What a bizarre turn of events. As somebody who had installed Linux on their PS3, merely to try it out, I can attest to how terrible the experience was. Besides it not being super intuitive to accomplish, once installed, Linux was slow and limited in what you could do. Who would want to reboot the PS3 and launch the Linux five minutes later to do some light web browsing or chatting? That’s about as far as my installs went before I completely forgot about it. I guess others didn’t?

David Kravets writing for arstechnia:

 After six years of litigation, Sony is now agreeing to pay the price for its 2010 firmware update that removed support for the Linux operating system in the PlayStation 3.

Sony and lawyers representing as many as 10 million console owners reached the deal on Friday. Under terms of the accord, (PDF) which has not been approved by a California federal judge yet, gamers are eligible to receive $55 if they used Linux on the console. The proposed settlement, which will be vetted by a judge next month, also provides $9 to each console owner who bought a PS3 based on Sony’s claims about “Other OS” functionality. 

For a quick history on all of this:

 The troubles began with the PS3 software update 3.21. On March 28, 2010, Sony announced that the update would “disable the ‘Install Other OS’ feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models.” This feature, Sony claimed, would be removed “due to security concerns.”

Sony did not detail those “concerns,” but the litigation alleged piracy was the behind the decision. “Sony’s concerned that the Other OS feature might be used by hackers to copy and/or steal gaming and other content, the suit said.” Making matters worse, Sony said the update was voluntary. However, without updating, console owners couldn’t connect to the PlayStation Network, play any games online, play any games or Blu-ray movies that required the new firmware, play any files kept on a media server, or download any future updates.

Before the settlement, Sony argued that its terms of service allowed it to remove the Other OS feature and that the functionality wasn’t that big of a deal for most console owners. 

For me, it’s really all about that last part. The reason people buy consoles over a gaming PC rig is for their simplicity. You buy the box and you can play any games released on it. Nothing about Linux is ‘easy’ which leads to the fact that very few people likely ever took advantage of the feature. That aside, in the world of ever evolving boxes, features come and go all the time.

Hardware/software makers shouldn’t be tied to offering features indefinitely, especially when they’re not critical. It’s not as if Sony removed the ability for the PS3 to play Blu-ray films or its online components which likely are two core reasons consumers purchased the console.

Discuss:

Did you have Linux installed on your PS3?