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Why We Can't Just Get Along: The Bootloader
mccormi writes: "Byte has an article from the BeOS perspective on why we don't see more dual boot machines from vendors. Browser anticompetitive complaints are nothing compared to what's happening with the bootloaders since the majority of people using computers will never have the know-how or courage to make an OS change."
What OS would be the default (don't hit any button and it will automatically boot into this OS) on a multi-boot system?
Yes, before you start replying here, please READ that Byte article. It will show you what really happened with the Ms antitrust case in the issue of the "secret license", and it will explain one of the fundamendal and most important reasons why Be was driven out of business and BeOS never became mainstream.
Unfortunately, courage and know-how tend to be a chicken and egg sort of problem.
--- "TANSTAAFL" --Robert Heinlein (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)
You and I can't read the license because Microsoft classifies it as a "trade secret." The license specifies that any machine which includes a Microsoft operating system must not also offer a nonMicrosoft operating system as a boot option. In other words, a computer that offers to boot into Windows upon startup cannot also offer to boot into BeOS or Linux. The hardware vendor does not get to choose which OSes to install on the machines they sell -- Microsoft does.
The obvious question here is: why didn't the DoJ use this as part of their anti-trust trial? Isn't this the most blatant example of monopoly leverage in existence?
Most importantly, are there any copies of these "trade secret" OEM license agreements on file somewhere? Without some sort of public record, we pretty much have to take the author's word for it (not that I doubt him).
As much as we'd like to create a technological circumvention for this, we can't. Because the people who are affected by this are the people who don't have enough computer knowledge to even know they have a choice. And Microsoft has, very intelligently, ensured that they never will.
Innovation at it's finest.
Is there an industry wide standard? Perhaps there should be, so you could just boot of a CD, and instead of installing LILO or SILO or some other loader, the OS just adds itself to some standardized table of OS and finds some disk space. Therefore it doesn't have to disrupt any other OS's to get installed and pointed to by the user at boot time.
Thanks,
Travis
travis_hadley@hotmail.com
Gassee claimed all along, that he wasn't trying to compete with Windoze. At the time, I thought that was a rather disappointing attitude. Maybe he was just trying to avoid a preemptive strike, though.
BTW, I know this will seem incredibly petty and shallow, but IMHO the real reason BeOS didn't take off was C++.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The revelation that Microsoft would hold a gun to their OEM's heads doesn't suprise me. Microsoft may not be the 'Great Satan', but their business practices are somewhat sinister, cloak and dagger, and monopilist.
What surprises me is that some of the major hardware vendors would put up with this. Compaq, Dell and IBM? Without them to pre-load windows (which would happen if MS pulled their license) half of Window's market share would evaporate. It's true--few people would install their own OS. If MS pulled their license, why doesn't IBM or Compaq just install Linux for free and say to hell with Redmond?
Maybe there's more to this than just the license thing. maybe Bill Gates has several CEO's families held hostage in the basement of his Redmond Complex....
Beware the Whyte Wolf.
With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels...
Linux is free. And yet there are no commercially available dual-boot machines on the market.... There is no other way to explain this phenomenon other than as a repercussion of the confidential Windows License under which every hardware vendor must do business.
No, Linux is not free to the vendor. It requires an extra configurator setting, more system testing, documentation and support cost, installer and boot-time software development, inclusion of CD-ROMs, and a few gigabytes off the hard disk. If there's not customer demand for the feature there's no point in the extra cost for the system vendor.
Tim
The BEST bootloader available right now is GAG. Multiple OS's on multiple Primary partitions, the bootloader is able to fit into the bootsector itself, it fixes errors, it finds in bootsector etc. etc.
There are execptions, of course (for example, many of the readers here). But why would your average end user want to have to learn two (or more) seperate OSes?
At best, out of the box multi-OS machines could satisfy a small niche market of hobbyists and power users, and I'm sure somewhere those would make up a large enough marketshare to support a couple of vendors.
But me, personally, I'll keep BSD on my machine I made for BSD, and my Windows on my machine taylored for windows.
The Internet is generally stupid
The main evidence he presents is the absence of hardware vendors selling dual-boot systems. But there seems to be at least one counterexample.
This is a confidential license, seen only by Microsoft and computer vendors. You and I can't read the license because Microsoft classifies it as a "trade secret." The license specifies that any machine which includes a Microsoft operating system must not also offer a nonMicrosoft operating system as a boot option.
This section of the article doesn't conflict with itself, despite first impressions.
He's a journalist, and therefore has some experience in digging up information not readily available...
If he didn't actually see the license, but took someone else's word for it, then I wouldn't trust much of the article.
This is definately prime material for the Antitrust case, and it will probably show up in court if a baby-bill tries it.
Perhaps one of the punishments is that all contracts must be made public if so chosen by any signer?
What's this Submit thingy do?
Is it just me, or does that word not mean what he thinks it means?
Does he really mean complicit, or perhaps complacent? Or something else?
Complicit doesn't really fit well, if you ask me. Grammar Nazi?
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
its also imposible to make hicks from south put their money where their mouth is. Why do you hide behind anonymous coward you pussy?
Give me a fawk'n break. At 15 w/ no programing skills and a smart neighbor I was able to dual boot OS/2 and Win95. But maybe I have "balls" (pardon my lack on spanglish.)
Oh and "oh my god M$ are bastards? What a concept!"
"Ohhh BeOS I'll miss you." (just replace BeOS with Yamagata and think Akira)
Jean-Louis Gassée (Seaman for the DC anyone?)
DOS used to be a bootloader, for an operating system called Windows 3.1 (and, less obviously, some later versions too).
If we're going to call for restrictions on operating system bundling practices, we must be prepared to draw a line in the sand and define at what point a bootloader itself is *not* an operating system, and at what point it is...
Think about it. Is an OS something that allows a user to select from a number of different programs, each with their own storage/comm mechanisms, and have those programs run, successfully, managing resources as needed, to completion?
On the one hand - sure, lets melt down our bootloaders to make weapons, but then again: what're we really doing?
:)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Makes you wonder why Apple doesn't "officially" release Darwin for PC's
Why don't we sell systems with two monitors so people can see if they're missing out on an expandable desktop?
Or a tape drive in case they don't know they're missing out on backups?
Or mandate a GeForce3 64 MB in case they don't know about games?
Making and supporting custom dual boot systems can be time consuming, certainly more so than installing just Windows, or just RedHat. Who's going to bear the extra staff costs? The user who requested the dual boot? That's a big meatball!
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
The last solution is the one most people choose. The substitute may not work as well as the non-Windows alternative, but unless you're a total fanatic, it's just not worth the hassle.
Why can't M$FT be prosecuted for Denial of Service?
If I install, let's say FreeBSD, then I install Windows, it will wipe out the FreeBSd boot manager (without asking), thus denying me the FreeBSD service. Why does M$ think they own my boot track?
What are you talking about?
you can always boot off of a Floppy into DOS...
Hey, why dont you ban this ass? He obviously has no life, and if i was admin i wouldnt want his $hit wasting my drive space.
get a life noone cares about this crap
There are some beautiful dual booting machines available at pogolinux.com (RedHat with Optional Windows 2000 as second operating system).
I'll look to like if looking liking move...
"Don't bother trying to create a better commercial desktop OS - it doesn't matter how hard you try, how many engineers you throw at the problem, how much money you spend, or how many years you put into it. Microsoft owns that space and, worse, the public is totally complicit with that fact. People will not stop using Windows. It is a losing battle."
Maybe the reason Microsoft owns this space is because it has done all the things mentioned in there. Microsoft's programmers get paid money, and money feeds people. Small donations directed towards Linus Torvalds doesn't feed him too well. While Microsoft has a large amount of people getting paid well, Linux has a few guys that don't get paid anything at all.
Money gets people thinking. Thinking gets people innovating, and Microsoft has done a good job at innovating from what I hear. Linux has not changed too much in the past 10 years.
While I don't support Microsoft, and I don't even run Linux, I run Debian, I have realized that since Windows 2000, Microsoft has worked hard on it's product and innovated. Maybe this is why no one else can beat them right now -- no one else has enough money.
This seems to me a very plausible and obvious reason why Apple has given short shrift to the idea of shipping a full MacOS X-on-x86. For that to be successful, you have to get people to use it. As stated in the article, most people will use what's shipped with their machine, and if clone makers are beholden to do what Microsoft says or else, no other OS stands a chance on the consumer x86 desktop.
I guarantee you would see more commercially viable apps (and UIs) for Linux if a major vendor (Dell, Compaq, Gateway) shipped it and made it as easy to get to as Windows.
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I'm afriad I'm a victim of popularity here. I'm a Windows and Mandrake guy. I've heard of BeOS, but have not taken much time (actually none) to learn more about it. It appears from the article that BeOS had something to offer to consumers that made Compaq, Dell, and Hitachi wanted to sell it alongside Windows (until the lawyers noticed the fine print on the MS license).
Given that, what is significant about BeOS? What is the hype about? etc etc.... ????
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
... consisting of $100 for hardware and $400 for the MS software. In this situation, you might as well accept that the software is an embedded device anyway ... in which case people will just buy multiple units and switch between them using wireless ethernet ... watch for MS entering the home networking in a big way, especially if they can license their .NET + XML extensions directly into the router/concentrator/broadband bridge and isolate Intel/Cisco in the process (remember that silicon is just frozen software).
The question is how come nobody has shown up the OEM license agreement a la the Halloween leak? I'm sure anti-competitive bodies around the world would be more than interested in looking at the exclusionary covenants and tying agreements.
LL
I do tend to believe that slaves are only slaves as long as they want to be. The issue is not home person use. MS doesn't make a large chunk of their money from home users, its corporate america. These companies have their entire desktop infrastructure based upon MS. If they could no longer have in house computers built and delivered to match the homogeneous network it would put a massive crinkle into how efficient their combined force would be. And even tho you can smooth those sorts of kinks out with Samba etc. it still doesn't replace all of the proprietary SMB MS shoved into its OSes. These corps. are willing slaves to MS because of the desktop.
This guy starts to make a good statement, and then trips and makes a fool of himself in the comment you quoted.
Yes, it's a mistake to make a commercial OS, but not because people are complicit in accepting Windows. It's because Windows is the only OS that anyone will pay money for nowadays, and even that is beginning to change.
The OS has become a commodity. What OS you use is becoming largely irrelevant for the most popular tasks people use their computer for. It's not that no one can compete with MS; it's that there's simply no money in it any more, and only sheer momentum is what allows Microsoft to charge for Windows. But even then, most people don't pay directly for it anyhow; they get it with their computer, and never see the costs.
No, we're not complicit in supporting Microsoft; we're complicit in not going out and buying OSes of any kind.
It does NOT boot up into linux and windows, if you bother to read hte article. The "Discman" mode of the CD rom drive is what runs on linux. That's when you use the cd-rom drive of the laptop to play music or mp3-cds. The only COMPUTER operating system installed on the hard disk is Windows. There is simply a BIOS plugin which runs linux.
A violation of the highest order for slashdot extremism?
Lest we forget?
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The only reason I got the system was because I wanted a P4 and it was either Dell or Gateway.
When I installed my own modem, I called in to ask permission to reset my bios, and they said that they no longer supported it, because I removed windows. When I pointed out that windows was still there, they put me on hold for 20 minutes.
OEM's are the worst. From now on, no matter how cool the gadget, I'll build my own, so the only one I can yell at myself for not supporting the products. OEMs are pawns in the hand of M$ and poor technical service.
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
That's great.. but you'll only ever get to show your friends how fast it can reboot once a year. What good is that?
"Remember that device I told you about last year.. well, we're gonna reboot it this Friday. You wanna come see? It'll only take 2 seconds."
---------------------------------- Jump on it.. you know you want to.
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IE6 offers:
increased security(by default)
blazing speed
complete interoperability with every web site on the net
Get it here before it's Slashdotted.
