Sony is Patching the Kernel?

Pretty good find through Willy Sudiarto Raharjo - PlayStation 3 support now standard in Linux 2.6:

[Updated Dec. 7] -- Sony-contributed patches aimed at adding machine-specific features for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) have been merged into the stable 2.6.20 kernel tree. The patches should greatly simplify maintaining Linux kernels for the PS3, which is already supported by at least one Linux distribution.

Linux gained generic support for the Cell processor, on which the PS3 is based, with the 2.6.13 release in June of 2005. The new Sony-contributed patches to the 2.6.20 kernel appear to add machine-specific support for technology such as the PS3's memory architecture, DMA (direct memory access) model, and SMP (symmetric multiprocessing) model...

The PS3 running Linux isn't that big of news, but the patches to the kernel - from Sony - are. And the changes to the Linux kernel have been committed.

It seems Sony is serious about Linux for it's platform.

There will be happy penguins this Christmas, it would seem.