"I think you're drifting here from my original point, which that it is in no way illegal, or even immoral, to run free software on hardware that you own, and to pick any locks on the hardware you own, which would preclude you from doing so." Amen, brudda. So will the cops eventually bust down my door if I accidentally drop and break an Xbox open? Also, some would argue that microsoft does use forms of coercion to get ultimately use their products. Whether one agrees with this or not, a nice little "byproduct" of hacking an Xbox and turning it into a PC is that there will be some slight pressure on 'Soft to get the prices back up to at least breakeven for the box.

From: Eric Cordian <emc@artifact.psychedelic.net> To: tcmay@got.net (Tim May) CC: cypherpunks@minder.net Subject: Re: The Microsoft Xbox Key Date: Tue, 7 Jan 2003 11:58:56 -0800 (PST)

Tim writes:

...

Given that x86 boxes without Windows installed can now be had for about the price of an XBox, and given that the graphics chip in the Xbox is not used by any of the Linux server uses (so far as I know), the main value of hacking the Xbox is for cuteness, to show that it can be done.

Linux is now available for download for modchipped Xboxes. Ergo, I would infer that issues of Linux supporting the hardware are behind us, and the sole remaining problem is getting an unaltered Xbox to run arbitrary code.

There is a non-Microsoft-approved Xbox media player out, so I would also infer someone has figured out how to use the graphics chip, which is a custom nVidia Geforce 3, a known device for which good drivers exist.

...

(The approximately $200-300 Linux box comes with a 600 MHz VIA x86, and may come with more than the 10 GB disk the Xbox comes from. I don't track this closely. I'd expect that the drive is faster in the PC, as XBox doesn't need a speedy drive for game play. All in all, I'd rather have the PC for Linux than a hacked Xbox.)

My impression is that at the $200 price point, the Xbox is a better built fuller-featured box than similarly priced boxes from places like Wal-Mart.

...

Those who don't wish to use MS products should not do so. I use Macs. Many use Linux. And so on.

I think you're drifting here from my original point, which that it is in no way illegal, or even immoral, to run free software on hardware that you own, and to pick any locks on the hardware you own, which would preclude you from doing so.

The public is getting the notion that there are things that it should be illegal for you to do to devices that you own, for purposes of accessing their functionality. This is something that needs to be strongly discouraged.

Right now, such endeavors are being muddied by being lumped in with such things as cracking commerical software and breaking into corporate and military systems in the public mindset.

A widely publicized legal opinion by someone like the EFF, stating that running anything you want on your own Xbox is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, would put the ball in Microsoft's court to either say that they disagreed, or to say nothing and let it slide, which would greatly reduce their ability to legally harrass people in the future.

It costs nothing to issue a press release.

-- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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