Posted on 09/21/2001 2:28:05 AM PDT by HalfIrish
Mac OSX
If you're at all technically competent, you should have little or no trouble getting Linux up and running. In reality, it's no more difficult than installing and configuring Windows (but, of course, most people have installed Windows, since it's almost impossible to buy a machine that doesn't already have a copy installed).
I'm urging my family and friends to avoid any new Microsoft software, because of the cost, the pathetic security (remember, all of the recent virus problems have been due to security flaws in Microsoft's products), and Microsoft's abuse of their monopoly.
Linux is currently a reasonable choice for anyone who is even a little bit technical. And it's getting very close to being appropriate for even the most non-technical user.
Give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised with what you find!
2 words:Mac OSX
Unfortunately, about 95% of computer owners don't have that as an option. And I doubt that many of them will throw away their computers and buy Macs just so they can run OS/X.
As long as Apple considers OS/X just a way of selling their hardware, it's going to remain a "fringe" OS. If they ported it to the "Wintel" architecture, they could grab a much larger share of the market, and also make it much easier for users to migrate to their hardware (since the same programs would presumably be available for both platforms).
I think that 95% estimate of those who "don't have that as an option" is way too high. After taking into account all of the hidden costs associated with using Microsoft operating systems, switching to MacOS X may be a cost-effective move - even including the purchase of an iBook or an iMac. Nor does it require that they "throw away their computers".
Mac OSX
2 more words: TOO COSTLY. Mac hardware is more expensive than PC hardware, and the delta more than covers purchasing the Microsoft OS.
Check this out:
He Who Controls the Bootloader
Important parts:
Peaceful Coexistence? Right.
It is statistically unlikely that a person purchasing a new computer is ever going to change its operating system — the OS that comes with the computer you buy at the local computer mega-store is probably going to be the OS you use for years, if not forever. And while it is technically trivial for a hardware vendor to set up hard drives to dual- or triple-boot multiple operating systems, very few people have the interest — or the huevos — to repartition their hard drives and install additional OSs after the original point of purchase. Therefore, few things could be more financially critical to an operating-system vendor than to have one's product preinstalled on consumer computers.
There is no technical reason why CompUSA customers shouldn't be able to walk out of the shop with a machine that asks "Which OS do you want to use today?" upon boot. And yet, even today, after several years of relentless news about how Linux is ready for the general desktop and business customer, one does not find dual-boot Win/Linux machines from large commercial OEMs at any consumer outlet or web shop I know of. Yes, you can get dual-boot machines at some of the smaller shops, but these are the ones that slip under Microsoft's radar, and there's no guarantee that Microsoft won't decide to take action against these vendors at some point. And yes, you can buy Linux-only machines from vendors such as IBM. But think about it: Why would IBM sell Windows machines and Linux machines, but no dual-boot Win/Linux machines? The absence is conspicuous.
A few years ago, Be's CEO Jean-Louis Gassée used the phrase "peaceful coexistence with Windows" to describe his company's intended relationship with Microsoft on the consumer's hard drive. Later, when it became clear that Microsoft had no intention of coexisting with a rival OS vendor peacefully, Gassée recanted, saying, "I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may laugh at my expense — I deserve it."
With so little profit margin in the computer retail business, and with so little to set one brand of computer apart from another, it would seem that out-of-the-box dual-boot capabilities would be a tremendous differentiating factor for hardware vendors. It would seem that there would be financial incentives for computer vendors to be asking Be for 10,000-license deals. These bundling arrangements would be good for Be, good for OEMs, and good for consumers.
In his own column, Gassée has written several times about Microsoft's Windows OEM License and the ways in which it limits the freedoms of PC OEMs. In July 2001, I spoke with Gassée to find out why no dual-boot computers with BeOS or Linux installed alongside Windows can be purchased today.
In the 1998-1999 timeframe, ready to prime the pump with its desktop offering, Be offered BeOS for free to any major computer manufacturer willing to preinstall BeOS on machines alongside Windows.</b? 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, preinstallation 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 preinstalled, 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" 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 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.
"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.
The essence of the government's antitrust beef with Microsoft is that the company limits competition by leveraging its dominant position in the marketplace (it's important to remember that monopolies are not illegal — abusing them is). To prove its case, the government focused on the browser wars and the harm done to Netscape by Microsoft's inclusion of a free web browser in the operating system.
In my opinion, the browser issue pales in comparison to the egregiousness of the bootloader situation. The browser is arguably an essential component of modern computing — a commodity product as worthy of inclusion in the OS as a text editor or calculator. Be, too, bundles a web browser with its OS, and I'm glad they do. Questions of how the browser is integrated are much more interesting, since they connect to the point of whether Microsoft's browser bundling intent was anticompetitive or not. In BeOS, for example, it's always been possible to remove the browser from the OS simply by dragging it to the Trash, which is very different from the situation under Windows.
DOJ Misses the Point
On request of the DOJ, Gassée had several pre-trial conversations with prosecuting attorney David Boies* 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 anticompetitive 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 preload 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 e-mail as of August 2000 — the highest technology case in the land was prosecuted by a man who could fairly be described as technologically illiterate.
........So here we are in 2001, and guess what? It's still not possible to purchase a dual-boot Win/Linux machine. Doesn't that seem kind of odd? With all of the hype Linux has gotten, and with the technical simplicity of shipping dual-boot machines, not a single PC OEM is shipping such a beast. The technology marketplace is glutted with options. Vendors use even the smallest opportunities to trumpet their differentiating factors. Linux is free. And yet there are no commercially available dual-boot machines on the market. Not one. The silence of the marketplace speaks volumes. 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.
.....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.
I backed Microsoft during the trial, and thought Penfield-Jackson was a jackass.
We use MS products here, and we're a large company.
Our budget managers are screaming OUCH! at all this. Microsoft is really screwing themselves.
I agree. Bring her back to stand trial, convict her, and put her in prison for obstruction of justice.
Seriously, though, you want to replace one monopoly with another? One virus with another? (or were you joking?)
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