of Fixstars no more, can be select Ubuntu
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Ubuntu-7 ... 3272.shtml
as our next OS?

Thanks.

Ubuntu, is an offshoot of Debian. Ubuntu announced years ago that they do not support the PowerPC which means that any software that does exist for the PowerPC is community driven. Community driven is all fine and good as a concept, but it also means that those writing the software could be professional software engineers writing PowerPC software out of the goodness of their hearts who derive their income from other means, and it could also mean contributions from various students and other novices at various skill levels. While community driven projects are wonderful opportunities for novices and occasional programmer hobbyists; it is not a reliable base for those who are used to and expect solid performance which TSS and later Fixstars produced -- "which just works".

The other way out of this is to either write one's own software or if one doesn't have that level of skill consider moving to the main trunk of Debian which continues, unlike Ubuntu, to maintain official support for PowerPC systems. Fedora, and other distributions also continue to provide PowerPC support prior to each release which means that there is some level of reliability of precision with that release. However, I don't believe that there will be an easy replacement for the energy and commitment to quality that Kai Staats provided for many years. No one will work that hard in considering the YDL community because he created and cared for it from the beginning. If there is an idea of moving forward in looking for PowerPC Linux, one must learn to accept that loss of commitment to quality and competence.

It is possible to work and maybe approach the achievement in reputation which TSS gave to YDL; I'm sure some will attempt to come close. However even a brief reading of Fedora installation procedures and systems they support clarify a list of systems which Fedora will not run on but remain functional from at least YDL 3/4 up to YDL 6.2.

So I can only recommend that as the YDL community moves to find another distribution, please read the published documentation regarding each distribution one is looking at and consider carefully the hardware one uses. I also advise that those doing so learn to drop one's expectations as it is not likely that any other distribution will commit the resources to PowerPC systems that TSS and Fixstars once did.

The situation the current YDL community exists in is a major challenge, but not an impossible challenge to meet. It is just that the software engineering is shunted to everyone in the YDL community who previously were merely considered "users". This is as sudden and confusing as a tenant in a building suddenly being expected to learn and know everything regarding the electrical work and construction used in the building one lives in - and is expected to maintain and repair it for oneself. There may be a handful of people who are skilled in one or another area of programming such that one may advise or contribute ideas or submit software products or projects in some capacity, but in no way is it everyone who visits the YDL Board or who benefited from the past efforts of TSS or Fixstars. The enormity of the task involved that an individual needs to commit to and consider is quite significant.

I don't like bearing bad news, but ignoring the tasks involved is the first step towards failure. Software engineering is a deep science which even frustrates professionals; it is not a gathering of positive thinkers which merely wish something into existence or other magical process. Approaching the disciplines of software engineering can be from a certain view as directly clear as playing baseball but very, very few have learned to think that way and I'm sure that the majority don't which means approaching a paradigm of ideas which can be agreed upon to approach just one project or product won't be straightforward in a community supported project either.

If there is at least some understanding of what is involved in moving forward beyond this current situation we find ourselves, then individuals can proceed forward to whatever makes sense for them. We are all a bit beyond the past; it cannot be reproduced. Each must approach one's choice within the context of what skills one actually has and what can be extended efficiently. We, formerly users, now understanding the responsibility for maintaining, repairing and living in our own building need to understand from our own unique contexts that we daily live with what one can and cannot do - proceeding forward as best one may. This may mean something we rather not do, like moving onto x86 Linux pursuing work on the quad, hexacore and other multiple core hybrids coming quickly into the marketplace. The good news is that Fixstars already produces an x86 based YDEL which does just that.

The choices are not "out of anyone's hands" as much as each individual needs to see clearly for oneself. This process has always been the way of human history, the challenge the YDL community faces is not different when seen from this broad context. I believe the YDL community, even though it may remain small, will find new and unique means to make itself known via future efforts. Of course, I may be wrong however I remain hopeful nonetheless that the positive spirit built into the YDL community by it's founder Kai Staats will reflect his vision of generosity, accuracy, respect for others and compassion.

[ning]

How about IBM's AIX, which is AIX 7 now, and fully power architecture based.

Thanks.

[ppietro]

How about IBM's AIX, which is AIX 7 now, and fully power architecture based.

Thanks.

It's good. It's also quite expensive and only runs on IBM POWER machines. There's no way to load it on Macs or PS3s.

