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."

Comments

GAG

[matek]

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.

Casio

[Ridge2001]

The author makes an interesting allegation, but does he have any proof of it? The license he talks about is still supposedly a "trade secret".

The main evidence he presents is the absence of hardware vendors selling dual-boot systems. But there seems to be at least one counterexample.

Re:Isn't this trial material?

[Mr Skreet Nite]

If you read the article the author explains quite clearly why this evidence wasn't used.

"The burning question, of course, is why Boies and Klein didn't want Gassée to testify on the bootloader issue, especially when it could have substantially helped their case? The answer provided to Gassée was that the case was by then already too well established. Including the bootloader issue would have meant rewriting many of the arguments and calling in a new collection of witnesses. In other words, it wasn't convenient for the U.S. government to get to the meat of the matter.... In addition, no PC OEM was willing to testify on bootloader issues...... Finally, Be didn't have the brand recognition that Netscape did; Netscape made for a much better poster child. "

"If it smells, it's Chemistry, if it moves, it's Biology, and if it doesn't work, it's Physics"

Re:Read this article - Worths Gold

[be-fan]

Real funny. There are parts of BeOS that aren't particularly stable (like net_server) but the guts have always been solid. Saying that it is buggy is just plain false.

Second, BeOS is probably just as well supported as Linux. There is a great user community, and I have yet to see the Linux equivilent of betips.net. Granted, commercial support on Linux is probably better, but given that BeOS runs a great deal of GNU code (like the entire CLI environment, for example) support on the application level is probably about the same.

As for taking a long time to come to market, that's false as well. BeOS had a solid journeling FS long before ReiserFS came out. BeOS had a great desktop environment (proudly based on the Mac GUI) before KDE and GNOME ever got their acts together. It had sub 3ms audio latencies when the low latency patches were just a gleam in Ingo Molnar's eye. BeOS had technology in 1997 that Linux is just getting today. In another year or two, one will be able to say that Linux is the greatest media OS on the planet. At its current pace of development, there is no doubt about that. However, that level of development will only compare to what BeOS was in 1998.

Enough with the focus shift BS. There have been two focus shifts in Be's history. First, they switched from IAs to desktops. Then, 8 years later, they switched back to IAs. It was a last ditch effort to save the company, and it gave people hope for a few more months. The focus shift was just a symptom of the fact that Be was on its way out, not a cause.

Yes, Be had a lack of applications. That's the problem that any alternative OS that doesn't use X must endure. OSS-types talk about freedom, but what about those who want to be free of the shackles of X?

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. The BSD folks have already settled for the server market, and if WinXP is any indication of the future, it looks like MS won't be any competition. No, BeOS was the only thing that could have foiled Linux on the desktop. Well, the cornoation can preceed as scheduled. There are no more troublesome pretenders to the OS throne...

Actually

[A_Non_Moose]

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.

Double Plus Ungood

[jdcook]

"No, its not illegal! Even for a monopoly! Exclusive contracts are legal even for a monopoly!"

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.

Re:Double Plus Ungood

[jdcook]

"I was considering not responding to you, primarily due to the ad hoc attacks you insist on making to me."

"Ad hoc" means "for this" in Latin and is most often used in conjunction with committees. "Ad hominem" means "to the person" and is presumably what you meant to say. I don't think I engae in any ad hominem attacks until the very end (though I get close to the edge a few times before that). But in general, you're right. Frankly, the things you write are often so extreme and wrong-headed that I have a visceral reaction to them.

"First, the "trade secret" agreements MS made with hardware OEM's is legal, even if they are a monopoly. For more information this, please see the SCOTUS decision on "INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORP. v. UNITED STATES, 298 U.S. 131 (1936)". It clearly defines the ability of monopolists to protect the exclusivity of distribution, even if it defeats some or all competitive efforts."

Have you ever actually read this decision? It stands for almost the exact opposite proposition. In that case, IBM leased card reading machines. The lease contracts contained a provision that required the lessee to only use IBM-supplied punch cards. The U.S. government sued. The trial court found, ta da!, a violation of the same section of the Clayton Act as the one I mentioned before. IBM contended it had patents that, collectively, gave it a monopoly to manufacture, vend and use the cards. In its review, the Supreme Court thought the patent claim was weak but didn't rule against IBM on those grounds. Instead, the court said:

"We rest it rather on the language of 3 of the Clayton Act which expressly makes tying clauses unlawful, whether the machine leased is "patented or unpatented." The section does not purport to curtail the patent monopoly of the lessor or to restrict its protection by suit for infringement. But it does in terms deny to the lessor of a patented, as well as of an unpatented machine, the benefit of any condition or agreement that the lessee shall not use the supplies of a competitor. The only purpose or effect of the tying clause, so far as it could be effectively applied to patented articles, is either to prevent the use, by a lessee, of the product of a competitor of the lessor, where the lessor's patent, prima facie, embraces that product, and thus avoid judicial review of the patent, or else to compel its examination in every suit brought to set aside the tying clause, although the suit could usually result in no binding adjudication as to the validity of the patent, since infringement would not be in issue. The phrase "whether patented or unpatented" would seem well chosen to foreclose the possibility of either alternative."