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...it is not why BeOS failed. BeOS failed for want of applications. BeOS failed for want of a Java VM. BeOS failed for want of Mozilla (although I think they finally fixed this). Basically, BeOS never had the apps. There were HUGH markets that they could have attacked and they didn't. The Java community for example, wanted to use BeOS. The problem was that Be licensed J2SE and sat on it. IT NEVER WENT TO MARKET. How can they expect to win if they never even competed?!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This article attacks David Boies in a footnote, saying that because he doesn't have an email address, he is "technologically illiterate".
I heard that Boies is learning-disabled and does not read -- instead he has aides read relevant documents to him. He has an eidetic memory and doesn't forget what's dictated to him. (Interestingly, for that reason, he asks his coworkers never to tell him anything that they're not absolutely sure of.) So the comment I referenced is rather insensitive.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
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Clerk's Office
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
I'm going to verify the address tomorrow, but in the meantime, I suggest that everyone write her a letter informing her of this issue. Tell her that any remedy she proposes for Microsoft must address the bootloader issue. Be sure to tell her, in simple terms, what this issue really is. Include the URL to the Byte article so that she can read more about it.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Ohhhh come on now. Somebody probably asked Microsoft some very pointed questions about exactly that, and either got no answer, or a dodgy answer that made them sound good without denying any particular action. Eg:
interviewer: So do you have a clause that vendors must not allow dual-boot?
MS: Microsoft has many license restrictions deemed necessary to enhance our competitiveness.
Etc etc. Now, I'll be the first to admit that this is conjecture on my part, but there are circumstances in which a lack of denial can be taken as an implicit confirmation. For example, several reporters in mid-2000 asked GWB, "have you ever done cocaine?" His response was to confirm that, essentially, he had definitely not done it in the past 15 years. Now, any reasonable politician who could HONESTLY say that he had never done cocaine, would!! So we must conclude, albeit somewhat skeptically, that W did coke at some point in his life. And no, I don't think he should be impeached for this. I'm just sayin'.
Similarly, we know that MS wants to appear non-monopolistic whenever possible, without actually ceasing to be a monopoly. So if someone asked, "Do you play nice with others," we would expect them to jump right on the bandwagon = if they could do so honestly =. So my conclusion is the same as the authors, though I can't absolutely prove it with known facts.
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For most people (i.e. dumbass AOLers), Windows is all they need. Computers and the Internet are just a 10-minute break, and they lack the knowhow to know about, want or even care about alternatives. And since Slashdot-type people do not provide a large percent of Microsoft's income (as seen by the proliferation of non-Windows stuff), accommodating your needs isn't profitable for them.
But, of course, soon most people who buy a computers will have grown up in the Internet Age, and will not be buying one just to 'check out the Interweb'. They will care about dual-boot systems (among other things), and it's just possible that wholesale conversion to Linux will make it more profitable for MS to alter this invisible License of theirs to allow dual-booting.
Assuming, of course, that OS-specific hardware doesn't emerge before then... (eek)
Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.
"And while it is technically trivial for a hardware vendor to set up hard drives to dual- or triple-boot multiple operating systems, very few people have the interest -- or the huevos -- to repartition their hard drives and install additional OSs after the original point of purchase."
I think rather than "eggs", the author meant balls or "cohones."
One of the reasons none of the OEM agreements have been leaked is because of an insinuation that was made by one of Microsoft"s representatives: there are slight changes among the versions distributed to the various companies, and if the document were made public Microsoft would be able to determine which company leaked it and send an army of lawyers to punish the company that allowed the agreement to get into public hands and lose its 'trade secret' status.
This is akin to saying "The only things that get off the ground are airplanes, because they don't play by the rules of gravity". Every human activity obeys the rules of economics; at its core, economics is the study of how human labor and available resources are allocated. If some people allocate their labor to produce 'free' (insert your favorite sense of that term here) software, that is an economic activity just like any other.
A narrow view of economics which ignores volunteer labor, bartering of labor and resources, and value measures other than money will steadily diverge from the real world as this new century progresses. The net has finally allowed us to approximate the world of "perfect information" which allows the economy -- in all its many forms -- to operate at peak efficiency. To think that it will continue to do so within current market models is to profoundly miss the point.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
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I am not doubting that Microsoft has some shady licensing practices. What I doubt is the 'journalistic integrity' of someone that cites the lack of an answer as proof.
People 'don't like' MSFT for one of two reasons:
The VAST majority of people do no like MS 'just because'. They have no thought-out position on MS practices, they just parrot whatever they hear. These are NOT the sort of people the Open Source community needs/wants as supporters. (I hope)
There are a few people that do not issue a knee-jerk reaction to MS. They have looked at MS products, and accepted or rejected them on their merits (or lack of). They point out RATIONAL problems with the way MS conducts buisness. More importantly, they realise that the MS monoply is largely irrelevant. If ~85% of the desktop market used WinXX, how does that stop me and my friends from hacking *nix or bsd?
Mr.Hacker is obviously in the first group. Any writer that bashes MS, however illogically, can expect to get some 'air time'.
The point is that, given that Linux is already reasonably popular, you would think that some (maybe not all, but some) system vendors would offer dual boot on some of their configs. I mean, why not?
The only explanation for why vendors (like IBM) that sell Linux only, and Windows only systems don't also sell Win/Lin dual boot configs is because there's some licensing prohibition. A.K.A. anticompetitive behavior
I like to use the PowerQuest Boot Magic system. I haven't tried it with Linux (sorry!) so I don't know if it works there but I think I remember some docs saying it works. You can get it with Partition Magic (another great tool!!!) and I use it for testing software.. I make images with Boot Magic and you can have up to 4 on your system.
The trick I dug was setting up a DOS Network so I could boot all my boxes with boot disks. Then conenct them all to a DOS server running Boot Magic and distribute the images across the lab via the network!
That's funny, because a lot of Linux hardware vendors offer dual-boot machines. The simple fact is that most people don't want to dual-boot and vendors have little economic incentive to preinstall Linux. The people who do want to dual-boot can.
Getting Linux may be a little easier in the future with FireWire disks: people can buy them after market, with Linux preinstalled. That removes most installation hassles and should make dual booting feasible, at worst with a floppy/CD.
Installing multiple OS's would be trivial. The difficulty is that they would all have to be tested and supported by the vendors. That takes time and money. The cost of putting BeOS on a machine would be much higher than the cost of an OEM license.
Linux is much more popular than BeOS, yet Dell backed away from it on the desktop because it couldn't justify the expenses. The OEM's don't want it because it would hurt their bottom lines.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Scot Hacker is among the best people ever the alternative OS scene has ever seen. You don't know anything about him, so I suggest you SHUT the HELL UP. You have no right to talk like that for people you don't know, people who have given their lives and time for the alternative OS purpose.
...if you enable an option called "Dynamic Disks". This option must be enabled if you want to use software RAID. Of course NT4 supported software RAID and the boot sector, but for 'some reason' this was removed in w2k.
Here's what the MS Help says about Dynamic Disks:
A physical disk that is managed by Disk Management. Dynamic disks can contain only dynamic volumes (that is, volumes created with Disk Management). Dynamic disks cannot contain partitions or logical drives, nor can they be accessed by MS-DOS.
See also dynamic volume; partition.
I don't think this option is enabled by default for w2k, but I'm sure MS will find a way to make it required for their next OS.
I tried using this will a FreeBSD partition, and afterward I couldn't get back to FreeBSD, If anyone knows a way around this, or if I am incorrect, please speak up!
Peace, or Not?
Its not about if anybody wants it, its about the possibility, the option!
Now, lets give an example. One of things about communist countries was, that you could not travel to the western countries. Not that anybody would want to do it and after the iron curtain fell, nobody actually does since they have no money to do it, but thats not the point. Now people are FREE to do it. They have the OPTION and the RIGHT. Its about your freedoms. Microsoft restricts freedoms of the OEMs to use the competetive solutions! and thats why its bad. Its not about how many people would actually buy. You will never know when you never try. And you never try, because Microsoft said so!
You don't give up your freedoms and your rights only because you just don't happen to have the need to exercise them!
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
How about your email clients and maintaining two different address books and two separate sent-mail files... And your browser favorites... and two sets of PDA syncers... and maintaining what amounts to two different machines. It's somewhat like working in two different cities with two offices. Sure, you can still get stuff done, but you never have a chance to fully move into either one. Unless you have a really good reason why you'd do such a thing (maybe play a game or two in one, then quickly go back to your primary one, or perhaps cross-platform development) why on earth would you want to subject yourself to the insane annoyances of two OSes on the same machine?
Get along, perhaps, but it'll never be too pretty.
Also, if a dealer builds a dual-boot, in many cases that means they have to halve their hard drive specs due to partitioning for each.
"Gee, I could buy this 30GB system, or.. wait, this dual-boot has only 15GB for Windows and 15GB for linux, sounds like I'm getting less."
A.
While I find article presents a compelling example of MS' all too common anticompetitive behavior, it does not really provide a credible explanation for BeOS' failure. BeOS may well be a superior OS, in and of itself, but that is not sufficient to attract customers. For instance, the lack of software and support can easily outweigh any benefit that any individual consumer could draw from increased stability and performance.
In addition, I find it hard to believe that installing BeOS as a dual boot system is any greater an obstacle than the numerous other disincentives that present themselves -- especially when it is possible to design software for make the conversion riduculously simple. Dual booting means that you sacrifice useful HD space to both the partition and the OS files. You must learn how to use it. You must purchase much of the software, if it even exists, for BeOS, that you either already own or comes bundled with Windows (hardly an argument for MS), at least if you wish to use it in that capacity. You may have to contend with compatibility issues. The Cost of BeOS itself. And the lists goes on. Any one of these could be sufficient reasons NOT to use BeOS, or any other OS, without that particular form of monopolistic behavior.
Although, MS has no reasonable excuse for its behavior, the writing was on the wall people. All Be's escapade has done is to demonstrate to some, those that believe BeOS to be a clearly superior OS, that a technically superior OS can fail. I do not understand how anyone familiar with the industry could not understand this. Certainly MS' monopoly position played a significant role in Be's demise, but moreso in other ways (e.g., the Applications && OS symbiotic relationsip--although much harder to quantify). Furthermore, even without MS' monopoly position, it is not necessarily impossible for a superior product (which is what Be is presumed to be) to fail.
Jesus, calm down. You'll burst a coronary. Try explaining that one to the wife 'n' kids... "B...b...b...but he insulted an alternative OS visionary! I had to do something!"
While I find article presents a compelling example of MS' all too common anticompetitive behavior, it does not really provide a credible explanation for BeOS' failure. BeOS may well be a superior OS, in and of itself, but that is not sufficient to attract customers. For instance, the lack of software and support can easily outweigh any benefit that any individual consumer could draw from increased stability and performance.
In addition, I find it hard to believe that installing BeOS as a dual boot system is any greater an obstacle than the numerous other disincentives that present themselves -- especially when it is possible to design software for make the conversion riduculously simple. Dual booting means that you sacrifice useful HD space to both the partition and the OS files. You must learn how to use it. You must purchase much of the software, if it even exists, for BeOS, that you either already own or comes bundled with Windows (hardly an argument for MS), at least if you wish to use it in that capacity. You may have to contend with compatibility issues. The Cost of BeOS itself. And the lists goes on. Any one of these could be sufficient reasons NOT to use BeOS, or any other OS, without that particular form of monopolistic behavior.
Although, MS has no reasonable excuse for its behavior, the writing was on the wall people. All Be's escapade has done is to demonstrate to some, those that believe BeOS to be a clearly superior OS, that a technically superior OS can fail. I do not understand how anyone familiar with the industry could not understand this. Certainly MS' monopoly position played a significant role in Be's demise, but moreso in other ways (e.g., the Applications && OS symbiotic relationsip--although much harder to quantify). Furthermore, even without MS' monopoly position, it is not necessarily impossible for a superior product (which is what Be is presumed to be) to fail.
I once sat down and thought about what I was missing in Linux. BeOS had almost all of it.
BeOS has great font support, and excellent Unicode support. It's very fast, with the main browser (NetPositive) being much faster than Netscape. It had a nice GUI and a 64-bit journaling filesystem years before Linux did. BeOS advocates always went on about how you can play 200 videos at once smoothly. It also has fairly decent POSIX support and includes BASH as the default shell.