But - other than that - it's great.

Cheers,
Paul

P.S. For an idea of the cost, see here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/15 ... 1_express/
This is for AIX Express, which is a light version of AIX

I use to test on AIX quite a bit in my X Windows days. We had a POWER RS/6000 workstation that ran it.

[aguilarojo]

How about IBM's AIX, which is AIX 7 now, and fully power architecture based.

Thanks.

I used to program both within AIX and a database system by Datatel called Colleague which ran (and still runs) "above" it. I love AIX and am familiar with programming on other PowerPC based systems which have identified as minis and supercomputers. The systems I programmed on which included the R/S 6000 ranged from $5K+ to $50K midrange and higher. I worked on a system which started somewhere about $500K as the midrange price.

If you read the link which Paul posted which describes fairly well some of the options carefully you'll notice a lot of technical descriptions which can leave nearly anyone a little puzzled. If you want to understand what the writer had to reference to extract his information from here's a typical IBM description of Power 7. Notice that IBM does not spell out exactly what the costs are because the people who are supposed to be reading the description of their products should be scientists and engineers capable of comprehending what is being discussed and choose on behalf of the institutions they represent which collection of accessories make the most efficient sense; also IBM is selling various packages which include:

• AIX based software tools (in addition to the cost of purchasing the AIX operating system itself) -- allowing access to each core. Recall also that other software tools like DB2, Lotus Notes, etc. are other IBM packages which are offered for purchase also.
  
  
• Understand that although IBM allows Linux to be sold none of the Linux distributions compare with AIX in any way. Not even close. Long ago there was a time when TSS was an IBM vendor and YDL was recognized by IBM as it's preferred Linux for Power systems, just thought I mention that as a way for readers to consider how different things are today.
  
  
• Separate pricing to how many cores and specially built storage and other hardware accessories a customer requires to get required tasks done.

Obviously what a college uses AIX for across different departments will be different from what Boeing, NASA, SAIC and others need. IBM's pricing takes this into account, one of the estimates Mr. Morgan makes is at the range of $500 per core. When you factor that in together with the price of the hardware it's pretty easy to see that IBM's offering is not aimed at individuals, but institutions. Even if you consider less expensive arrangements there is no way to really get a meaningful useful AIX system at the same cost level with the same flexibility as an old Mac running YDL or even the PS3 running YDL.

It is pretty easy to find Paul, myself and others discuss the details of Power architecture elsewhere on the YDL Board but I can't pass the opportunity to bring to light that a G4 Mac includes a Vector Engine (called by Apple Altivec) which has the capacity to process code directly sent to it at 128bits. It is interesting that as far as I know Power 6 nor Power 7 nor the Cell nor the upcoming quad and hexacore hybrid chips with i7 and others coming into the marketplace can do this.

Programming on older systems or currently available ones is a matter of understanding or being willing to learn the unique qualities of that chip as well as building on skills one actually has because the time learning to program any system is a cost as well. This often unmentioned reality needs to be taken into consideration as well because there are already too many who believe that buying the right hardware or software alone is the answer. It is not; utilizing well and wisely the hardware and software you have is the better and in the end wiser approach. Moving onward to a current or other system is only advantageous if one's skill has progressed as much as can be possible beyond the older system. In real world terms, this means that the software one can write on the older system is at least as complex and sophisticated as a student engineer at Graduate School or equivalent to the work of a professional programmer -- neither level of achievement are easily approached quickly.

If however one strives through the effort in mastering as much as possible the hardware and software issues regardless what system one has, and contributes to say PS3 Bodega and other open source projects the efforts of one programming -- one's skill and mastery and experience will grow well and meaningfully.

All the best...

[ppietro]

It is pretty easy to find Paul, myself and others discuss the details of Power architecture elsewhere on the YDL Board but I can't pass the opportunity to bring to light that a G4 Mac includes a Vector Engine (called by Apple Altivec) which has the capacity to process code directly sent to it at 128bits. It is interesting that as far as I know Power 6 nor Power 7 nor the Cell nor the upcoming quad and hexacore hybrid chips with i7 and others coming into the marketplace can do this.

