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Microsoft's Athens PC
OneLeg noted that the Seattle Times has a story on Microsoft deciding to partner up with HP and
work on new PCs with a simpler, more controlled architecture. Including things like integrated telephony into the PCs, and in general, being a bit more Maclike and locking Linux out of the desktop market.
Linux can obviously still run on other PC's, and other architectures in general.
What's stopping somebody from "partnering" with a manufacturer, producing a PC that won't boot DOS/Windows, but will boot Linux? Obviously on such a board, MS could always add support for it, but wouldn't.
The XBOX will now come with a monitor, an HP label, and Windows XP. Yay!
Oh wait, this is a bad thing... I think.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
Dell is one of the (if not) biggest PC manufacturers. If MS can get on the bus w/ Dell and start locking open-source out of PC's this way - not a bad idea for the folks at MS.
... I like the idea of more integration, phasing out of legacy *stuff*, etc...lets keep it open to all players, though.
Don't get me wrong
Blah blah blah ------
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
Microsoft has made hardware standards for quite some time. They still haven't gotten in the hardware business (other than peripherals.) And why on earth is it so awful that MS is trying to make Windows better? We (the /. crowd) always bitch about how much it sucks, why don't we applaud MS when they do something to try to fix it? Setting up a standard for PC hardware that they think will integrate better with Windows is fine IMO - if it helps make "the" consumer OS better for the consumer, more power to them. I don't blindly support monopoly abuse, but I really don't think that's what's happening here. I think that MS is taking steps to make the PC better (by integrating telephony and other "cool" features). The system they've set up has some real innovation and isn't merely copying the work of others. I think we should at least see it before mindlessly bashing it (as some of the other comments have already done.)
Microsoft is treading on shaky ground here. What is to stop Dell from suing Microsoft for collaborating w/ HP on Athens? Who owns the rights to the manufacturing concepts behind this PC - HP, or MS? If its HP, then this partnership puts other PC manufacturers at a serious disadvantage, as they wouldn't have access to the IP to build a similar or identical PC... not that I'm against companies suing MS over this sort of thing, but you'd think that w/ MS' past legal troubles, they'd stay out of manufacturing or collarborating w/ manufacturers unilaterally.
Where does the article specifically mention locking linux out of the machine? There's one line about "fending off competition" but the article is so vague about the actual technologies (Palladium?) to be used. Maybe it's too far off yet to see what barriers they will implement to prevent me from running linux on it. Looks to me like it's an XBOX with a mac screen and keyboard and a thumbprint scanner.
Since when can't you run Linux on your Mac?
Relegating Linux to running on Apple hardware would put a huge dent in its adoption on the desktop. Apple's products are outrageously expensive compared to x86 hardware, and they already run a UNIX-like OS so why would you spend thousands on hardware only to format the disk and install a free OS?
Anyhow, I don't see this as locking Linux out of the desktop market. There are too many people out there that will need beefy hardware that is customizable : gamers, engineers, programmers, and other DIY-ers. These all-in-one units might do well for general office use and light home use, but any power user worth their salt will want something more. The hardware we need to run Linux will stay around as long as there is a demand from people like us.
But I found none of this from the article. Infact I am kind of confused by statements like "we will make hardware work better with windows..." since hardware has great Windows support. How can they work better with software manufactors? If you are a manufactor of course Windows is the number one OS to support above everyone else.
My guess is Microsoft wants things like USB access control ( javacard like security), integrated telephone( apple's bluetooth initiative), and other things that competitors are including. Its really to silence Apple and Sun critques with fud.
Microsoft has been doing things like this for years and this is just hype. They are on the multiple standards commuties and have helped bring USB and cd-roms default on all pc's. If anything this is one of their few positive roles they provide for being a monopolist.
http://saveie6.com/
When the hardware receives an incoming call, the software automatically pulls up the caller's contact information and photo if the data are stored on the system.
Well, time to get to work today...
No, too fat... Hm, no picture? No support... Yikes! Fugly, no help for you... Whoa, hold on a minute! Yes, Tech Support is ready to hump- er help you!