It was a very nice system, handicapped by a lack of applications, lack of hardware support and the other stuff that comes with being 4th in the OS market.
Suppose an OEM wants to sell dual boot machines, but is afraid of Microsoft's wrath. What's to stop them from selling a computer with Windows-only pre-installed at time of sale, and offering to install BeOS afterwards for a nominal charge?
Dude, you sound so knowledgable, at least to the cluless.
For instance...
MS's market, as far as MS is concerned, is everything digital, technological, or related to IP rights. Be would have to manufacture wooden shoes, to avoid the absuive monopoly that MS is.
Monopolies aren't allowed to determine whether "really good OS's, with good features and easy API's" will succeed or fail. Also, you fail to mention that MS didn't triumph over Be on merit, but rather through illegal hardware vendor coercion.
The systems you mention, are nearly irrelevant to the discussion.
Apple: a somewhat sucessful niche 'total system' vendor, which really only hangs on because they were pretty much the first personal computer maker out there. Barring time travel, Be couldn't have hoped to take the same road to semi-sucess as Apple did.
Amiga: a really small but highly innovative company that was almost immediately bought by Commodore, another of the first few pc makers. Survived shortly in a video editing niche, before poor management killed Commodore. Even had they been sucessful, they were wandering dangerously close to the workstation market. MS is attempting to annex that territory as we speak, so even had Be hid there, it would only have postponed the inevitable.
NeXT: took them several years to figure out that really cool computers still don't sell, when they cost $10,000. Workstation, personal computer, I never have figured out which... but had Be tried to follow this example, it would have ended even quicker than it had. And unlike Jobs, no one at Apple like Gassee enough to buy out his failing company.
AS400: IBM big iron, that even today really doesn't compete in the same market as MS garbage. Successful, but then there are no abusive monopolies nipping at IBM's heels in this arena. This is the example you want Be to follow? Building mid-to-upper range servers that cost anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000?
Only two of the companies you named are even still around today. The other two did/are doing what Be eventually did also. Nameley, becoming a software/OS only company. "Building their own hardware" wasn't an option, it would have been intentional suicide. Also, for the record, Be did manufacture a limited run of such machines, named the "BeBox". I have no doubt, that had Be somehow managed to license the design, and a vendor such as Gateway or Dell started making the machines, M$ would have ported NT or 9x to the dual PPC Be platform, and insisted on the "no dual boot" and "microsoft tax" provisions in their vendor licenses. Maybe even killing it before it hit store shelves.
Your post and attitude both smack of victim bashing. Do you also chastise rape victims for wearing slutty clothing? Or laugh at murder victims, who should have spent more free time learning self-defense? The truth is, no one or no entity is capable of playing on M$'s turf, and M$ tends to draw the borders around that turf so widely that there is no safe place. Be had a decent shot at deflecting and countering the regular dirty deals and nasty tricks you'll see in this industry, but no one is able to to stand up to the barrage that M$ will throw at anyone they consider threatening. It hurts both of us, and anyone else that comes into contact with technology on a regular basis. Laugh at their mistakes all you like, but laughing at the crimes that they have endured is low.
Why do hardware vendors need an Install License? The vendors could buy a shrinkwrapped Windows2000 box for each PC, install it, and sell the PC along with the opened Windows2000 box (which sounds better than this recovery CD crap).
Don't give me this bullshit "when you buy Windows2000, you're not really buying Windows2000, you're buying a license to use Windows2000, and you have to click 'I agree to this license'". My grocery store doesn't have an agreement with the cherry vendors when they sell cherry pies, they just buy the cherries, "install" them in a crust, bake it and sell it. I think that's exactly how a judge would see it in the hardware vendor case.
Comparing the fate of Be to rape or murder victims is ridiculous. Be is not some innocent victim who just happened to be wiped out by Microsoft. If nothing else, they were a direct commercial competitor to Microsoft. Whether they posed any significant threat is irrelevant, the fact remains that they were attempting to gain marketshare for themselves in the x86 arena (from what I understand, they originally tried to do this in the PPC platform but got killed by Apple).
My allusion to other platforms was not to make fun of Be by comparing them to companies that are already hurting, but to show that a possible method of competing in the marketplace is to go find their own undisturbed space. If this meant creating an x86 platform designed specifically for Be (ala Macintosh on PPC), then so be it.
Perhaps Be would have done well had MS not included the non-Windows exclusion clauses in their OEM contracts. Perhaps not. But those clauses never precluded Be from becoming an OEM themselves or from licensing their OS to other non-PC OEMs for use on other types of devices.
I'm not laughing at Be at all. I wish they had succeeded. I played with the OS at a developers conference a few years back and was very impressed. I just can't see how attributing the company's demise to Microsoft rather than incompetent management helps anyone analyze Be's fate in any business sense. Yes, the OEM contracts were a significant hurdle, however a competent management with a well-defined business plan could have found a way to make it work even against a behemoth like MS.
There is something that runs a danger of being lost in all the noise here, indeed it probably will: Palm only purchased Be's IP assets, specifically leaving Be Inc intact and explicitly with the "rights to assert and bring certain claims and causes of action, including under antitrust laws".
:)
So, we could see Mr Gasee in court after all. Maybe a good time to buy Be stock
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
why use a buggy, non-free, bleeding edge, web browser like IE6 when you could use a rock-solid, free, mature browser like mozilla??
I've found windows to be very useful for all my dual booting needs...I have found it to be one of the best hardware detection utilities, ever.
It helped me to get my slackware box setup and running just perfect.
Moose.
The above paragraph contains humor and sarcasm, which has been known in the state of California to cause confusion in certain readerships.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Your use of the word "are" is misleading. It may be legal for a monopolist to enter into an exclusive contract. Then again, it may not. The question turns on specific facts. A monopoly, as the article points out, is not illegal in and of itself. However, a monopolist may not use its monopoly power to compete unfairly.
"This did nothing to stop competiton, except for one specific form of it.
Oh, well why didn't you say so? I hadn't realized that Microsoft's secret OEM licensing agreement didn't do anything except for the stuff that it did. I fell much better now.
"It wasnt brought up because its not illegal! The Sherman Act doesn't regulate free trade, it regulates monopolies trying to use its monopoly power to expand into new markets. Period. This isnt a new market. This is the preservation of an existing market."
The Sherman Act is the first piece of U.S. antitrust law. Not the only piece. It is supplemented by the Clayton Act amongst others. The Clayton Act says, in relevant part:
"It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, to lease or make a sale or contract for sale of goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities, whether patented or unpatented, for use, consumption, or resale within the United States or any Territory thereof or the District of Columbia or any insular possession or other place under the jurisdiction of the United States, or fix a price charged therefor, or discount from, or rebate upon, such price, on the condition, agreement, or understanding that the lessee or purchaser thereof shall not use or deal in the goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities of a competitor or competitors of the lessor or seller, where the effect of such lease, sale, or contract for sale or such condition, agreement, or understanding may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly in any line of commerce."
"Unlawful" is typically considered synonymous with "illegal." Just an FYI since you don't seem to think that forcing hardware vendors to only use MS OS products in a box if they use any MS OS products in that box tends to create a monopoly in any line of commerce.
In any event, a monopolist is not supposed to be able to use their power to preserve their monopoly. They are supposed to get the monopoly in the first place because the market rewarded their innovation or service or pricing or something. But they have to be able to lose that monopoly. That's what free trade is all about. It's not the monopolists freedom to shove some spray-painted turd down your throat. It's the customer's freedom to decide that today, I don't want to swallow a turd but would rather eat a nice apple fritter from Bob's Donuts in San Francisco. (mmmmmmmm . . . Bob's . . .)
"Anyone of the large vendors could go head to head with MS any day of the week. IBM was prepared to do it, but chickened out at the last second. Compaq had at the time revenues easily topping that of MS. Dell is a freaking-gigantic monolith."
You say that CPQ had revenues easilly topping those of MSFT at the time. What time? It matters. And revenues aren't profits. Look at telcos if you don't understand that. But if any of the big hardware companies could do it, and if it would have been advantageous to them to do it (which you don't say but I assume you agree with since you say that MSFT was protecting their market by using their monopoly power), why didn't they do it? What does your libertarian philosophy tell you about why a company doesn't do something that would give them advantages in the market? Maybe because they couldn't do it? Or are they all just commies?
"They didnt go against MS for two reasons: first, it was easier not to, and the easy road is often the most attractive. Second, no one gives a shit about your alternate operating systems. MS had the hardware vendors by the balls because people didnt have any tolerance for other OS's. Ask Apple how the mid 1990's was for sales. People wanted Windows, Windows, Windows."
If MSFT had the OEMs by the balls because nobody wanted an alternate OS, why does it require OEMs to enter into this "trade secret" license agreement? Maybe because consumer choice can only hurt it? You say that it was easier for the OEMs to not fight MS. But if your opponent is going to grab you by the balls and squeeze, how much "harder" is fighting? Unless your opponent will kill you instead. Hmmm.
I agree with one thing, people do find the easy road attractive. Maybe that's why they parrot libertarian nonsense about how certain choices of certain classes of people are the ne plus ultra of freedom rather than actually thinking.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
Or they just don't care enough because they just want to read email, download music, or chat.
No sig for you!!
The story of his life does not matter. I read an article of his, which gives me all the information I need to know.
He is a poor journalist. Since he does not refute my claim, by his own logic, this is true.
So there you have it, derived from Scott himself: "Scott Hacker is poor journalist"
The bootloader is not the issue. The issue is having more than one OS on the machine. And the partitions.
First of all, who needs more than one OS? The answer is that some people do, and those reasons are generally for people who have the skills (or are learning) to install two or more systems on the same machine, and understand (or are learning) the issues they have to decide, like partitions.
The majority of the computer using population does not need two operating systems on one machine. They just need applications that run. If we can offer them all the applications they need which run on Linux or BSD, then we can certainly suggest they run Linux or BSD instead of Windows. Then they don't need Windows. And if we make that suggestion before they buy Windows, we've saved them that money. And they can get a PC without Windows.
Aside from the obvious market lock-in, there is another reason Microsoft would not want to have Windows co-exist with another OS. That reason is support. Who supports the software on a system when each can impact the other, not only during the installation, but also during regular operation? Support costs do go up, and the finger pointing ends up making everyone mad and no one happy. The only time dual OS systems work out is if you take responsibility for it yourself.
Sure, I'd love it if more people knew they had a choice. But I'd never recommend to ordinary people to have a dual-OS system. It seems to be hard enough for lots of geeks to set up a multi-partition Linux system (preferring instead to have one swap partition and everything else on one big filesystem partition). And we would expect non-geeks to understand how to manage disk space between two co-resident operating systems? I think not. If someone not ready to do partitions wants to try Linux on a Windows machine, they should be using UMSDOS and LOADLIN.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
In regards to the license that binds dealers from selling dual boot computers...
Given the nature of trade secrets, if someone managed to get that license into public hands, there's not a whole lot that microsoft could do. It could be extremely bad PR for them. The only danger is that whoever releases it is probably subject to breech of contract of some sort. It seems like we need media members with anonymous sources to get their hands on it. Could do some damage..
"Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the most surely the one wasted." -Sebastian Roch Nicol
"we pretty much have to take the author's word for it (not that I doubt him). "
Actually, I do doubt him. Can someone point to a trial transcript which claims the license is a Trade Secret?
The DOJ clearly had access to the OEM license agreements as these were brought up in the trial with regards to modifying the OS to remove Internet Explorer.
If this were the case, it would be evidence of exclusionary behavior that coincided with the previous consent decree preventing Microsoft from charging computer makers for DOS whether or not a computer shipped with it.
So there I doubt him.
Although I also agree that the DOJ lawyers were completely inept for bringing this case to trial the way they did. Browser? Oh good grief.
Attachment : [install_linux.exe]
Guaranteed to convert 50% of Outlook users to dual boot machines overnight!
I'll think of a funny sig later on
It is true that the lack of response IN GENERAL is not a proof. But in many specific contexts, the lack of response make be suggestive circumstantial evidence. To only way to refute circumstantial evidence is to present real evidence, or disprove it soundly. Why is Microsoft not interested in doing so?