Just a quick note. The VMX in the PPE of the Cell is identical to the G4 AltiVec engine:

"Both the PPE and SPE are RISC architectures with a fixed-width 32-bit instruction format. The PPE contains a 64-bit general purpose register set (GPR), a 64-bit floating point register set (FPR), and a 128-bit Altivec register set. "

( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_processor )

Also:

"The PowerPC 970 (G5) was the first IBM-manufactured CPU to implement VMX/AltiVec, for which IBM reused the old 7400 [Paul: aka G4] design they still had from the design they did with Motorola in Somerset. The Xenon CPU in the Xbox 360 also features VMX, with added proprietary extensions made especially for Microsoft. POWER6, introduced in 2007, is IBMs first "big iron" CPU to also implement VMX."

( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_G4 )

and finally:

"IBM consistently left VMX out of their POWER microprocessors, which were intended for server applications where it was not very useful. The current POWER series microprocessor, the POWER6, introduced in 2007, implements AltiVec. The implementation is similar to the one in 970 and Cell. The last desktop microprocessor from IBM, the PowerPC 970 (dubbed the "G5" by Apple) also implemented AltiVec with hardware similar to that of the PowerPC 7400.

AltiVec is the standard Category.VEC part of the Power ISA v.2.03 specification.

The Cell Broadband Engine, used in (amongst other things) the PlayStation 3, is also AltiVec enabled."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec )

Cheers,
Paul

[aguilarojo]

It is pretty easy to find Paul, myself and others discuss the details of Power architecture elsewhere on the YDL Board but I can't pass the opportunity to bring to light that a G4 Mac includes a Vector Engine (called by Apple Altivec) which has the capacity to process code directly sent to it at 128bits. It is interesting that as far as I know Power 6 nor Power 7 nor the Cell nor the upcoming quad and hexacore hybrid chips with i7 and others coming into the marketplace can do this.

Just a quick note. The VMX in the PPE of the Cell is identical to the G4 AltiVec engine:

"Both the PPE and SPE are RISC architectures with a fixed-width 32-bit instruction format. The PPE contains a 64-bit general purpose register set (GPR), a 64-bit floating point register set (FPR), and a 128-bit Altivec register set. "

( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_processor )

Also:

"The PowerPC 970 (G5) was the first IBM-manufactured CPU to implement VMX/AltiVec, for which IBM reused the old 7400 [Paul: aka G4] design they still had from the design they did with Motorola in Somerset. The Xenon CPU in the Xbox 360 also features VMX, with added proprietary extensions made especially for Microsoft. POWER6, introduced in 2007, is IBMs first "big iron" CPU to also implement VMX."

( from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC_G4 )

and finally:

"IBM consistently left VMX out of their POWER microprocessors, which were intended for server applications where it was not very useful. The current POWER series microprocessor, the POWER6, introduced in 2007, implements AltiVec. The implementation is similar to the one in 970 and Cell. The last desktop microprocessor from IBM, the PowerPC 970 (dubbed the "G5" by Apple) also implemented AltiVec with hardware similar to that of the PowerPC 7400.

AltiVec is the standard Category.VEC part of the Power ISA v.2.03 specification.

The Cell Broadband Engine, used in (amongst other things) the PlayStation 3, is also AltiVec enabled."

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltiVec )

Cheers,
Paul

Thanks for the run through Paul! Since I worked with and mostly focused on servers professionally, I better understand why I didn't see the same design I found elsewhere. Question: Can you discover if the VMX is available within the newer quad and hexacore hybrid chips (i7) and upcoming chips which implement Cell concepts within them? So far I've seen the roots (at least I think I do, although it's pretty easy to confuse nearly anything) of how the newer designs implement ideas expressed previously within Power and Cell systems, but remember IBM announced last year that no new development of Power or Cell would go forward. Here's an interesting discussion:

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=883

It would be interesting to discover a VMX or two or more within the upcoming hybrids. Are you aware that there already exists a hexacore i7 as a laptop? That never happened with the Cell! I look forward to what you have to share.

Thanks again!!

[Iguana]

Are you aware that there already exists a hexacore i7 as a laptop?

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Eurocom-Core-i7-Six-core-Notebook,10169.html
Sweet.. Six cored laptop running the i7 technology... http://www.thinq.co.uk/2010/4/13/first-hexacore-laptop-launched/
A laptop with 6 cores? Hey, wouldn't that just burn up the laptop?

[billb]

I love the "it's-only-as-portable-as-you-are-strong" comment.