You mean the way Microsoft and HP/Compaq locked everyone out of making PocketPC's, TabletPC's and MediaCenter PC's? Microsoft has used Compaq/HP as their testbed/reference designer for new hardware platforms for years. They haven't locked anyone else out yet, what makes you think they're going to start doing so now?
Point 2. Microsoft will not allow Linux on this machine.
I'd like to see them try.
I'm no coder, but there are thousands of people out there that can crack whatever MS tries to do (search for 'xbox' on Source Forge for examples...).
They can do whatever they want. I personally don't care. If there's a machine that's controled in this fashion, I won't buy it. It's really that simple.
No Sales == No Production
No Production == Bad Idea
Bad Idea == Bag It.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
... to help computer makers develop a new generation of PCs and reinvigorate the stagnant industry.
Uhh... Last time I checked, the "stagnant" industry was getting a nice kick in the ass from the beautiful hardware coming from Apple.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
About one week before you get your Cease and Desist issued under the DMCA, because you had to crack the "protection mechanisms" of the box in order to boot an unsigned OS on it.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Microsoft (and Intel, and now HP, give them their credit as well) have been pushing and prodding the hardware guys into progress for more than a decade. The problem is that most hardware companies have no vision, no desire to innovate, no sense of design.
I've been to every WinHEC for the last few years and every year Microsoft is urging the hardware vendors to drop the legacy stuff. ISA slots suck and make Plug-and-Play a miserable experience, but we're only now seeing their complete and total death in new products. Microsoft and Intel pushed the standards to get rid of them.
Most PCs are built from standard components with standard dimensions and standard interfaces. Everything is interchangable. That decoupling has made the PC industry great and driven prices way down, but the Apple counterexample shows what tight integration and some design sense can buy you in both hardware and software. Both Microsoft and Intel would like to see a bit more innovation going on, and WinHEC is one place that they try to make their case.
This was bound to happen sooner or later. Microsoft, Intel and AMD are ALL anti-OpenSource, yet x86 has been the primary architecture for Linux and other OpenSource programs. How did you really think it would be before those three companies were going to lock us out? It's their hardware, they were going to control it totally, it was just a matter of time.
What the OpenSource community needs to do is rally behind another architecture to ensure its survival. This can either be Sparc, plain-vanilla PowerPC systems, or both. Linux's dependence on the x86 architecture will spell its doom otherwise, and for any semblence of competition for consumer OS's besides Mac. Fortunately, all programs written for Linux will work on all Linux-supported architectures, and if they don't, they can always compiled on these architectures.
Personally, I'm ready to give up dual-booting into Windows, games, etc, if it means that I don't have to pay the Microsoft tax, or having Ashcroft/FBI/CIA monitoring every single keystroke I make on my PC. I'm also ready to give up the funky multimedia stuff and even new digital content if I can simply access the internet, write, compile and run my own or OpenSource programs. I'd rather have liberty than new toys.
Hopefully, Michael Robertson and LindowsOS will see this comming and make a deal with a generic PowerPC motherboard manfacturer and start porting Lindows to that architecture and quickly. It's the only hope left for free (as in speech) personal computing.
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... a computer that is a computer? I had a crappy all-in-one Acer PC with the monitor embedded in it, and I couldn't update it for beans. Why do I want it to have a phone, glowing panels, and further enroachment into my workspace?
Do I really want my monitor shell to pulse when I get an email? Are you out of your mind? How is that supposed to make me more productive?
Do I really want Athens throwing a Borg arm out to the rest of my deskspace?
How do I fix this thing if it breaks?
How hard is it to enter a user name and password over a fingerprint?
Just let a device be a device. Let it alone already.
T.
This space for rent.
But isn't it against Microsofts settlement with the courts that it can't manuafacture its own line of computers that will run only its software??
This sort of 'appliance' is the future of computing for the masses.
Most people don't want a big confusing monster on their desk, they want it as simple as a toaster and as disposable as a Bic lighter.
Not that *I* like this future for my home, but we are heading towards it, step by step.. We are already there in some businesses ( aka: terminal server/winterms ), but home world will take some time to catch up ( or is that : to come 'full circle' back to the days where computing was done in the backroom, and you just had your little display window to view it.. the way it should be really in a business environment ).