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Surely you are joking.
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My friend once told me...
"Dual booting is like having a mistress, it's all great till they find out about one another."
My experience (in dual booting, not mistress having) tends to agree with this.
troy
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Nothing prevents an OEM to ship computers with MS-Windows and some other OS. Now, if you want a few k OEM licenses (for wich you'd pay much less than if you bought them from a retailer) then terms are obviously different. This is business commom practice: you give someone some kind of favoured treatment and you demand some loyalty in return. Whats the point of an OEM license from an OS company viewpoint? Increase installed base, so as to make shifts to other OSs more expensive.
MS could really make things hard for double booters. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this perception that a boot loader can fire up just any OS is wrong. The code in a partition boto record has to be boot loader-friendly, even if by accident. Think about this: MBR code doesn't need be interactive or offer options. One can write MBR code that leaves the processor in some funny state and write the OS partition boot code so as to count on that state or information, all 100% transparent to the user. If the user repartitions and installs a second OS and his generic boot loader of choice, this new loader has no way to know how to "deliver" the machine to this OS. Maybe one could write an "intelligent" generic boot loader that would mimick such behaviour upon detecton of the user choice, but then one would have to consider things like patents, reverse engineering, etc. Also, I'm not sure if it's possible to squeeze that much code in a MBR.
I was told once, by a Marketing professor, that the tobacco industry considers one to be a non-smoker only 10 years after the person quits. In the meantime they call them inactive smokers. Be it true or not, I think this is why it's interesting for MS to have people *at least* double booting, as long as one partiton is Windows, for you never know...
There is no undisturbed space. Microsoft's plan, is to own all the system software that runs on anything with a cpu. This should be obvious by now. Intel is busy killing off other cpu's, and while they aren't necessarily conspiring together, it is awful convenient for a company like M$, who finds it distasteful to write for more than one chip. Think about it...
PDA's
PC's
Home theater type equipment (think tivo lookalikes and game consoles, first with dreamcast and more blatantly with xbox)
Workstations, graphical and scientific
Lowend servers
Mid-range servers (no high end yet, but they sure are trying)
Embedded devices, industrial and otherwise
What type of computer is left for a company like Be ?
And since you aren't denying microsoft's actions, are you saying that they are even close to being legal? IMO you do have a right to assume that you won't be cheated anywhere near as badly as Be was. Sure, some dirty deals are to be expected, but these are little jabs, here and there. Not unprovoked nuclear strikes like microsoft is fond of.
It is entirely possible that Gassee might have flushed Be down the toilet. That isn't the issue, the issue is whether M$ should be allowed to make that choice for us.
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Actually, it's not surprising at all. Compaq, Dell & IBM are in business to sell boxes. OS/2 wasn't the big hit it was expected to be, because IBM was threatened with loss of preferred pricing terms for DOS & Windows if they agressively pursued marketing plans for OS/2. At the time, IBM was in a heated market place, and to pay higher prices for the OS, meant higher prices on their products, which would mean lower sales volume, and ultimately shareholder dissatisfaction.
I'm not trying to defend MS (in my mind they are the Great Satan's Prime Contractor), but it's quite easy to see their motivation: If you agree to carry our product exclusively, we'll cut you a better deal on the price. This sort of thing goes on all the time, and I'm very sure there's nothing patently illegal about it. Yeah, sure, it's enough to royally piss-off the freedom-loving penguin-heads among us, but so what?
You're being blinded by your
Windows is absolutely the best desktop operating system out there. KDE and Gnome are great, but Windows is still more mature.
There. I said it. I displayed reason. I even posted this from my Windows 2000 machine.
However, you only need to follow the link in my .sig to see why it should be illegal to use Windows on a routable IP. And that's coming from a moderate Libertarian.
The facts speak for themselves. Microsoft is a sick and dangerous company, like the Nazis were a sick and dangerous political entity. They're so convinced that what they're doing is the right thing for everyone that they fail to see their own shortcomings.
Hitler thought that killing all the Jews would solve the world's problems. Bill thinks that being the only operating system will solve the world's problems. Neither one is/was anything more than obsessively convinced of the strength of a flawed vision.
Hitler's birthday = April 20th. Gates = October 28th.
Yahoo's Astrology section has some interesting insights into their romantic potential. Buy the happy couple some flowers. And please lace them with cyanide.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
C++ is a bad language. Everyone thinks it is good because that is what everyone uses. C++ has monopolized the programming language "market" in the same way microsoft has monopolized the operating system market. Just because everyone uses it doesn't mean it is superior. Why don't you do a little research into object oriented programming languages? You would quickly realize that C++ leads to MORE complex code and MORE bugs. Hence the reason why "Strait C Zealots" like me reject it. In fact many developers are now claiming that object-oriented programming is overrated. This is because everyone equates C++ with O-O. I have news for you all: C++ does not equal O-O! It is O-O at its worst.
Eiffel, on the other hand makes C++ look like something that was hacked together overnight. Too bad ISE Eiffel development tools are $3000 a pop C++: no garbage collection=more memory leaks, templates=bloat (Eiffel type parameterization blows templates away), no design-by-contract=less reliable code, poorly implemented separation of interface from implementation=error-prone code duplication, etc etc. Not to mention C++ is uglier than h*ll by today's standards. Just to show how bad C++ is, consider that all modern-day widely used programming languages are getting garbage collection. This includes eiffel, C#, java, perl, python, tcl/tk, ruby, lisp, smalltalk, etc. In fact, aside from Ada 95, C++ is the ONLY programming language I know of that doesn't have garbage collection. C++ will be dead within 5-10 years. It would be shameful to try to develop a large-scale project like a GUI-based OS on such a broken language and tout it as a next generation OS.
BTW, I bet that everyone claiming that the Be API was so clean and wonderful are just a bunch of coder wana-be's and never actually tried to program BeOS. If they did, they would find that it was clean only because it was relatively small. Delve deep enough and you will see many limitations. People talk about X being broken. Aside from the (IMHO) outdated client-server display architecture adding enormous bloat and the tacked on interclient communications, the X API is actually kind of fun and is quite powerful. Without the legacy client-server stuff, the graphics could be quite fast. But that is just my two-cents. Keep on dreaming that BeOS was good. I've used it. I've coded for it. And I can say that it wasn't the Be-All-End-All God-OS that everyone makes it out to be.
I've also had numerous problems with bootloaders which were not good enough/aesthetic enough. In the end I'd stumbled upon XOSL a free bootloader which supports multiple OSes (more than 4), CD/Floppy boot (not flawless), additional boot customization and a very nice GUI. Try it
> Second, BeOS is probably just as well supported as Linux.
Well, the bigger issue isn't about user support, it's about hardware support. Or rather, the lack thereof.
There was a period a couple years ago where I honestly considered going to BeOS. I started with computers in college on Macs, then my college switched to PCs, and when I graduated I wanted a Mac but even the used ones were too expensive. So I bought a used laptop running Windows 95. It died after six months and I decided to buy something new, with a warranty. Obviously it had to be a PC because new Macs, even today, are so much more expensive compared to equally-performing PCs in any given range.
I found a local screwdriver shop with good warranty terms, but decided to buy it OS-less to save the $89 Windows license charge. I had three choices: use Linux, use Be, or pirate Windows.
I tried Linux and at that point in time no fucking way was I going to use such a primitive interface. Remember that this was years ago, before the current KDE/GNOME/Nautilus/etc. advances. I looked at Be, and was beautiful. I liked everything I read about it and when I tried it out on a real machine it was great. But what I couldn't handle was the lack of hardware support.
At that point in time there was exactly ONE sound card supported. There was a very short list of "fully supported" motherboards, with the lackluster assurance that motherboards from other vendors using the same chipsets "should" work but are not officially supported.
I went ahead and borrowed a relative's shiny new Win98 CD. I knew it would work on any hardware. I knew it would support a lot of expansion over the coming years. And it has--I added a new video card and capture board, newer sound card, a DVD-ROM with a Hollywood+ hardware decoder, and other things, none of which would have been completely usable by BeOS if at all.
Obviously things improved quite a bit over the last couple of years, but not that much compared to all the new hardware that's come out. Be never had enough developers to keep up, much less catch up. And that's important.
It's important because, without all that nifty hardware and the software to support it, a PC is just a glorified typewriter and WebTV. Sure, not everyone uses the latest greatest video cards, or wants to interface an MP3 player or PDA, or a special sound board, or a certain DVD player, or buys a motherboard with a new chipset, or wants to use a video capture device that isn't supported by BeOS. But all you have to do is want one of those things, or one of several others, and all of a sudden the OS is not worth the trouble.
And as everyone points out, the problem is magnified on the software side. People can buy any kind of software or game for an MS OS. They can go to Best Buy or Fry's or wherever, and know that the software will work on their PCs 99% of the time. With any alternative OS this is just not the case. But the problem is all the more immense when there's a fair chance your hardware's basic features won't even work, which was the case for a very long time with Be.
> Enough with the focus shift BS. There have been two focus shifts in Be's history.
Hmm...
1) From an integrated hardware/software solution like Apple, to an alternative PPC OS vendor.
2) From an alternative PPC OS vendor to a dual PPC/x86 alternative OS vendor.
3) Dropping new PPC development entirely, and refocusing and redoubling x86 development. This was forced by Apple, but nonetheless happened.
4) Let's give a basic OS away for free for home use, and offer a more complete edition for business and home users willing to pay. A small change in the codebase, but a huge shift in business strategy and, therefore, the company's focus.
5) Roughly contemporaneously with 4 was the development of BeIA. The final focus change is the ascendance of BeIA over the desktop BeOS.
Each of these changes required a big shift in both business strategy and/or in developer assignments and the future of the OS.
At any rate, that's more than 2. And it's an awful lot of shifting for a very young company.
And ultimately, BeOS wasn't doomed by Microsoft's OEM licensing. It was doomed by its inability to run a wide variety of hardware and software demanded by end users. Pointing to BeOS equivalent software isn't good enough since most end users buy their software in a real store, and that software is almost always going to run on either Windows or depending on the store Mac.
If you really want to analyze the situation, Apple killed Be. Be never was prepared to support the wide variety of hardware commonly strewn together in the x86 market, and so while they did produce an x86 OS that ran beautifully on supported hardware, they did not have the hive full of Microsoftian development drones required to support nearly everything, or the similar army of Linux volunteers. Be made a wonderful PPC OS, and could have continued to thrive on that platform since hardware support is a far easier task. But Apple yanked the platfor out from under them by not releasing the specs.
Of course, one has to wonder how Linux manages to run beautifully on new Macs even though Be swore it couldn't. Surely it would have been easier to develop for the new Macs, than to spread the developers thin enough to code all those new and varied x86 drivers? It does make one wonder if Apple's refusal to release their specs was more of a red herring than a real reason to make the x86 switch. I have to suspect that JLG just bit off more than he and his little company could handle, by moving to x86. They might be more alive today if they had devoted those resources to running on Macs, since as I said Linux manages just fine--not to mention *BSD, where the BSD license would have allowed wholesale lifting of code.
So as far as I can see, either Apple killed Be by making them switch to a far more varied platform than they could support, or Be committed suicide by moving to the more varied platform when maybe they should have worked harder on continuing PPC work. Either way, it has nothing to do with Microsoft so much as it has to do with the fact that PC end users want their hardware to work with all its features enabled, and to run software they can get at the store. BGe never filled either requirement, so while elegant, it had no chance at all on the x86 desktop.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
The problem with BeOS isn't technology, it is long-term availability: why would anyone invest a lot of time and effort in learning its APIs and developing applications for it if there is no guarantee that it will be around in the long term?
Be apparently never understood this, so they continued on with their dreams of challenging the world with yet another proprietary OS. The only way BeOS could have attracted more of a following is if they had either put their source in escrow, to be released under BSD in case the company failed (like it did), or if they had pursued an open source strategy from the start. Otherwise, a developer or manager with any brains just wouldn't touch the thing.
Neither BeOS, nor Linux, nor Windows, nor MacOS win the crown for the most advanced technology. They are all compromises between backwards compatibility and functionality. Again, it's not about the greatest technology.
but what about those who want to be free of the shackles of X?
