Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#41

Post by cooldeal » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:16 AM UTC

melling wrote: post #13

daeken wrote: post #3

I'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.

You can't seriously be surprised by this. Microsoft can't be trusted until their desktop monopoly is destroyed. I guess the US vs Microsoft is 14 years old this year. Maybe we've all forgotten how Microsoft destroyed all other PC OS'es and how Windows wouldn't run without Internet Explorer; Microsoft claimed it was part of the OS and there was no way to remove it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microso…

>It shouldn't be a PC vs Mac world today.

I thought we were living in a post-PC world? Restricting Microsoft here would unfairly advantage Apple's continuing monopoly of tablets.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#42

Post by cooldeal » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:24 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #40

recoiledsnake wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And that's how Microsoft killed ARM based netbooks, ultrabooks, tablets, etc that could potentially run Linux because most OEMs will want to have them licensed for use with Windows 8. Why is it Microsoft's responsibility to make Linux run on the hardware that runs their software? What is your stance on Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire etc.? Why shouldn't they be able to secure their OS against jailbreaking and malware just…

>Why is it Microsoft's responsibility to make Linux run on the hardware that runs their software? What is your stance on Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire etc.? I disapprove of Android vendors locking their bootloaders as well. However, this is an entirely different landscape. Microsoft's penetration on laptops and netbooks means that they have the ability to block out competing operating systems unless OEMs (that have to neg…

>Microsoft's penetration on laptops and netbooks means that they have the ability to block out competing operating systems

ARM laptops and netbooks and PCs won't run x86 apps, so I fail to see how MS's penetration will allow them to block out competing operating systems.

>Regardless, I even granted that there isn't a business reason for them to be friendly to competing operation systems, it's just disappointing to see them resorting to this. I have to wonder if it's in part because of how far behind they are in terms of phones/tablets.

Their strategy seems to be to subsidize the licensing cost of the OS by selling Metro apps from the Windows Marketplace. This model will get into trouble if the user loads Android on it. Anyway this is the same model that Amazon, B&N and to some extent Apple uses.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#43

Post by sliverstorm » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:24 AM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #41

melling wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't seriously be surprised by this. Microsoft can't be trusted until their desktop monopoly is destroyed. I guess the US vs Microsoft is 14 years old this year. Maybe we've all forgotten how Microsoft destroyed all other PC OS'es and how Windows wouldn't run without Internet Explorer; Microsoft claimed it was part of the OS and there was no way to remove it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microso…

>It shouldn't be a PC vs Mac world today. I thought we were living in a post-PC world? Restricting Microsoft here would unfairly advantage Apple's continuing monopoly of tablets.

That prospect doesn't bother anyone. Apple can be twice as restrictive as Microsoft, and people will still be raising a fuss over what MS does.

How do we know? Well, it's happening right now.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#44

Post by recoiledsnake » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:27 AM UTC

vena wrote: post #19

recoiledsnake wrote: post #2

iPad 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…

Apple produces their own hardware, and the various locked Android devices are not being locked down by Google.

>Apple produces their own hardware

Samsung and Foxconn and a lot of other suppliers make the hardware. Apple does not own the factories.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#45

Post by recoiledsnake » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:30 AM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #30

dangrossman wrote: post #4

Microsoft 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.

Your argument seems to assume that I think it is okay for Apple to do what they do... Let me put it this way: 1) Two wrongs do not make a right. 2) Both are worthy of criticism. 3) What Apple does is off topic anyway. This discussion is about Microsoft.

The argument is about how it is illegal, and the SFLC complaining to governments to fix this. If they force MS to license their software to any OEM, they should similarly force Apple to license Mac OS X to Psystar and also unlock the iPhone and iPad's bootloaders.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#46

Post by fluidcruft » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:32 AM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #36

kennywinker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

Sorry, that war was fought and lost won with the iPhone and iPad. If anything, Microsoft is better in the sense that it offers more share of the app cost to the developers and also doesn't charge tithes like Apple does on content.

(yet)

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#47

Post by kenjackson » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:35 AM UTC

First, tihs document is about HW Certification. You can ship an ARM-based system that doesn't follow these rules, just won't be certified by MS -- much like many Android devices aren't Google certified.

Furthermore, MS actually bent over backwards on x86 and required for certification that the option to disable secure boot be provided (they could have been silent on this issue):

"Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv."

I'd wait for MS's response on ARM. They've taken some interesting architectural approaches with their current ARM implementation (striped and actually secure SD cards). There may be architectural reasons for this. Or it could be that there are security issues with it, given that UEFI on ARM is pretty new.

But in any case, if this is important to an OEM they can simply not get HW certification. This doesn't block anyone from actually installing Windows 8 on ARM on machines w/o this capability.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#48

Post by fluidcruft » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:35 AM UTC

vena wrote: post #19

recoiledsnake wrote: post #2

iPad 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…

Apple produces their own hardware, and the various locked Android devices are not being locked down by Google.

Let's revisit this in a year and see. My prediction is at that point Google will be producing the most locked down Android devices. Motorola's we-will-prevent-you-from-needing-support practices shoehorn perfectly with Google's we-don't-do-support practices. It's a marriage made in heaven.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#49

Post by tzs » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:35 AM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #17

And that's how Microsoft killed ARM based netbooks, ultrabooks, tablets, etc that could potentially run Linux because most OEMs will want to have them licensed for use with Windows 8. Can we rehash all the dozen posts about this from months ago when people swore up on down that Microsoft wasn't going to do... well, what the rest of us expect at this point?

The discussion months ago was about x86, I believe. According to the article, "For non-ARM systems, Microsoft requires that Custom Mode be enabled".

I suspect that it will turn out that Microsoft knows that Apple and Android have built a possibly insurmountable lead on ARM and so will be subsidizing the hardware that ships with Windows 8 in order to lower the price to the consumer to try to buy market share. For obvious reasons they would not want people who want an Android tablet to see an Android tablet for, say, $400, and a Windows 8 tablet from the same manufacturer with identical hardware specs for $300 (because of Microsoft's subsidy) that they could buy and then put Android on.

Re: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

#50

Post by superuser2 » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 3:37 AM UTC

recoiledsnake wrote: post #44

vena wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple produces their own hardware, and the various locked Android devices are not being locked down by Google.

>Apple produces their own hardware Samsung and Foxconn and a lot of other suppliers make the hardware. Apple does not own the factories.

That's irrelevant. Apple sells you the hardware; when you buy an iPad, you are buying an iPad, not a tablet computer that happens to be bundled with iOS. There is no expectation that you can use it as a general purpose computer.

When I buy laptop, I am buying a computer. Full stop. If the vendor wants to bundle an OS, great, but I expect to be able to change it. It's far more offensive not to be able to run Linux on a mainstream laptop than not to be able to run Windows on an iPad.