6 ms·

Translation: The ARM "computers" will only run software Microsoft blesses. Can we call it a computer anymore? It is more like a tablet when Microsoft demands

Translation: The ARM "computers" will only run software Microsoft blesses. Can we call it a computer anymore? It is more like a tablet when Microsoft demands digital restrictions management on the software that runs on the device.

candiodari 9y ago
Sadly, I bet companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google see it more along the lines of "the free ride general purpose computing has gotten sharing hardware with our ecosystems should end".
userbinator 9y ago
Further to that, you can't patch out the telemetry and other privacy-violating "features", without somehow finding an exploit. In fact, from that perspective this is no different than the typical locked-down iPhone or Android. What's worse than a computer with preinstalled spyware? A computer with preinstalled spyware you can't remove. When the Lenovo/Superfish thing happened, I commented at the time that it was at least something you could remove by reformatting and installing your choice of OS. Ideally we'd all buy computers with our own choice of software already, but if forced to choose, I'd rather buy one with preinstalled spyware I know I can remove, than one which claims to not have such software and be "more secure".
- y_u_no_rust 9y ago
  It's like a bad ass variant of WinRT (or what it should have been)
- rootw0rm 9y ago
  booting a hacked kernel is fairly trivial.
narrator 9y ago
I think they did this because the anti-trust ruling from the early 2000s does not apply to ARM-based computers, only Intel-based machines. I guess the software lockdown proves that Microsoft hasn't changed and the late 90s Microsoft is still with us.
- newhouseb 9y ago
  Not that I don't believe you, but is there a source for this (the anti-trust ruling being specific to Intel hardware)? I'd love to read more about the specifics.
  - narrator 9y ago
    If you read the Wikipedia page and the linked ruling, you'll see that the language is very specific to "Operating Systems on Intel Compatible PCs". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....
    - benaadams 9y ago
      And it expired 8 - 10 years ago > Microsoft's obligations under the settlement, as originally drafted, expired on November 12, 2007. However, Microsoft later "agreed to consent to a two-year extension of part of the Final Judgments" dealing with communications protocol licensing.
berbec 9y ago
Forgive my ignorance on this topic, but couldn't one use the windows boot manager to load a Linux distro? Or does Grub still need to signed once it receivables the hand-off?
- Nullabillity 9y ago
  The whole chain needs to be signed, otherwise the exercise would be pretty pointless.
kogepathic 9y ago
> Translation: The ARM "computers" will only run software Microsoft blesses. Can we call it a computer anymore? Why don't people take Apple to task for doing the same thing? You can't take an iPad and install Linux on it, or Windows for ARM. You're locked into running iOS. Apple doesn't even allow downgrading iOS. Same with Android devices that come with a locked bootloader. You can't install anything other OS version/flavour than what the manufacturer dictates. Yes, it's unfortunate that Microsoft has this policy, but why is it that people only complain loudly about locked bootloaders when it comes to Microsoft products? Apply the same standard to Apple and Android products with locked bootloaders. Microsoft isn't the first one to do this, and they won't ship nearly as many devices as other manufacturers who lock down the boot process.
- alanfranzoni 9y ago
  The op is complaining about calling 'computer' rather than 'tablet' this ms product. The ipad and iphones and android phones are tablet and phones, not computers.
  - nobodyshere 9y ago
    They are all technically still 'computers'. Their form factor doesn't change that.
    - alanfranzoni 9y ago
      This has little to do with the 'technical' meaning of the term. The big _practical_'distinction' nowadays between a 'proper computer' and a 'tablet/phone/etc' is between being open for modification, creation and alteration by the user, or to be a walled garden where only the manufacturer chooses what can be done and installed. The Ipad Pro may be powerful as a computer, but we think about it as a tablet because it uses IOS and its walled garden. The OP is complaining that MS is trying to push its new product into the computer space even tough it's locked down via Windows 10S. It's not true that nobody 'takes on Apple about this' - it's simply that Apple does NOT do that on its COMPUTERS (i.e. the Mac line).
- 9y ago
DaiPlusPlus 9y ago
But this is the main reason why Surface RT bombed in 2012: Microsoft sold it as a "Windows" tablet - the connotation being that users could run Steam and Chrome on it, not specially-compiled apps running in the anemic Windows Store App sandbox. I appreciate things are different now in 2017 with x86 emulation (or dynamic translation) and the ability for most Win32 programs to be repackaged as *.appx - but Microsoft misses the implication to consumers again: users expect the freedom to install and download software from wherever - just like their x86 desktop machines. No-one is asking for an iOS style App Store for Windows and it's starkly visible by how poorly the Windows App Store is still doing. Cynically, I suspect everyone at MSFT is well-aware of this and they fully expect Windows 10-for-ARM to sink for these exact reasons, they're just doing this as a repeat of their protest moves to remind Intel not to take their x86 monopoly for granted, and the addition of x86 support is a particularly bloody (but ultimately harmless) fist to the nose. I'll point out that there is a very obvious use-case for Windows-on-ARM: low-power rackmountable/high-density server hardware for applications like web-servers and IO (not CPU)-bound database servers. No need for a 300W Intel Xeon box, or even a 150W Intel Core i7 - a 20W ARM chip will do. If Microsoft announced a no-shit, just-like-x86 SKU of Windows Server with no artificial restrictions with the same 10 year support period then I guarantee that Dell and SuperMicro would jump at building and shipping ARM servers - but this hasn't happened, instead we got a ridiculously impractical "Windows IOT" SKU which feels more like a toy than the basis for business critical infrastructure. Server applications are much easier to port to ARM than desktop applications, given their lack of dependence on hardware associated with x86, like 3D graphics acceleration - or just users' expectation that a single executable binary should work everywhere. Servers are operated by businesses with professional sysadmins who know how to rebuild open-source applications for their machines or at least know the difference between downloading a program lablled "Thumb-2" vs "x64". Furthermore probably most server applications run on Java or .NET and can be trivially ported over to ARM. The fact we haven't seen a true Windows Server ARM means that we can immediately dismiss consumer-level releases of desktop Windows for ARM for now.
- earenndil 9y ago
  > I'll point out that there is a very obvious use-case for Windows-on-ARM: low-power rackmountable/high-density server hardware for applications like web-servers and IO (not CPU)-bound database servers ...but why is this better than linux-on-arm? Windows server hasn't been generally very successful.
whywhywhywhy 9y ago
So just like the most popular ARM computer on the planet then… This is the norm for ARM, as much as we don’t like it and it will be the same when Apple eventually ships an arm laptop.

