decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
Is Microsoft being reasonable here? | 474 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Yes, they're being reasonable on x86
Authored by: pem on Tuesday, July 03 2012 @ 04:50 PM EDT
The battle has moved to ARM.

Have you looked at their requirements for that?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Is Microsoft being reasonable here?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 04:37 AM EDT
Is someone being reasonable for saying: "If you walk over there I won't
shoot you" while holding a gun?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Is Microsoft being unreasonable on their ARM requirements?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 03:11 PM EDT
I wonder if Microsoft might have made a mistake in requiring ARM devices that
support Windows 8 to *not* permit turning off secure mode or allowing additional
keys.

Windows is coming late to the ARM device platform. There are phones, netbooks,
and tablets already around. And there are two fairly large established
competitors - Apple and Google. Device makers are going to be cautious about
making any deals to build Windows 8 ARM devices that interferes with their
ability to build devices that can run Chrome/Android (or, if they are Apple
partners, iOS). Unless MSoft is able to build up the market clout to make
manufacturers care more about getting Windows business than retaining their
other business, they will simply make a few Windows 8 restricted devices for
MSoft while still continuing to make more flexible devices for others. Many of
these manufacturers are in the phone business - where they have seen that it is
far more successful to retain your ability to build and sell other devices than
it is to tie yourself to the MSoft boatanchor (a la Nokia). They can also see
the failure of the netbook market to continue to grow after everyone jumped on
the MSoft bandwagon as another warning sign to not do that again.

So, we could end up with there being a few MSoft-restricted devices on the
market that are unable to be converted to Linux, but there to still be lots of
devices around that can be converted. The manufacturer would probably end up
providing the same hardware with two different BIOS installs - one to allow it
to be sold for Windows 8, the other to allow it to be sold for all other
purposes. The Windows 8 logo on the device would be more widely recognized as a
"limitations within - you cannot upgrade this device to an alternate
OS" warning.

John Macdonald

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

He Who Controls the Bootloader
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Thursday, July 05 2012 @ 07:18 PM EDT
Link

In the 1998-1999 timeframe, ready to prime the pump with their desktop offering, Be offered BeOS for free to any major computer manufacturer willing to pre-install BeOS on machines alongside Windows. Although few in the Be community ever knew about the discussions, Gassée says that Be was engaged in enthusiastic discussions with 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. The rest apparently backed off after a closer reading of the fine print in their Microsoft Windows License agreements. Hitachi did ship a line of machines (the Flora Prius) with BeOS pre-installed, but made changes to the bootloader -- rendering BeOS invisible to the consumer -- before shipping. Apparently, Hitachi received a little visit from Microsoft just before shipping the Flora Prius, and were reminded of the terms of the license.

Be was forced to post detailed instructions on their web site explaining to customers how to unhide their hidden BeOS partitions. It is likely that most Flora Prius owners never even saw the BeOS installations to which they were entitled.

Bootloader as Trade Secret

So why aren't there any dual-boot computers for sale? The answer lies in the nature of the relationship Microsoft maintains with hardware vendors. More specifically, in the "Windows License" agreed to by hardware vendors who want to include Windows on the computers they sell. This is not the license you pretend to read and click "I Accept" to when installing Windows. This license is not available online. 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 non-Microsoft 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.

"Must not?" What, does Microsoft hold a gun to the vendor's head? Not quite, but that wouldn't be a hyperbolic metaphor. Instead, Microsoft threatens to revoke the vendor's license to include Windows on the machine if the bootloader license is violated. Because the world runs on Windows, no hardware vendor can afford to ship machines that don't include Windows alongside whatever alternative they might want to offer.

...

DOJ Misses the Point

On request of the DOJ, Gassée had several pre-trial conversations with prosecuting attorney David Boies*L and Assistant Attorney General Joel Klein. Gassée explained the bootloader situation to them. They listened and heard. But they did not ask Gassée to testify on the bootloader issue. Instead, they asked Gassée to testify on the matter of browser integration. Gassée warned them that he would be a "dangerous witness," since his feelings on browser integration were actually sympathetic with Microsoft's. Gassée wanted to testify on the bootloader issue, where he felt the core of the case really rested. Klein and Boies told Gassée he could testify with focus on the "malicious intent" aspect of the browser integration question, but not on the bootloader matter.

Needless to say, Gassée declined to participate in the rest of the case. The bootloader issue was raised during the trial, however. Raised, but not actually addressed, because Microsoft claimed (in a court session closed to the public and the media) that the Windows License was a "trade secret." However, Microsoft never denied that the license exists, and never denied that it works as I've described here.

...

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. It would have been too much of a hassle to address Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior in its purest form. In addition, no PC OEM was willing to testify on bootloader issues. And why would they? The threat of losing favor with Microsoft easily would have outweighed any potential benefit from being able to pre-load the unproven Be operating system alongside Windows on their machines. Finally, Be didn't have the brand recognition that Netscape did; Netscape made for a much better poster child.

* Boies, by the way, did not even have email as of August 2000 -- the highest technology case in the land was prosecuted by a man who could fairly be described as technologically illiterate.

...Microsoft has shaped and controlled the hardware landscape as much as they have shaped and controlled the software landscape.

They're getting away with it. They slipped through the DOJ trial without the bootloader issue becoming the thorn it should have. As far as I know, the terms of the Windows OEM License have not changed. The recommended legal remedies against Microsoft have largely been stricken, and Microsoft is currently deflecting attention from the real issues by agreeing to remove some icons from the XP desktop (as if that mattered in contrast to the larger issues at stake). Klein and Boies helped to prevent the bootloader issue from becoming a central component of the DOJ's case. And we were never the wiser.

Nothing has changed in a decade, and now Microsoft is trying to pull the same crap with the ARM manufacturers.

And was Boies complicit or just incompetent when it came to properly pursuing the bootloader issue?

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )