C
caver1
Shenan said:arachnid said:You might find this an interesting read:*Forced* by Microsoft... Didn't happened.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110
In several columns on the BeOS website, Gassée mentioned the
bootloader issue, for example:
I once preached peaceful coexistence with Windows. You may
laugh at my expense -- I deserve it.
While I rambled on about peace on the hard disk, Microsoft
made it lethal for a PC OEM to factory-install BeOS (or Linux,
or FreeBSD) next to Windows on the computer's hard disk. If
you, as a PC OEM, don't use the Windows boot manager or
configure it to load Linux or BeOS, you lose your Windows
license and you're dead. That's why you can't buy a multi-OS
machine from Compaq, Dell, HP or anyone else for that matter.
(Yes, you can buy a Linux laptop from IBM, but not one that
runs the Windows Office applications you need or that can
switch to Linux or BeOS when you want.) [3]
In a newsletter article in 1999 [4], Gassée challenged Windows
OEMs to include BeOS together with Windows on one of their
machines: "We end with a real-life offer for any PC OEM that's
willing to challenge the monopoly: Load the BeOS on the hard
disk so the user can see it when the computer is first booted,
and the license is free. Help us put a crack in the wall."
No PC manufacturer ever followed the offer. The situation was
analyzed by BeOS user Scot Hacker in a column for the renowned
computer magazine BYTE [5]:
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 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.
It could have gone with web-based applications, as Netscape hadA major OEM becomes a "major" anything because of smart choices on
how they sell their products, market them, etc. Would Dell be as
huge if they sold only Linux with their systems? Who knows - I
would think not, however. You cannot use the argument that if
they had chose to sell something other than Windows - that Windows
would not be as large because there is no way of proving that they
would not have just gone out of business or stayed in their small
little niche market. Nor can you say that another OS would have
been larger than Windows if one of the "major" OEMs had chose to
sell that OS instead. Dell gives choices to consumers - it just
doesn't present them as clearly. Call Dell, spec yourself a good
computer and buy it from them - with Linux.. You can do it you
know. You have to do it by phone for most configurations - but
you can do it.
That has a snowball effect that is obvious now. Pre MS-DOS,
anything could have happened. There were so many ways the market
could have gone. We could all be running macs right now with OS
XXII or something. But it did not go that way, nor can anyone say
that there wouldn't be people complaining in the same manner as
they are now if it had. The names would have changed, perhaps -
but no one can say that if Macintosh OS had become the dominate OS
and had gotten to rule over 50% of the marketplace - people
would/would not be complaining now or if the price points we now
associate with their OS (which I mentioned) would even be in
existence.
planned to do. But Microsoft "cut off Netscape's air supply" by
bundling IE for "free" and, as came out in the DOJ antitrust trail,
forbidding OEMs to remove IE, remove links to IE, or to install
Netscape.
It could have been DRDOS, but Microsoft inserted code into Windows
to kill DRDOS and the publicly cast the problem as a bug in DRDOS.
Then to finish the job they did the same thing they did to
Netscape, bundling MSDOS into Windows so that nobody needed to buy
DRDOS.
It could have been OS/2, but among several other dirty tricks,
Microsoft threatened OEMS who wanted to license it. Compaq has
stated outright that they decided not to license OS/2 after all
because of Microsoft's intimidation.
It could have been BeOS, but Microsoft used its monopoly to
blackmail OEMS into ignoring BeOS, hiding its presence, leaving its
bootloader out, or otherwise making it invisible and difficult for
consumers to boot.
Even with that (if not fictional) - they were still not forced to do
anything *by Microsoft* but by their own pocket books and greed.
They could have said, "You need us as much as we need you. We'll drop you
like *that*."
If everything above is true - they did not - and you cannot convince me it
was because of some agreement or threat.
They didn't become big just by riding Microsoft's coat-tails, nor
vice-versa.
Would a large vendor actually just doing what they want have an impact?
Yeah.. I think so.
Why didn't they (if the above is factual)?
Lack of saq or fear of having a hard time and not raking in as much money
from the other sheep?
If everything you posted is true, the hardware vendors and OEMs had no
intestinal fortitude and deserved to be run over just like other entities
with no intestinal fortitude to stand up for what they want instead of
letting others decide for them or because it is the easy way out/in and they
can make a bunch of money.
How it got to the point it is at doesn't really matter. It's there. Until
someone does something about it more than blabber on that "their belief is
100% right, your belief is 100% wrong" - it's going to stay the way it is.
Status quo. Stagnant. The proof is in the articles being quoted. 2001?
With one comment as late as June 2002? Welcome to the end of 2006. 'Go Go
Gadget Change!'
Proving other corporations/entities are weak and can be bullied (if anything
posted above is legitimate - most of the references no longer exist or are
in Dutch - I think...) does nothing for any cause other than prove that most
are greedy sheep that will do whatever it takes to get what they want and
those who may not fall into that category are willing to sit around and chat
about it for years instead of actually doing anything (beyond chatting about
it for years.)
It seems to me the US gov't was doing something about it until old GWB
was elected and made the justice dept drop it.
And yes I am using Linux for all the above stated reasons. Yes I do
think that MS has good products. No I don't think that MS is the only
unethical company around. There is middle ground that's why fair use was
approved be the courts. It wasn't the courts that have been whittling
away at fair use.