The Court concluded:

The Clayton Act names no exception to its prohibition of monopolistic tying clauses. Even if we are free to make an exception to its unambiguous command, we can perceive no tenable basis for an exception in favor of a condition whose substantial benefit to the lessor is the elimination of business competition and the creation of monopoly, rather than the protection of its good will, and where it does not appear that the latter can not be achieved by methods which do not tend to monopoly and are not otherwise unlawful.

This case has not been reversed. Your analysis of it is simply wrong. I think you were trying an argumentum ab auctoritate, or argument from authority, and counting on people to not actually know.

"Ask yourself, is there more competition is desktop OS' today than ten years ago? How is that so if MS is a monopoly? Its not."

A better question would be: "Is there more or less competition in the desktop OS market today than there would have been if Microsoft had not used its dominant market position (~90%) to force OEMs to not sell dual-boot machines?" It has been repeatedly shown in court that a company can lose market share or prices can come down and still be violating the antitrust laws. If they are using monopoly power to slow the losses, that's illegal.

"Third, why didnt hardware vendors challenge MS? Serveral reasons. First, people dont have any reason to not use Windows. Second, application vendors are cool to the idea of new platforms. Third, it is a risky proposition, where MS is a solid established equation. If they struck on their own they might make more, or they might lose big time. Sticking with MS was a measure of their faith in MS to deliver. Fourth, they are hardware vendors, and as Apple can clearly attest to, doing the "whole" package of hardware and software isn't easy by a long shot. Fifth, consumers by and large either (a) love MS software (not incredibly uncommon) or (b) dont hate it enough to ever switch."

I think your position here boils down to the idea that people are generally sufficiently satisfied to not switch. And you may well be right. But that is irrelevant to this discussion. Be's concern is that people never even got the chance to decide. Assume, arguendo, that Be could and would have provided the OS to major OEMs at no cost as a way of getting market share. (You know, like Internet Explorer.) Further assume that they could satisfy whatever inegration and support concerns the OEMs had. In that world, where is the risk to the OEMs? The customer gets a choice on their first time boot:

Do you want a Microsoft Windows Only machine or do you want Microsoft Windows and BeOS machine (takes an additional 70 megabytes)?

The customer picks and that's that. Some people say yes, some say no. But they had the choice! Hooray! Maybe no one would choose it. Maybe no one would develop for it. But the OEMs didn't have to "strike out on their own." They could have offered both if Microsoft hadn't forced them to enter into an agreement that precluded them from doing so. Also, I don't understand the "whole package" thing. Do you mean that they wouldn't want to roll their own Linux disto? Maybe so. But I imagine they could reach a satisfactory agreement with Red Hat for instance. What I don't understand is why you appear to support actions that prevent the free market from working.

"Just because most people don't dislike MS doesn't make them a monopoly."

True. It's the ~90% share of the desktop OS market that makes them a monopoly. And it's using the power of that monopoly to force others to do things they wouldn't otherwise that is illegal.

"That will conclude my remarks here right now. If you respond, try not to personally be rude or demeaning - it only hurts your position, which is actually rather strong.

Well, like I said before, it's a visceral thing. Things you've said set me off. I'd suggest that you bone up a bit on antitrust law. I don't know a whole lot about it but you seem to lack a sufficient understanding of the statutes and case law to adequately support your position.

Re:Isn't this trial material?

[ortholattice]

Most importantly, are there any copies of these "trade secret" OEM license agreements on file somewhere?

I doubt you'll find an example of an OEM license. I imagine the NDA is truly onerous. But there are little hints (http://news.cnet.com/news/0,10000,0-1005-201-3233 68-0,00.html) here and there:

"If you are willing to give Microsoft a clear written assurance that the above will be implemented on all Compaq Presario machines within sixty (60) days of the date of this letter, Microsoft will withdraw its Notice of Intent to Terminate letter addressed to David Cabello and dated May 30, 1996 once such written assurance is received by Microsoft."

Re:BeOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to name a fwe things that real people who use Win2k in business settings would notice:

a. absolutely no remote administration features

b. absolutely no software deployment features

c. absolutely no advanced hard drive setup (mirrored drives, striped, etc)

d. absolutely no support for more than a single user

e. absolutely no support for multi-homed networking

f. minimal support for file and resource sharing (printer mount points, etc)

I don't know much about BeOS, but I do know you are incorrect regarding a and b; BeOS can run sshd and perl, and undoubtedly also other unix programs that fulfill those purposes.

Yes, it CAN be illegal to maintain a monopoly!

[Dr. Manhattan]

The Sherman Act doesn't regulate free trade, it regulates monopolies trying to use its monopoly power to expand into new markets. Period.

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.