Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
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Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
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Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#2iPad has or had a monopoly in the tablet market, but where are/were the cries for an open bootloader? Where were the complaints to governments?
Motorola and HTC phones/tablets ship with locked bootloaders while leveraging the hard work of F/OSS developers for free. Not to mention the Nook tablet/Kindle Fire which ship with a locked bootloader who get a free pass.
Note that this will be the same set of people who will slag Microsoft for malware getting into the system and will recommend switching away from Windows because it is insecure.
How about forcing Apple to allow users to load alternate OSes like Windows 8 or Android on the iPad?
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#3I've been a Microsoft fanboy for a long time, and I've been speaking out about the Secure Boot brouhaha because there was effectively no evidence that they were actually attempting to lock anyone out, but this is simply inexcusable. Sad.
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#4Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in the tablet or phone markets. Heck, it's barely a market participant. If Apple doesn't have to let people install Windows on an iPad, then the same should apply to Microsoft. This time, there's no "but there's a monopoly and the rules are different for monopolies" excuse.
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#5iPad has or had a monopoly in the tablet market, but where are/were the cries for an open bootloader? Where were the complaints to governments? Motorola and HTC phones/tablets ship with locked bootloaders while leveraging the hard work of F/OSS developers for free. Not to mention the Nook tablet/Kindle Fire which ship with a locked bootloader who get a free pass. Note that this will be the same set of people who will…
I'm not sure what you've been reading that I haven't, but I've seen plenty anti-Apple and anti-Amazon and anti-X cries precisely because of their lock-in attempts. From what I've read, the fact that Microsoft keeps doing it just means they won't learn their lesson, and Apple et al. doing it just means they're more evil than Microsoft in this respect. It's also a warning flag that as much as MS tries to win over the OSS crowd they still have some issues to work out.
The law getting involved and being applied arbitrarily or just to MS though is very silly.
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#6iPad has or had a monopoly in the tablet market, but where are/were the cries for an open bootloader? Where were the complaints to governments? Motorola and HTC phones/tablets ship with locked bootloaders while leveraging the hard work of F/OSS developers for free. Not to mention the Nook tablet/Kindle Fire which ship with a locked bootloader who get a free pass. Note that this will be the same set of people who will…
I'm not sure what you've been reading that I haven't, but I've seen plenty anti-Apple and anti-Amazon and anti-X cries precisely because of their lock-in attempts. From what I've read, the fact that Microsoft keeps doing it just means they won't learn their lesson, and Apple et al. doing it just means they're more evil than Microsoft in this respect. It's also a warning flag that as much as MS tries to win over the O…
> I've seen plenty anti-Apple and anti-Amazon and anti-X cries precisely because of their lock-in attempts.
As an X Window System developer, I often get confused when people use "X" as a placeholder. I thought, "but X doesn't lock people in...".
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#7The moral of the story is, don't buy a windows phone if you want to reflash it.
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#8Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in the tablet or phone markets. Heck, it's barely a market participant. If Apple doesn't have to let people install Windows on an iPad, then the same should apply to Microsoft. This time, there's no "but there's a monopoly and the rules are different for monopolies" excuse.
But we're not talking about just phones and tablets...
"[...] yesterday, Qualcomm announced plans to produce Windows 8 tablets and ultrabook-style laptops built around its ARM-based Snapdragon processors"
Those will be locked out as well.
This is exactly what Cory Doctorow was talking about in his article the other day about "the war on general purpose computing" - (http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html)
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#9Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in the tablet or phone markets. Heck, it's barely a market participant. If Apple doesn't have to let people install Windows on an iPad, then the same should apply to Microsoft. This time, there's no "but there's a monopoly and the rules are different for monopolies" excuse.
I think the point here is that Microsoft is requiring additional restrictions that Android does not - when they both use the same handset hardware.
Why should we give Microsoft a pass? Because they're the underdog? No. Android is not 100% open (e.g. binary-only kernel modules for proprietary hardware, Google not releasing honeycomb, ...) But that's no excuse for Microsoft to use cryptography against the customer.
Microsoft must face the ill-will it generated this way, including the ill-will toward its attempts to mandate UEFI Secure Boot on the PC. This move on the ARM platform will be used (by me and others) to demonstrate that the UEFI Secure Boot requirement on the PC cannot be accepted.
Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices
#10Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in the tablet or phone markets. Heck, it's barely a market participant. If Apple doesn't have to let people install Windows on an iPad, then the same should apply to Microsoft. This time, there's no "but there's a monopoly and the rules are different for monopolies" excuse.
Apple manufacturers both the hardware and the software and then sell it, there is no 3rd party involved in this transaction.
Microsoft builds the OS and licenses it to a manufacture, they build the device and sell it. At least 3 parties involved.
Microsoft's requirements need to be met to be able to license Windows 8 for tablets. Microsoft is forcing manufacturers to lock down their devices or else they aren't allowed to use Windows 8.
Google licenses the Android source code/platform/name whatever, and a manufacturer builds the devices. The manufacturer chooses to lock down the boot loader.
Google doesn't make any requirements on the manufacturers to lock their devices down.
That is where the difference lies. Microsoft is being bad here because they are forcing something on its manufacturers that its manufacturers may not have wanted to implement.
I don't see why Apple should have to let people install Windows on an iPad, or for that matter even make it easy for people to do so if they pleased. I don't see why manufacturers should have to let people flash whatever firmware they want to their device. But I do see why Microsoft shouldn't be telling manufacturers that the manufacturers customers can't flash their device if they so pleased.