It only makes business sense for them to push in this direction. Nothing sinister implied in their actions, just market control and maximizing profits. its what a business does.. ( or if it don't, its not a business much longer )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Xbox? That previous story was right. Xbox was just an experiment in Microsoft propietary systems. Now they are making the aggressive move. Well, we'll see if people like not having choices. My major problem with this is: Why should people upgrade to 2ghz propietary machine if they just want to use the internet/word process. Heck, people are STILL ok just using a 700mhz machine. 700mhz is perfectly adequate (I still have one in my living room, word processing, internet, even the sims!) I'd be really surprised if people were willing to part with their cash for 1.5 second speed increase when they open internet explorer...
When IBM released the PS/2 and OS/2 at the same time in a bid to lock out clone makers and Microsoft from the desktop?
The parallel here is so close that its amazing, particularly since Microsoft has now become the huge monolithic company instead of the plucky upstart that wants an open standard.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
This 'relentless march' has to be driven by something. Mainly sales (i.e., money and the incentive to make it). That driving force was Windows 3x, whether you like it or not.
Otherwise the PC would have been confined to businesses and used either like a typewriter or a small mainframe. Certainly the consumer market for PCs wouldn't have existed. What we'd had ended up with is more expensive and proprietary Macs that would have captured 1/4th (at most) of the overall potential market.
Windows was not the best OS of its time (heck, even GEO was better), but it helped bring PCs to the masses. Again, whether you think that's 'bullshit' or not.
I work at a government office and we've stopped our WinXX upgrade cycle at W2K because, we cannot not 'upgrade' any app or patch which includes a EULA that gives MS the 'right' to invade our firewall and access our hardware or files. The IRS wouldn't stand for that. While/If I have IRS files open I have to record the names of anyone who walks pass my office on the possibility that they might see someone's personal tax information and use it illegally. So, it doesn't matter how many thumbprint devices a user has to press on in order to turn on and log into a computer if a Microsoft drone can sneak in through a back door and replace files or rummage around and look at/take sensitive data.
By now everyone knows that MS is already "phoning home" with your personal data requlary. Now, the newer EULAs give them the 'right'. Microsoft also grants itself the 'right' to change those EULAs and increase their 'rights' (and diminish yours) without notifying you. It is up to you to visit various websites and preview EULAs and then decide if you want to abide by the newest conditions or remove previous patches and further decrease the security of an already woefully insecure OS.
You and I may not like it, but we don't control the end user market.
Are you so sure about that? I don't know about you, but whenever my family or friends go to buy a new computer, I know exactly who they are coming to for advice: me. While ultimately it is their decision, I will not hesitate to explain to them in full the evils of whatever crap Microsoft is throwing at them or plans to throw at them in the future.
Linux made its way into the Xbox, and can easily make it into any system that is based on x86. Should Microsoft move to a non-x86 architecture it will be the best thing that ever happened to Linux, Apple and Sun. Microsoft will never shift from x86, and Linux can always be made to boot in face of any mod chips and drm technologies..
If nothing else, a win32 version of loadlin could be made that will replace everything in the memory with a linux kernel and boot it. All the while people would stick to their clone PCs trying out Linux once in a while. I think Microsoft execs have been smoking some Redmond grass and need to see the only leverage they have in the market is the huge pile of x86 code that wont execute anywhere else. Theres really no other reason for people not to move to Linux.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Thank you for saying the thing which Slashdot seems to be trying to avoid.
Microsoft has taken a few good turns recently.
Microsoft working closer with hardware vendors to get faster implemented USB 2.1 support or even a radical simplification of the PC specification is a great thing. Combine this with the previously announced reduction in the number of API calls from 79k to 8k, and the drastically needed updating of the file system, and you have the makings of a Monopoly realizing that what it sells is garbage and it was time that was fixed.
Quite frankly, it is far less insulting to be enslaved to an evil monopoly with a *good* product.
I do, however, wish they didn't start this initiative with HP, the company built by the lowest bidder. I guess I'll have to wait for the next revision for them to get it right.
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