From the SF page:

PHPSysInfo is a customizable PHP Script that parses /proc, and formats information nicely. It will display information about system facts like Uptime, CPU, Memory, PCI devices, SCSI devices, IDE devices, Network adapters, Disk usage, and more.

It seems "how PHP interacts with the system" in this case is through /proc. So not only does "similar functionality exist", it's put'near exactly equal. I'd bet you could write pySysInfo in a day or so.