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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."
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.
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.
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
This was adressed in the article. BeOS was free, at least for a while, to be dual-booted with Windows. It would be technically trivial to enable dual-boot.
So you'd think vendors, who are straining for differentiation, would jump on the opportunity. This falls into the "can't hurt, could help" category.
*That* is why this looks suspiciously like the result of Microsoft tactics.
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.
> What surprises me is that some of the major hardware vendors would put up with this.
A classic case of taking the short-term easy route without regard for the long-term consequences.
They are now completely beholden to Microsoft, and would have trouble changing their business plan to change that fact, if they did decide that they wanted to.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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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
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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What a nice way to make a statement without having the facts or arguments to support it. "I don't feel like saying the Earth is flat, so I am not going to say it is, even though I believe it is, and most serious scientists will eventually agree with me."
What I will say is that MS, even *if* they are a monopoly and we assume so
What is a monopoly by your definition? Are 90% of the marketshare enough? 95%?
has done nothing to prevent you, the user
*beep* Wrong line of argument. Monopolies are not about direct coercion. Monopolies, while they do have immense market power, are not governments, otherwise they would be called governments. Monopolies, through accumulation of capital and mindshare, may be able to create a market in which it is impossible or very hard for competitors to thrive, even though this may be in the best interest of the consumers. Microsoft is such a monopoly.
"Freedom of choice" arguments sound nice and are exactly the kind of rhetoric you would expect a Microsoft-propagandist to employ -- however, they are fundamentally flawed in that they omit an essential factor that determines our decisions: information. By being a monopoly, Microsoft has the advantage (and, rarely, the disadvantage) of being the focus of all media attention. And they have loads of money to spend on propaganda, too. Your decision to use or not to use a Microsoft OS may be free of direct coercion, but it is certainly not free of manipulation. And because of the nature of an operating system, being the basis for all other software run on a computer, any program that is written exclusively for a Microsoft OS strengthens Microsoft's monopoly. Thus, any switchover can obviously only be gradual, with many people using two or more operating systems at the same time (which, incidentally, has been confirmed in a recent survey of 10000 Linux users, where only 38% used no other OS besides Linux -- even many professionals boot Windows NT or 2K together with Linux).
Linux is now in a position where it can actually compete with Windows in most fields, even in spite of Microsoft's market domination (a fact which lends tremendous support to arguments for open, patent-free software development). But consumers know little about Linux because of Microsoft's media domination, and they can't give it a try easily because of Microsoft's coercive OEM licensing. These are clearly practices of a monopoly by any reasonable definition, and they make it hard for the little competition to gain market share. Whether such practices are illegal under US antitrust law, I cannot say -- I care more about morals than about law. On the basis of morals, I can see no reasonable argument why the kind of coercive OEM licensing Microsoft uses should be allowed.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
<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>
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.