Judge Dismisses 'Other OS' Class-Action Suit Against Sony 403
An anonymous reader writes "You may recall that in early 2010, Sony decided to roll out an update that would remove the ability for PlayStation 3 owners to install a different operating system on the console, citing security concerns as the reason. Geeks and Linux enthusiasts were outraged at the move, particular since the "Other OS" functionality had been advertised as a feature of the PS3. A class-action lawsuit was soon brought against Sony. Many of the initial claims were thrown out, and now, a federal judge in California has granted Sony's motion to dismissed the lawsuit, saying, 'As a matter of providing customer satisfaction and building loyalty, it may have been questionable. As a legal matter, however, plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable.' Here's the full text of the order (PDF)."
Apparently... (Score:5, Interesting)
Courts don't think false advertising is against the law anymore
Car analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And the USAF (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, geeks and Linux enthusiasts at the Air Force.
I think there would be some other people somewhat upset if you just dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars on what are now tiny black bricks useless to you. Accounts, commanding officers, taxpayers, etc.
I wonder if a FOIA request [af.mil] would yield any information about what exactly those PS3s are doing now?
Morale: stay away from Sony products (Score:2, Interesting)
Just dont buy Sony products. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Apparently... (Score:4, Interesting)
When you buy a PS3, it says support is only for a limited time. When you buy a PS3, it doesn't say it comes with PS Move, and when you buy those games they say they require PS Move. But when you bought a PS3 with the Other OS option, it never said that was for a limited time. It never said it only applied if you didn't want to use certain other features of the console. And it didn't say it could be removed if you sent your console in for service.
Re:And the USAF (Score:5, Interesting)
Why would you want access to the PS3's GPU? It sucks. You can do better on a AMD's Llano platform for half the cost of a PS3. I wouldn't doubt the Radeon 6310 in the E350 has more computational power then a PS3, SPUs included. It will also have more RAM and use a fraction the energy.
By the way - I'm a ex-games programmer with 17 years in the biz, four of them programming the PS3 so I know of what I speak. The PS3 has 6 pixel quad pipes for a total of 24 ALUs running at 550MHz. The HD6310 has 80 total pipes running at 500MHz.
The PS3 GPUs can't do double float math either. I'm not sure about the 6310.
This is silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft takes features out of their software the second Tuesday of every month. It's called "Patch Tuesday". That most people didn't want those features is irrelevant: some people did. That the features can be quite important is told by the fact that major enterprises employ teams to "vet the patches" against their golden images and designated sacrificial customers so they can avoid the ones that break critical infrastructure until the software that relies on the features can be upgraded, modified or replaced. Microsoft has no choice but to remove these features since they're also vulnerabilities that lead to compromise of the computer. In the best case these vulnerabilities can be considered poor design choices. In the worst cases like AutoRun they're just stupid.
Retail Windows users are on their own, and are typically divided into types: auto-update and no-update. The auto-update crowd have become used to some portion of their environment going dead now and then and waiting for their software vendor to issue an update - even if it's in the software library that interacts with the driver that drives the solenoid that opens their cash register drawer. The no-update crowd have become used to being very careful opening emails and clicking links and resigned to rebuilding their PC once a year when it's become too crap-infested to work at all. Neither set sees Windows as a reliable platform for home or small business use but what are they going to do? They don't have an IT team to keep them safe and can't afford one. Most of them would prefer their PC work more like their iPhone or Android phone, their iPad or Android tablet. But they don't sell something like that at BestBuy, Walmart or Staples yet.
I never held much hope the courts would find against Sony in this. It's probably legal. Wrong or right is a complete other thing. By keeping it in play for so long the suit has put it in the public eye that Sony will defend to the death their right to sell you a major software feature and then take it back. And that's the lesson we should all take away from this. It's a cultural thing. In Japan noone would question this at all. Sony is Japanese. The Japanese have great respect for authority, even corporate authority. They're not going to understand why we think this is not OK. Sony thinks this decision benefits their corporate brand, not diminishes it because it "proves they were right" - and there's nothing we can say to them that will counter this estimation because the concept is so alien they can't understand it.
I feel sorry for those affected of course, but that's not me. I don't own any Sony stuff. For fifteen years what the Sony brand means to me is "a thing that doesn't work with your other stuff." I was never in any danger of being impacted by this issue. See, I'm a "progressive" guy, and when I'm considering buying a new thing I look at both whether it is designed with open standards so it works with the things I have - but more importantly, will completely work with the amazing things I'm going to have after they've been invented and produced in the future. Sony doesn't pretend to offer that, so they don't get my money. I do like Samsung though - for now.