What about them? There is nothing in Linux that prevents non-X window systems to be implemented, even in the kernel if you like. In fact, there have been a bunch over the years. I suspect they haven't caught on because when all is said and done, X11 ends up being a much better window system after all, no matter how much some people whine about it.
In addition, there are numerous open source operating systems that do not use X; if you don't like Linux, you can use any of those.
Linux types always get mean about BeOS. My theory is that BeOS is the only thing out there that could possibly challenge Linux for technological supremacy.
You are quite right: BeOS could have challenged Linux technologically. That would have been a dreadful outcome. While BeOS may or may not be technically a little nicer than Linux for desktop applications, it is a proprietary, closed-source system. The last thing the world needs is more fragmentation among the non-Microsoft operating systems. If a significant number of Linux developers had switched to BeOS, they would now be stranded. Let's count our blessings that this hasn't happened.
Let Be's failure be a lesson: software vendors must take steps to assure their customers long-term availability of their software. If they can't do that through open source for some reason, they need to come up with some other strategy, otherwise, they'll not attract developers.
<rant>
OTOH, I don't know why the [GNU/]Linux distro vendors don't do this themselves. Parted seems to be ready - what are they waiting for?
</rant>
<rant more="more">
I wonder if Debian would quit stalling my application (for almost 7 months now!) if I re-wrote the entire bloody installation system. If only I had the time...</rant>
To all of the folks that say that average Joe user can't deal with multiple operating systems on a system
;-)) when one of those choices has been unfairly removed.
;-)
To all of the folks that say that average Joe user doesn't want some things from one OS and other things from a second (or third) OS
To all of the folks that say that average Joe user would never reboot to use a different program
I put forth some counter-examples.
1) A pair of OSes, lauded on the fact that Joe sixpack and grandma can use them, have a dual boot option for the entire line of new computers on which they are shipped.
2) Depending on their needs, some users spend all of their time in OS X and others spend all of their time in OS 9.x quite happily.
-------------------
When it comes down to it, people will accept *anything* if they don't realize that there is a choice. As soon as you are shown your choices, you will fight back when a choice is removed. Most of the people in the US do not complain because they never realized that there was a choice. Most users of Be, Linux, BSD, etc. have been shown the choice and fight back (or at least complain loudly
Why is this so difficult to grasp? The easiest way to deprive someone of their rights is to convince them that they don't have rights in the first place. What do you think high school is for?
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
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AMD and Microsoft worked together extensively to ensure that there were no Windows issues with their chips in the more recent OSes (2000, ME, XP).
Microsoft, given the choice between an utter Intel monopoly and Intel having (by and large compatible) competition would choose the latter every time. Do you really think that one monopoly (Microsoft) desires to have a different monopoly (Intel) with the ability to dictate terms to it?
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Only one I've seen worth the code it's written in:
http://www.docsware.com/docsboot/index.html
Written in assembly, from what I can tell. None of the commercial bloat-code that seems to be popular these days.
I've used this one for a few years. If you find an OS this thing can't boot, write the author and he'll add it.
Zondar
the know-how or courage to make an OS change.
Courage is standing up to tanks in Tianenmen Square. Courage is entering a burning building to rescue a child. Courage is not installing a second operating system on your computer.
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I read his book, read more than one of his articles, and actually talked with the man myself. He is a great guy. His work at BeTips was an invaluable service to the BeOS community. He's been a central figure in the BeOS community for years.
Most of what Scot talks about in this article is not unfamiliar to the BeOS community. Nearly all of it was slowly leaked by Be employees and then later directly confirmed by Gassee. I suppose if you don't trust Be or Gassee to be honest about their negotiations, Scot's article could be seen as dubious. Truly, nearly all of it comes from Be. However, Scot openly acknowledges this and makes no bones about his own speculation.
This isn't a news article. It's an editorial in which he offers his own opinion and explanation as to the downfall of Be and the severe lack of major OEMs shipping dual boot systems. To support this, he offers information from Be and Gassee, as well as public information from the Microsoft trial. No, he didn't get an exclusive interview from Gates. No, he doesn't have absolute support for some of his conclusions, but it's your job to evaluate those conclusions for yourself.
More importantly, they realise that the MS monoply is largely irrelevant. If ~85% of the desktop market used WinXX, how does that stop me and my friends from hacking *nix or bsd?
Quite obviously, it has stopped plenty of people from using BeOS. If you don't see this as a problem, I don't think it's Scot who has the issue with logic.
Just ask Benign.
...and "dual homing" isn't such a good idea either, even if you're behind the firewall of "the best and most heavily defended network in the world." I'm anxiously awaiting the news that's gonna come out of the 'security' the folks in Redmond have built into XP and W2K. Sounds like a certain "BackOrifice" to me. AS for 'file and resource sharing' and 'softwae deployment,' can you say "Code Red" and "Microsoft WebDAV"? - not to mention the hack, above? I knew you could.GOD! I love Microsoft! They make it so EASY!
Remember guys, this is Amerika. Just because you have the most votes, doesn't mean you get to win.--Fox Mulder
BeOS was designed for the single user desktop. All the stuff you mention has little relevance to Joe Q. User.
The thing that killed BeOS is lack of apps. If they could have wooed Adobe, that would have been pretty big with Photoshop and Premiere.
>"Mr. Auto Manufacturer, I will sell you these
>radial tires for $5 a piece if you agree not to
>use any other tires but mine."
Ah yes, Mr. Auto Manufacturer, let me not forget to mention that I'm also the ONLY tire manufacturer. Let's say a car costs, uhm, $10000 without tires in a very competitive market. My 4 tires will cost you $20, making your car cost $10020 altogether. If you don't agree with my proposed deal I can't give you the discount and you must buy the tires from me at full price (or else have a car without wheels... or perhaps you could use one of those new open source triangles or square on the market nowadays...).
The full price for 4 tires from me is, uhm, $400, making your car cost $10400. So how many cars do you think you will sell if your competition agrees to my "special deal of $5 a tire"?
(OEM cost for windows is only a fraction of the full price).
All you need is to set up one system, and then make all systems a complete copy of that system. You can do this by cd-rom, network or physically copying from hard drive to hard drive.
I would estimate that the cost of installing linux might be about 20 mins per PC - at definite most. If they streamline the operation, they would probably get down to about 5 mins per PC - boot, run install, reboot, boot from hd.
Yes - it's that easy.
Stop the brainwash
Reading about the big companies like Dell saying they won't provide support if you try differet OSs or reset the BIOS, I remember problems I had with my Compaq laptop and how amazingly helpful Compaq were. When it was about 6 months old the IDE cable became loose, which made it very unstable. Compaq understood that I needed it and couldn't go without it for more than a couple of days so a really helpful tech guy from Compaq called me back and talked me through opening it up and fixing the problem myself. I was amazed at that, since I've heard of the attitude other vendors take to such things. Since then though, I tried to run the "Quick Restore" CD (restores the hard disk to its original state) and it told me that it wasn't running on the hardware it was shipped with, and promtly cancelled the restore operation. Looks like tech support take a very different attitude to the people who build the systems (or software).
Follow me
Well, it might be viable to sell an extra operating system to OEM's - what about a
tiny partition containing just a kiosk mode
web-browser and no other functionality.
If the startup-time is really short it would
be a nice alternative and make the PC usable.
How slim can you make QXL?
Why this way? We all know Microsoft controls the bootloader and the desktop, so you can't put an icon to "change bootloader" on the desktop (easiest solution) But we also all know the behaviour of joe-normal-user: he stuffes any CD that comes with his new shiny computer into the drive and the CD will autostart (a feature that I hate). I have seen this numerous times (that is one way PC's get overloaded with resident crap, but that is another story) Of course I don't know the "trade secret licence agrement" so my idea could still be violating it.
Now finally a word about BeOS, I was intrigued by it and I once downloaded the personal edition...just to find that it needed a FAT-ish partition which I didn't have. I created one, and tried the OS and it looked fine. It looked sleek and of course I had to get used to the UI. I nearly ordered it, but after adding shipment prices I quickly changed my mind because it would have *doubled* the price...it's the curse of living in Europe. So I'm still on NT/Linux/OpenBSD.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
>>Realistically, no hardware vendor could afford to do without Microsoft.
> Thats bullshit as well! Anyone of the large vendors could go head to head with MS any day of the week.
> IBM was prepared to do it, but chickened out at the last second.
>Compaq had at the time revenues easily topping that of MS.
>Dell is a freaking-gigantic monolith.
Your assertion are pointless: there is a cutthroat competition between PC hardware makers!!
The day one of those hardware makers make something which goes against Microsoft, his rebate on Microsoft software would be suppressed and instantly its PC sold with Microsoft software would be higher priced than those of its competitors: he would be dead in no time (or more likely he would have to do what Microsoft wants him to do to regain its rebate).
So even if the revenues of the PC makers are above those of Microsoft, they are very vulnerable to Microsoft decisions because of
1) the competition between PC makers
2) the Microsoft monopoly
3) the Microsoft rebates
I really hope that Be will sue Microsoft, IMHO they have a really strong point so Be should win..
But it's just my opinion of course, Microsoft have so much money and power that I suspect that there won't be any outcome of a trial: if they see that they will loose the trial, they would go for an out-of-court settlement..
Yes. As a matter of fact you're right! The Microsoft partitions should only be deleted the very first time an user boots the system and she's booting a non-MS operating system. (Otherwise she might already have data on the MS partitions and looses that when she boots a non-MS OS).
Another thing which would be very interesting is that the the MS partitions are encrypted at first and you have to purchase a decryption key. That way MS could not pocket an extra "license" just for selling a PC and they get paid only if a user actually purchases the decryption key.
The last 80% or so of the article has been done to death here, so I'd like to comment on the first part:
Gee, BeOS users are stuck out in the cold, since their product is being discontinued?
Can we revisit the claims you BeOS folks were making about it not being important that the Source be Open?
This is why it's important, folks; no company can discontinue Linux. If RedHat dropped off the face of the Earth, my systems would continue to evolve and support new hardware.
In two years it'll be hard for BeOS people to buy a new machine that functions properly under their OS, because the source is closed and one company can dictate whether or not it's updated.
I wonder whether shipping a Linux system with VMWare pre-installed would violate Microsoft's "secret license". This would be a system that also offers booting Windows in addition to another OS, but not on startup like on a dual boot machine.
Maybe this is the way to go for computer vendors--marketing "fully Windows compatible" Linux boxes.
I used to subscribe to this great magazine. Over the years it began to suck.
Worse yet, 3 months into my last subscription, they quit publishing it! Boy did I get fucked. I think they sent me an issue or two of some other lame ass computer magazine, but I'm sooo pissed.
The fact that there aren't dual-boot Win/Linux machines available isn't really a big issue. If someone can't partition and install Linux him/herself, I don't think he/she would be able to use Linux anyway. Linux isn't really a consumer-level OS yet.
The point isn't passionate OS flamewars, the point is that Msft claims that it won it's desktop monopoly by 'consumer choice' in the PR fluff, yet in reality it's 'trade secret' agreement with PC vendors does everything to stifle any possibility of consumers 'test driving' alternatives. I.e., what they are shouting in the courts and astroturf campaigns is, "We have a monopoly because the consumer chose the best product", but to their vendors in the backroom their lawyers are saying, "You load anything but Msft and you're history."
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Isn't this getting out of hand?
At first people were arguing about which OS to run and now they're arguing about which loader will start the OS???
What's next? A war on which program formatted the disk?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Is when someone complain to load my boot into there ass.
In the spirit of dual-booting I generally alternate between my left and right boot though by default the right boot is used.
Some days I am feeling like microsoft so I put both feet into one boot and kick people that way. Sure it is inconvienant, but everyone is doing it so why shouldn't I?
Suppose an OEM wants to sell dual boot machines, but is afraid of Microsoft's wrath. What's to stop them from selling a computer with Windows-only pre-installed at time of sale, and offering to install BeOS afterwards for a nominal charge?
"Browser anticompetitive complaints are nothing compared to what's happening with the bootloaders since the majority of people using computers will never have the know-how or courage to make an OS change."
If we can get people to give up on LILO and move to GRUB things will get better. Grub is incredibly easy to install and configure, and generally works better. Once all of the distros out there standardize on GRUB with LILO as the optional bootloader, multi OS machines will get much, much easier.
I read the article. I was in total agreement with it's point about Microsoft using their license agreement to force vendors to not dual boot. I was all prepared to launch into a tirade with my non-technical fiancee about why this was all so evil. She never cares about these things but humors me once a week with tirades. I almost burned up my tirade for the week on this article.
Whew! What saved me was the following thought: Microsoft worked hard (coded, marketed, bug fixed, lied, stole, cheated) to get to where it is today. People buy x86 machines because that is what Windows runs on, if they wanted something else, they would buy a Macintosh. Most people buying a Dell Dimension (home use) ask, "This comes with Windows 9.x on it right?" I know this for a fact because I have two good friends who work as telephone salesreps in Dell Nashville facility (sells Dimensions and Inspirons.)
They ask about Windows. They don't ask about Be or Linux. They are coming to Dell to buy a Windows machine (for whatever sick reason they have.) Why should Be or RedHat get a FREE ride on the Microsoft Marketing train? Why should other OSs be FREELY installed on a machine that Microsoft paid good money to help sell to the consumer?
Sure, I know they have a monopoly. I know they abuse it. One way they got the monopoly is by licensing practices with OEMs. Those techniques were just as available to other OS Vendors in 1984. Microsoft was just smarter, and more underhanded. If they got a monopoly by having strict licensing terms that was obviously to their advantage. OEMs could have choosen not to go with Microsoft, but they didn't. Because consumers wanted Microsoft, and they wanted a Microsoft machine at a low price, so the OEMs signed pacts with the devil in order to get that low price.
What I would consider is a more viable option of the customer paying extra money in order to have a dual boot system. Even if the OEM is getting the second, or third, OS for free, by making a purchasing choice the consumer is saying "I want that BeOS."
If you want just Windows, you pay the price for Windows.
If you want Be and Windows, you pay for that option. It might be just $20, but you pay. Maybe Microsoft should be forced to modify their OEM license to state that the reduced discount for selling a Windows/Be dual boot is $89. That is how much more that license of Windows will cost the OEM. So, the OEM passes that on to the consumer. That means the money, for purchases the choice to have a dual boot machine from Dell, goes straight to Microsoft. The company who probably got the customer interested in buying a computer in the first place.
Actually, according to this primer on antitrust law, Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it unlawful for a company to [...] maintain or acquire a monopoly position through unreasonable methods."
The OEM contract certainly sounds unreasonable to me, but, of course, IANAL.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
"...very few people have the interest -- or the huevos -- to repartition their hard drives and install additional OSs..."
Huevos? Last time I checked, that meant eggs. So does that mean that if I had a dozen eggs with me, it would make my lilo config easier?
I was just thinking that many of you are at work right now. I'm not sure your situation but at my office I have access to free stamps, paper and envolopes.
I'm printing out the letter below, feel free to do the same. Just print it out and sign it. It's that easy to make a real difference. If you don't agree with something that I said OR you can improve it, reply back to the list with the changes making sure to copy the entire letter(not my comments). Think of it as an open source letter.:)
Can someone confirm this is the correct address?
Clerk's Office
United States District Court for the District of Columbia
333 Constitution Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
It's 2001, and guess what? It's still not possible to purchase a dual-boot Win/Linux machine. Doesn't that seem kind of odd? With all of the hype Linux has gotten, and with the technical simplicity of shipping dual-boot machines, not a single PC OEM is shipping such a beast. The technology marketplace is glutted with options. Vendors use even the smallest opportunities to trumpet their differentiating factors. Linux is free. And yet there are no commercially available dual-boot machines on the market. Not one. The silence of the marketplace speaks volumes.
It is now 2001 and it is still not possible for a person purchasing a new computer to purchase a dual boot machine. Isn't it strange that with all the the hype that Linux has received and the technical ease of setting up a dual boot machine by a manufacturer, there is not one PC OEM vendor shipping a dual boot machine. In an enviroment where hardware options abound. An eviroment where even the smallest opportunities are seized by the vendors to claim as a differentiating factor, still 3 years after the beginning of the anti-trust case againstMicrosoft, there are no commercially available dual boot machines on the market. The deathly silence of the marketplace speaks volumes.
Microsoft has set up the game so that no one else can compete.
Sure, you can get dual-boot machines at some of the smaller shops, but these are the ones that slip under Microsoft's radar, and there's no guarantee that Microsoft won't decide to take action against these vendors at some point. And yes, you can buy Linux-only machines from vendors such as IBM. But think about it: Why would IBM sell Windows machines and Linux machines, but no dual-boot Win/Linux machines? The absence is conspicuous.
A high ranking official from the now defunct BeOS said:
"Don't bother trying to create a better commercial desktop OS - it doesn't matter how hard you try, how many engineers you throw at the problem, how much money you spend, or how many years you put into it. Microsoft owns that space and, worse, the public is totally complicit with that fact. People will not stop using Windows. It is a losing battle."
Every effort BeOS made to get their OS installed onto a machine met with failure. They even attempted to give their OS away for free to several large hardware companies: Dell, Compaq, Micron, and Hitachi. Taken together, pre-installation arrangements with vendors of this magnitude could have had a major impact on the future of Be and BeOS. But of the four, only Hitachi actually shipped a machine with BeOS pre-installed, and they had to hide it after apparently receiving a visit from MicroSoft. The rest apparently backed off after a closer reading of the fine print in their Microsoft Windows License agreements.
I'm sure you are familiar with this agreement even though the public is not. This "Windows License" agreement that hardware vendors MUST accept to be able to include Windows on the computers that they sell is a confidential license seen only by MicroSoft and computer vendors. We the public can't read the license because MicroSoft considers it a "trade secret". The license specifies that any machine that is to be shipped with the MicroSoft OS is forbidden from including a non-MicroSoft OS as a boot option. This means that none of the Hardware vendors get to choose which OSes to install on the machines that they sell- that decision in made by MicroSoft.
Signed,
Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
There has been a standard for decades, OpenFirmware (AKA IEEE-1275). It does all of the things mentioned in the top post when implemented properly, as well as other useful functions like providing a framework for platform independant PCI drivers.
Unfortunately it was never adopted by x86 hardware people. But if you want a STANDARDS BASED setup you can allways buy from Sun, or Apple, or IBM or any one of the other major non-x86 platforms.
I wonder if an OEM could ship the PCs with alternate OS installed but invisible (as Hitachi did), and then include a self-booting floppy that auto-installs the otherwise-prohibited boot loader.
As an alternative, how about an http shortcut on the desktop to an executable that installs the boot loader?
Admittedly, the OEMs would be squeamish about offending the mighty M$, but IBM might take the approach "M$ has done everything they can to screw us; what have we got to lose?"
There are some distros of Linux that launch out of Windows, essentially replacing it on the fly. Maybe the entire boot loader issue could be solved by putting a pseudo-boot menu in the Windows startup folder. Maybe call it something like a "selector", "enhancer", or (my favorite) "stabilizer". At that point, Windows has already booted, it's just a matter of running an app from startup, right? I think a little creativity could go a long way toward circumventing M$ restrictions.
Unfortunately, I think the real reason behind the lack of multi-boot machines is lack of demand. The average user can barely use Windoze, much less an alternative OS. Even the most anti-M$ OEM would hesitate to put anything on the hard disk that might generate more support calls from the people who think the CD-ROM drive is a cup holder. User ignorance is half the reason behind the M$ monopoly.
I used to run WinME and Mandrake 8 on a single box. Linux had no problem with Windows. It even created icons so I could access the Windows drives. On the other hand, Windows had no desire to communicate with Linux. Too bad I couldn't get Samba to work so I could access my Win2K server. I'd probably still have Mandrake installed.
"the majority of people using computers will never have the know-how or courage to make an OS change "
Most people will never have a need for a change. The average user gets done what they need to with Windows. They send email, surf the web, play games, manage documents. This is all most people want to do. Most users have no need to change their OS, even less need to venture off into uncharted waters.
This is insightful? Looks like the typical "I can make any song into a song about bhang" Linuxcentric bias we're always getting fed on /.
The article's not about Linux, nor is it about whether an OSS license would have increased the viability of BeOS. It's about an unfair, predatory license. Linux was every bit as important to this article as BeOS was in paragraph 49 of Jackson's Findings of Fact.* The article is, instead, about a predatory practice that the author, as a BeOS diehard, happened to see firsthand thanks to his relatively unique perspective -- that of a hardcore BeOS user.
Not to say Syberghost doesn't have some insight here (he certainly does), but so does most anything written by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, and I don't think his works fit well in this thread either.
In the immortal words of Walter Sobchak, "The OS isn't the issue here, Dude." Careful you don't miss the forest (MS's predatory license) for the trees (love of Linux).
* Specifically, a blip that was tangenentially related to the issue only in that it made for a "value unladen" example to support one of the author's points.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
Does anyone here have experience with QNX RT on their desktop? It would probably help inform the discussion (It's as fun as toolin' with Be I think.) The "desktop machine" is going to become less important anyway, so why get you're panties in a knot about another "victim" of Microsoft. And couldn't BeOS be used more or less intact on a handheld "Palm"?
Lighten' up! There's still lots of room in the market for non-MS OS's, both commercial, open source and, like, whatever Apple X is, or Unixware is becoming, which is more Open than they used to be.
Dude, first of all, it's ad hominem attacks you want to compain about, ad hoc arguments are A-OK. Secondly, ad hominem means (roughly) "to the person," viz, attacking YOU because you smell or something. Whereas, where the poster may have taken a mocking tone, he was addressing your arguments, and not your person, at all times.
Lastly, you don't make attacks "to" someone, you either attack them (intransitive), or make an attack "on" or "against" them (transitive).
Now back to your regularly scheduled pissing argument.
Alternatively, you could use a HD selection switch like the 'NickLock' shown here on Slashdot a few weeks back.
There's more methods to dual boot a machine than using a single boot loader for both OS's (although that is the most convenient).
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... the majority of people using computers will never have the know-how or courage
or need
to make an OS change.
I can't begin to go into how insultingly patronizing this sentiment is. My father recently called and was bemoaning the state of his win98 box. Programs crashing, system utilities failing all over the place... I recommended win2k as an alternative. Nope, not Linux or BSD. He's a music freak, jazz mostly, and gets a lot of it with Morpheus. Also likes games, desktop toy stuff mostly, like simcity 3000. Frankly it wouldn't matter if Linux could run every last game and support every single soundcard in existence without hassle -- he just doesn't have a reason to run it. I've had all of one BSOD on win2k, less than the number of kernel panics I got with linux. Once you're into user application land, I see app after app after app on Linux crash with segfaults. And on the security front, I just tell him to get ZoneAlarm, something I still haven't seen anything like for Linux (maybe because the notion of user interaction with the firewall is considered heresy). All this goes double for BSD, I just don't see as many of that camp deluding themselves about viability on the desktop.
Linux might be a workable solution for him if he had a full-time sysadmin to get basic stuff working for him. Guess it keeps families together at any rate...
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Almost a good point...
But you're forgetting that the GPL isn't meant to say you can do what you want, it is there to safeguard that you can distrubute code and that it will not be misused or rereleased with YOUR name in it. Among other things...
You can release Public Domain software if you want, you just can't use GPLd code. GPL exists so you can use someone elses code. If don't want to GPL your code than don't use pre-GPLd one. You don't use closed source code either, do you?
GPL is there to give you an option. Whether you use it or not is up to you. But it is a whole lot "freer" than what existed before, and it garantees certain interesting things. It's an intelectual preference to use it or not, and i don't see what's the point in complaining about something other people like.
BTW, it is also socialist to give everything you do away...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As I predicted yesterday, before this story was posted, the comment list would hit 500.
True to form the Microsoft bashing Slashdot weenies swarmed on this troll of an article. It's not at 500 yet but, it will be in a second. You are all so transparent and predictable.
It seems from the comments so far that most posters are missing the point, as did "Scott Hacker". The DOJ was going for a case Joe Sixpack could kind-of understand. "WTF is a bootloader?". Now a browser, he knows what that is. It's what he views pr0n on.
The whole damn trial was a staged media circus. The DOJ wanted PR material and got it. The fact that the bootloader was a bigger stick didn't matter. They *KNEW* they couldn't do jack to M$, the GREAT SATAN is just too intertwined in the economy. Linux (no G-word for me) will eventually make some inroads, but, unless an asteroid lands on Redmond, Bill has won...
Cpt_Kirks
I don't think I called you any names though I certainly made fun of you. I didn't do it because I don't like what you say but because I think what you say is whacked and that you make your arguments in a disingenuous manner. (I accept that this may be a distinction without a difference.) I never called you sophomoric (unless I did the last time). I don't think you are immature, I think you are blinded by your ideology.
Q:How many libertarians does it take to stop a Panzer division? A:None. Obviously market forces will take care of it.
Whine, whine, whine.... lusers, all of them.
I can't believe the DOJ didn't use the bootloader issue in the trial. I agree with the article that it's a far worse anticompetitive practice than bundling a browser.
By the way, my Mac is quad-booting LinuxPPC, Darwin, OS X, and OS 9. Setting this up was easy!
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Do you have even the slightest clue how competitive the PC market is right now?? Speaking as someone who works for a major PC OEM, there is no way in hell we'd be able to forfeit the MS contract and still be able to compete price-wise with Dell, Gateway, etc. There is no way around this: agree to MS's terms or don't bother trying to sell a PC. Microsoft knows this and continues to abuse it.
-------
"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Linux, as an Operating System, is pretty advanced and stable now. What we need are a horde of good, easy to use, visually appealing, professionally looking and feeling, standardized, and openly-specified hard-core applications, and you need lots of them. Also, since Micro$oft has a huge headstart, it will only be beneficial if these applications can read (embrace) Micro$oft file formats and then convert (extend - ha ha!) them to an open format. Thus users will not have to sacrifice their data in adopting open standards, which will only make the decision to go to Linux less difficult.
We need to do this, and we need to do this right now. We have already fallen behind in a race which we cannot afford to lose.
He said "the economy", not "economics". There's a difference.
You need to read this comment to get a better idea what is really going on. It's more than just "a better price for agreeing to MS-only PCs", it's about being totally locked into a MS-only solution. That, my friend, is abusing the monopoly, and it needs to be stopped.
Where's all that Microsoft bashing? And where's that 500 comments?? Bah, you ACs are all the same: clueless.
(First, I want to start off by saying this isn't meant as a troll or flamebait - so hopefully it will not be modded as such. It's just a "ponderable" or "what if" idea..)
:)
What Microsoft is doing may or may not be legal (IANAL) but it doesn't sound very ethical to me at all. I would not do business with a company that pulls stunts like that. Personally, I would either sell computers running Linux / BSD or I would not sell computers at all.
But, think about this. You can only give a customer so much crap before they get fed up and move on - even if they depend on your product! I can tell you this from experience. I work for an ISP where some remote areas are a local call to our terminal server, but they have the more horrible phone lines I've seen. I have seen countless numbers of people in those remote areas who depend on the Internet for their living, come sign up with us (since we're the only decent ISP here) then find they can't stay connected to the Internet, and even though they really need that access and we're about the only place that does it, they insist WE are disconnecting them and then cancel their service. Although we aren't really giving them the "crap" there, they think we are, and even though we're about the only one here, they cancel anyway.
Point being, people will only take so much crap before they get tired of it and go elsewhere for their Internet service / haircuts / software / automobiles / long distance service / whatever they're buying.
I know that people tend to have a higher "crap" tolerance for Microsoft - probably due to the fact that they seem to be ever-present in the computing industry these days. But, I am sure there is a point that people will no longer tolerate this. I for one have reached that point, and a close friend of mine is about to that point already (bought a WinME box from Dell - they wouldn't preload Linux for her - and it's already crapped out after 2 weeks.)
Ok, back to my main point. What would happen if Microsoft keeps yanking the hardware vendors around like this, and the hardware vendors get tired of it? What if Bill comes busting in saying, "You get that (insert name of alt. OS here) OFF those machines or I'll revoke your OEM license" and the vendors say, "Here, Bill, here's your license! Security will escort you off premises." Then they distribute an OS other than Windows.
I know this probably wouldn't work too well if only one vendor did it (although someone as big as Dell or Compaq MIGHT be able to pull it off.) But what if we all awoke one day, to find out that Dell/Compaq/HP/IBM/etc. no longer sold Windows machines - and that all they sold was Linux or BSD? What would happen then? Linux (and some other alt. OSes) are ready for the desktop, I use Linux as a desktop OS every day. I don't see Joe Average buying a Dell machine with Linux on it, then spending $100 for a new copy of Windows (I know, some are cheaper, some more) and installing it himself. Joe Average would probably learn how to use Linux and stick with it.
Microsoft tries to hold a "everyone uses our OS, so you must load it on your new PCs" threat over vendors' heads. But, does Microsoft realize that no matter what kind of software product they make, if vendors refuse to buy more licenses and install them on new PCs, then their software isn't really worth anything? I'd say OEMs are a big chunk of Microsoft's income, and without those OEMs they might be hurting.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if MS made all the OEMs mad and they all tore up their MS contracts and started distributing some alternative OS on new machines. (Walk into Best Buy, or Wal Mart, or any other place and find that they only sell Linux boxen.)
If I were Microsoft, I'd treat my OEMs with a bit more respect than that. They seem to forget that the OEM's are their CUSTOMERS, and if you upset the OEMs too much, they CAN go elsewhere. We all know about companies in the past who got big, got a monopoly, then thought that they could ram whatever they wanted down customers throats, people finally got tired if it and said "I don't care if 'everybody else' uses it, I'm not." (I've already done that - I don't care if everyone else uses Windows, I'm not - I run Linux.) and then said companies fell by the wayside.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
If you dual boot (windows and linux) Explore2fs is incredibly useful.
f s. htm
It will give you read access to your Linux partitions so you dont have to reboot just to get that file you forgot to move while under linux.
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2
I would not try and write to your linux partitions with it though.
> Dual booting is like having a mistress, it's all great till they find out about one another."
but which is the wife and which is the mistress?
As for them "finding out about each other", Linux/BeOS will happily mount just about anything and MS Windows just does not want to know about it and carries on regardless like as if it is the one true OS.
Dual boot a virus on one has been known to effect the other (lion worm, i think).
I had better stop quick and avoid any more of the inevitable silliness of the extended metaphor.
id like BeOS more if only i actually had compatible hardware.
"The economy" is the subject matter of economics. The article used the term in a sense limited to monetary valuations and capitalist exchange models, which is not the full extent of the economy, properly understood. I stand by my comments.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
If the issue really isn't so much about the end-user not knowing how to repartition, reinstall, blah-blah - or if it really is about Microsoft keeping the users in the dark about this possibility. Let me give you an example to illustrate my point:
When I first started using computers, I was 11 years old using a TRS-80 Color Computer 2, with a cassette drive. I learned how to program in BASIC (MS Basic, at that!) on that machine, using the manuals included. These manuals even had a full schematic in the back for the machine, showing every part used. The manuals assumed I knew nothing about computers, and took me step-by-step, into a world of programming and excitement.
Later, when I was in Jr. High, I got a floppy drive - which gave me around 160K of room per floppy (double that if I made a "flippy"), but still no notion of a directory tree structure.
In High School, I got a Color Computer 3, later upgraded it to 512K (I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my dad plugging in DRAMs, with a wire wrapped around the sink spigot and my arm as a grounding strap!). Still had the same floppy drive. I tried playing around with OS-9 (no, not the Mac stuff, slash kiddies, but the ultra cool multi-tasking, multi-user software for the 6809 8-bit (!!) CPU), but I couldn't grok it too well...
Toward the end of my senior year, my parents bought me a Tandy 1400HD machine, which was a revelation in power, in a way - 768K of memory, 8MHz of speed, a 20MB hard drive - but a blue/grey screen, CGA graphics - but still nice to play with. Oh, and DOS 3.2...
What happened was a culture shock, in regards to the file system - directories!!! It took me a little bit to get used to it, but after a few hours of reading the manual and playing, I found the flexibility great.
Too great.
You see, not more than a few hours after playing, I had created a sub-directory in a directory, then at the root level tried to do an 'rmdir' - well, it worked, sorta - the files were wiped, but the directory stayed! Some minutes of frantic flipping later revealed that you had to delete the files in the subdirectory first before removing the directory, otherwise you had a big problem! This was a limitation of the version of DOS that I was using...
My heart sank - I thought I might have broke it. But I knew I didn't - everything was still working. But I didn't want that directory - in fact, I wanted things back the way they were. So I did what every budding geek who has just played with a large hard drive, a "real" OS (compared to what was on the Color Computer!), and a directory structure does - I decided to format and reinstall the OS!
Mind you - I had never before attempted or done such a thing - EVER! But I read the manual carefully, followed the steps, inserted the floppies, formatted the hard drive, re-installed the OS and programs - and everything worked again...
You know something? It wouldn't have been possible without having that manual. The same could be said when I first started with my Color Computers - I had a manual there.
Today, it is a different world. You buy a computer, and you are lucky if you get a rescue CD-ROM, let alone individual CDs for the software, or a manual, or a schematic of the machine (ok, I know that last one would be impossible in today's world - and nearly useless to boot). A bunch of assumptions are made that these items would scare people off, when we know this is untrue - it didn't scare me off as a kid of 11, why would it scare an adult? Indeed, think of the manuals and such that came with 16-bit systems in the early to mid 80's - did this documentation scare off the managers and people who used these machine? NO!
So why isn't it included in today's boxes? Even if it did "scare" some people, they would still come to view it as a resource to help them - something familiar to help them learn how to use the system, how it all fits together...
But - it would not do Microsoft (or the clone makers, to a lesser extent) any good for the users to "gain a clue" - because it would give them a measure of power over the software and hardware distributors/manufacturers. It would give the user knowledge that would allow them to _truely_ make decisions about "where they wanted to go today".
You know something - this is what many Linux distros offer today - and is something that I first noticed with my first real distro install of Redhat 5.2 - I got manuals again. They told how to do everything, how to install and maintain the system, and I got actual floppies and CDs with the system. I later moved to SuSE 6.3, now I used 7.2 - each one came with floppies, CDs and a manual - which is why I bought the distros - I knew what I would get.
SuSE 7.2 does it best - the manuals for install and configuration of the system really show and help you to do it (though I did an upgrade, not a full install - it still went really smooth) - this is something that I think people would appreciate, and see what they are missing, if they really knew of the options available to them.
Perhaps this fact is something that should be pushed in the marketing of Linux...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Once the judges are appointed, their job is to interpret the established laws, based entirely on the evidence presented in court. If the judge allows letters received outside the courtroom to influence her decision, she is displaying bias worse than that of Judge Jackson.
I sincerely hope that any letters sent to the judge will fall on deaf ears; if not, there is a major flaw in our legal system.
If you want to write a letter that will make a difference, write a letter to your congressman. Tell your congressman what the issue is, not the judge. If she doesn't understand the issues, then the prosecution did a lousy job.
Why not have a desktop icon leading to a BeOSPE/WinLinux/[insert FAT32 friendly distro here] installation, installed at the OEM (a la the Hitachi BeOS install)? If AOL can do it, so can Linux!
that article... what a load of crap. that lisence thing. LMAO! "it exists but cant proove it because its a secret". ah ha. i know people who would leak that lisence agreement if they were in that particular part of the industry. and im positive someone would have by now. after all, its been happening for some time. are all hardware vendors that easy to scare? maybe MS is playing unfairly and using its power to squelch compitition, but there are many pluses for windows that linux and BeOS and the like cant comete with at the moment. the major thing being software support. on BeOS i didnt find anything that matched what windows software offered me. i kept BeOS installed though and kept checking the software sites. nothing. same with linux, though that lasted a shorter time on my computer than BeOS. windows has the usability, ease of use, the software and if you buy the right version its stable (NT4/win2k). its big, its good its goign to stay. and the secret lisence thing is pap. unfortunate that who ever makes the 'business' desitions for MS is a %^@&*. but its a capitalist thang... MS is in the position that every business wants to be in. maybe when they are in that position they will be more subtle.
Request For Comment: Open Partition Format
;) For example, a 60GB hard drive needs at
Goals of this open format:
1) Generality. This partition format should accommodate multiple file
systems existing on the same physical storage. No file system shall
be favored, and it shall be possible to identify each file system
individually. This format should also be applicable to any form of
byte-addressible, "seekable" physical data storage whose total capacity
in bytes is known by the hardware and constant.
2) Inter-operability. Multiple hardware architectures that each fully
support the standard should be able to correctly manage multiple file
systems on a physical hard disk. Thus, as long as a hard disk may be
physically connected to a computer, and as long as the signalling
mechanism for communicating with the hard disk is compatible, the system
should in theory be able to read data from a partition.
3) Compatibility. Versioning, large limits on sizes, and allowances for
many hard disk design choices shall enable the format to be forwards-
compatible for many years. Also, this open format seeks to place
authority over partition formats into the hands of the public, rather
than in the hands of a single vendor.
4) Neutrality. This format shall be neutral to the user's (or vendor's)
choice of boot loader. The format shall not be overly restrictive on
the behavior of the boot loader, and shall accommodate the common
behaviors of boot loaders as much as possible.
Introduction:
At its essence, a partition format seems a simple thing, needing only to
answer these questions for an operating system:
- Where does the volume start and end on the disk?
- What kind of volume is it?
However, representing these data is complicated by many issues, including:
- the need for binary machine code boot loaders at the beginning of most "bootable" disks
- different orderings of bits within integer data on different hardware
architectures (aka "the NUXI problem")
- the need for a means of verifying that a partition is recorded in the
expected format
- the need for detection and, if possible, correction of errors
Furthermore, hardware and operating system vendors have historically not
pursued a standard partition format, either because they did not believe it
to be an important issue, or because they believe a proprietary partition
format encourages customers not to move their data to other hardware or
operating systems.
Whatever the cause of a lack of a partition standard in the past, recent
events in the software market have led to the need for multiple, separate
file systems, sometimes by different vendors, on the same physical hard disk.
Perhaps the most common occurrence of this practice is with home users who
upgrade to a new operating system version and accumulate new data, but keep
their old data on an old file system, or with home users who use more than
one operating system on the same computer. This practice also occurs in the
business world; not only do many office workers use multiple operating systems
on the same computer, but some databases and source code versioning systems
have their own special purpose filesystems to improve efficiency. In these
cases, the actual software will run under an operating system with one file
system but store its data on a separate, often proprietary, file system.
Thus, the overall purpose of this document is to detail a candidate partition
format that will in principle allow the same hard disk to contain separate
file systems understood by multiple operating system, database, source code
versioning system, and other product vendors. The author presumes that the
widespread adoption of such a scheme would ultimately benefit users and the
software market.
Layout of partition record:
Byte(s), Length, Description
0 - 11, 12, UTF-8 characters 'OPF'
12 - 15, 4, partition version: a 32-bit unsigned integer
16 - 23, 8, filesystem identifier: a 64-bit unsigned integer
24 - 27, 4, log2 of block size: a 32-bit unsigned integer
28 - 35, 8, first block: a 64-bit unsigned integer
36 - 43, 8, last block: a 64-bit unsigned integer
44 - 171, 128, filesystem owner: a UTF-8 text identifier
172 - 187, 16, RSA MD5 checksum of all fields in the record
Location and number:
The first partition record shall begin at the 4096th byte (counting from 0)
of the addressible storage. If more than one partition is used on a storage
device, each additional partition record shall begin immediately after the
end of the previous record.
It is allowable for partitions to leave gaps in the addressible storage. For
example, the first partition may end at block 1000 and the second may begin at
block 2000. It is also allowable for the partitions to be specified out of
order. For example, the first partition record may specify a file system
taking up blocks 2000 - 2999, and the second partition record may specify a
file system taking up blocks 1000 - 1999.
It is an error for the first partition record to be stored beginning at any
address other than the 4096th byte (counting from 0) of the addressible
storage. (The first 4096 bytes are reserved for the boot loader.)
It is an error for partition records to be separated by unused space or by
file system data. If a program has been ordered to create a new partition
record but file system data follows the last partition record too closely,
the program must either declare the partition space to be 'full' or move
the first file system to some other location in the addressible storage
before proceeding.
Backup Copies:
Single copies of one or more partition records should be written to the end
of the addressible storage in the following manner. It is an error for an
implementation to make more than one backup copy of the same partition record.
The backup copies must be identical to the originals when written, including
the MD5 checksum, so that no spurious errors are detected by boot loaders or
operating systems.
The backup copies must occur in the reverse order from the originals. The
backup of the first partition record must occur at the end of the addressible
storage, the backup of the second record must immediately precede the backup
of the first record, and so on. Implementations need not back up all
partition records present, and (obviously) may not do so if doing so would
overwrite part of a filesystem.
To elaborate, suppose an addressible storage can store exactly 10 gigabytes,
that is, 10 * 2^30 bytes, and is partitioned into multiple filesystems. An
implementation would store a backup of the first partition record beginning
at address 10 * 2^30 - 188, a backup of the secord partition record
beginning at address 10 * 2^30 - 376, and so on.
An implementation must update backup copies, if any are present, whenever it
updates the originals, and it must do so in such a way that they again match
the originals as specified in the other paragraphs in this section.
If a boot loader or operating system detects an error in a partition record,
or for any other reason wishes to check for a backup record, it may search
for backup records as follows:
- Begin at the last possible address in the addressible storage where the
beginning of a backup record might be found.
- Check for the existence of a valid backup record by (1) checking for the
existence of the 'OPF' text, (2) checking for any version numbers supported
by the software, and (3) checking the MD5 checksum of the candidate record
for validity. If any of these tests fail, the candidate data is not a valid
partition record; skip the next step.
- Go back 188 bytes in the addressible storage (the size of one partition
record), and go to the previous step.
- If at least one valid partition record was found by this method, then those
records comprise a complete partition backup. The record that appears at the
highest address is the backup of the first partition record, and they
proceed in order of descending starting addresses.
- If the original partition records are believed to be intact, then the
implementation may wish to compare the original to the backup. If they
differ, either the original or the backup is invalid.
Implementations need not include backup copies of new partition records in
an addressible storage. However, all implementations must check to see
whether backup copies exist, and if they do exist, all implementations must
either maintain the integrity of the backup copies in all operations or
remove the backup copies. If an implementation changes the 'OPF' header
field to all zeroes, this shall constitute a deletion of the partition
record, since any implementation conforming to this specification would fail
to recognize the data as a valid partition record.
Naturally, disaster recovery software may add assumptions or collect user
input regarding whether and how many backup records exist, or whether
otherwise valid partition record backups have been deleted. However, except
in such cases, it is an error to deviate from these policies concerning the
management of backup partition records.
Field descriptions:
'OPF' header:
A program may test for the existence of an Open Partition Format partition
on a storage device by reading these three characters starting at location
4096. It is an error for any program purporting to support this partition
format to write any other data here, or to write the string 'OPF' in any
format other than UTF-8, or to fail to check for the prescense of this data
before recognizing a segment of data as a valid partition record.
Partition version:
In the event that any future revisions of this specification are not
completely compatible with this version, this field is provided to
distinguish between similar representations of the record format. It is
an error for software to fail to check the recorded value for a supported
version. It as also an error for any software to assume that unrecognized
versions are compatible, or even to assume that unrecognized versions have
the same size records.
All implementations conforming to this specification must set this field
to the integer '1' in little-endian byte order when creating partition
records, and must expect to find the same data in this field before
treating a data segment as a valid partition record according to this
specification.
File system identifier:
This is a 64-bit unsigned integer used to distinguish one filesystem format
from another. Like all integer data in this format, it shall be represented
in little-endian byte order. This field is given 64 bits in order to ensure
that available unique filesystem identifiers will be plentiful for a very
long time.
File system and operating system authors are strongly urged to research their
choice of file system identifier carefully. No algorithm can guarantee that
any particular choice will not be spoken for by another party.
Also, please do not make claims to groups of identifiers in an effort to
distinguish different versions of your file system by its identifier. File
system versioning data belong in the file system itself or in the file system
owner field of the partition record. Different file system identifiers
should only be used for vastly different file systems.
Log2 of block size:
This is a 32-bit unsigned integer that specifies the base-2 logarithm of
the block size of the addressible storage in bytes. Like all integer data
in this format, it shall be represented in little-endian byte order. This
field is given 32 bits to ensure that it accommodates both extremely large
and relatively small addressible storage areas easily.
Note that if this format is used on very large addressible storage media,
file systems may only begin and end at multiples of large powers of two.
More specifically, if an addressible storage can address N bytes of data,
the minimum block size for a partition near the end of the address space
in bytes is
2^(ceiling(log2(N) / 32) - 1)
or 1, whichever is bigger.
least 36 bits to address a byte. Therefore, if the "log2 of block size"
field were set to 0 in the first partition record, the first partition
would not be able to extend past 4GB.
It is completely valid for different partition records on the same
addressible storage to have different values in this field, so long as
they do not introduce logical contradictions between the locations of
file systems in the addressible storage. Failure to correctly use this
value in any valid partition record is an error.
Implementations should carefully check all partition records before
introducing new partitions to make sure no overlap of file systems will
be introduced. One correct way to check for overlaps is as follows:
- Read from each valid partition record the "log2 of block size", "first
block", and "last block" fields.
- Calculate from these values the first and last bytes of each file system.
- Sort the pairs of first and last bytes in ascending order by last byte.
- Iterate through the sorted pairs except the last pair. For each pair, see
whether the last byte of the current file system occurs before the first
byte of the next file system; if not, there is an overlap.
- If any overlaps are found, at least one partition record is invalid and
no new partitions should be added until the partition records are corrected.
- If no overlaps are found, then look through the sorted list to see if the
partition to be added is acceptable in size and/or location. If not,
return an error.
First block:
This is a 64-bit unsigned integer that specifies the location in the
addressible storage of the first block of a file system. Therefore, the
address of the first byte of the file system is the multiplicative product
of the "first block" field and two raised to the power of the "log2 of
block size" field.
Example: log2 of block size = 10, first block = 12. The address of the
first byte of the file system is calculated thus:
A = 12 * 2^10 = 12 * 1024 = 12288
It is an error for the value of the "first block" field to be less than
the value of the "last block" field in the same partition record.
Last block:
This is a 64-bit unsigned integer that specifies the location in the
addressible storage of the last block of a file system. Therefore, the
address of the last byte of the file system is the multiplicative product
of the "last block" field plus one and two raised to the power of the
"log2 of block size" field, minus one.
Example: log2 of block size = 10, last block = 100000. The address of
the last byte of the file system is calculated thus:
A = (100000 + 1) * 2^10 - 1 = 100001 * 1024 - 1 = 102401023
It is an error for the value of the "first block" field to be less than
the value of the "last block" field in the same partition record.
File system owner:
This is a 32-character UTF-8 text field used to store a brief, human
readable description of the file system to be stored within a partition.
Storing the name of the operating system installed in a partition would be
a reasonable use.
It is an error to store text in this field in a format other than UTF-8.
Nonetheless, it is also an error for any software that deals with
partitions to enforce any policy on the contents of this field, since an
operating system should be able to write anything it wants to into this
field.
RSA MD5 checksum:
This is an unencrypted checksum of the other fields in the partition
record, and is to be used for error detection. MD5 ("message digest 5")
is an algorithm for generating a fingerprint of a certain string that is
difficult unlikely to match slightly different data. A full
specification of the MD5 algorithm and a sample implementation in C can
be found in RFC1321.
Implementations must include an MD5 checksum in all written partition
records. Failure to do so is an error. All software that reads
partition records should calculate the MD5 checksum for a record
(excluding the provided checksum) and compare it to the one written in
the record; a mismatch indicates that the data is not a valid partition
record.