candiodari 9y ago

Sadly, I bet companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google see it more along the lines of "the free ride general purpose computing has gotten sharing hardware with our ecosystems should end".

userbinator 9y ago

Further to that, you can't patch out the telemetry and other privacy-violating "features", without somehow finding an exploit. In fact, from that perspective this is no different than the typical locked-down iPhone or Android. What's worse than a computer with preinstalled spyware? A computer with preinstalled spyware you can't remove. When the Lenovo/Superfish thing happened, I commented at the time that it was at least something you could remove by reformatting and installing your choice of OS. Ideally we'd all buy computers with our own choice of software already, but if forced to choose, I'd rather buy one with preinstalled spyware I know I can remove, than one which claims to not have such software and be "more secure".

y_u_no_rust 9y ago
It's like a bad ass variant of WinRT (or what it should have been)
rootw0rm 9y ago
booting a hacked kernel is fairly trivial.

narrator 9y ago

I think they did this because the anti-trust ruling from the early 2000s does not apply to ARM-based computers, only Intel-based machines. I guess the software lockdown proves that Microsoft hasn't changed and the late 90s Microsoft is still with us.

newhouseb 9y ago
Not that I don't believe you, but is there a source for this (the anti-trust ruling being specific to Intel hardware)? I'd love to read more about the specifics.
- narrator 9y ago
  If you read the Wikipedia page and the linked ruling, you'll see that the language is very specific to "Operating Systems on Intel Compatible PCs". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C....
  - benaadams 9y ago
    And it expired 8 - 10 years ago > Microsoft's obligations under the settlement, as originally drafted, expired on November 12, 2007. However, Microsoft later "agreed to consent to a two-year extension of part of the Final Judgments" dealing with communications protocol licensing.

berbec 9y ago

Forgive my ignorance on this topic, but couldn't one use the windows boot manager to load a Linux distro? Or does Grub still need to signed once it receivables the hand-off?

Nullabillity 9y ago
The whole chain needs to be signed, otherwise the exercise would be pretty pointless.

kogepathic 9y ago

> Translation: The ARM "computers" will only run software Microsoft blesses. Can we call it a computer anymore? Why don't people take Apple to task for doing the same thing? You can't take an iPad and install Linux on it, or Windows for ARM. You're locked into running iOS. Apple doesn't even allow downgrading iOS. Same with Android devices that come with a locked bootloader. You can't install anything other OS version/flavour than what the manufacturer dictates. Yes, it's unfortunate that Microsoft has this policy, but why is it that people only complain loudly about locked bootloaders when it comes to Microsoft products? Apply the same standard to Apple and Android products with locked bootloaders. Microsoft isn't the first one to do this, and they won't ship nearly as many devices as other manufacturers who lock down the boot process.

alanfranzoni 9y ago
The op is complaining about calling 'computer' rather than 'tablet' this ms product. The ipad and iphones and android phones are tablet and phones, not computers.
- nobodyshere 9y ago
  They are all technically still 'computers'. Their form factor doesn't change that.
  - alanfranzoni 9y ago
    This has little to do with the 'technical' meaning of the term. The big _practical_'distinction' nowadays between a 'proper computer' and a 'tablet/phone/etc' is between being open for modification, creation and alteration by the user, or to be a walled garden where only the manufacturer chooses what can be done and installed. The Ipad Pro may be powerful as a computer, but we think about it as a tablet because it uses IOS and its walled garden. The OP is complaining that MS is trying to push its new product into the computer space even tough it's locked down via Windows 10S. It's not true that nobody 'takes on Apple about this' - it's simply that Apple does NOT do that on its COMPUTERS (i.e. the Mac line).
9y ago

DaiPlusPlus 9y ago

But this is the main reason why Surface RT bombed in 2012: Microsoft sold it as a "Windows" tablet - the connotation being that users could run Steam and Chrome on it, not specially-compiled apps running in the anemic Windows Store App sandbox. I appreciate things are different now in 2017 with x86 emulation (or dynamic translation) and the ability for most Win32 programs to be repackaged as *.appx - but Microsoft misses the implication to consumers again: users expect the freedom to install and download software from wherever - just like their x86 desktop machines. No-one is asking for an iOS style App Store for Windows and it's starkly visible by how poorly the Windows App Store is still doing. Cynically, I suspect everyone at MSFT is well-aware of this and they fully expect Windows 10-for-ARM to sink for these exact reasons, they're just doing this as a repeat of their protest moves to remind Intel not to take their x86 monopoly for granted, and the addition of x86 support is a particularly bloody (but ultimately harmless) fist to the nose. I'll point out that there is a very obvious use-case for Windows-on-ARM: low-power rackmountable/high-density server hardware for applications like web-servers and IO (not CPU)-bound database servers. No need for a 300W Intel Xeon box, or even a 150W Intel Core i7 - a 20W ARM chip will do. If Microsoft announced a no-shit, just-like-x86 SKU of Windows Server with no artificial restrictions with the same 10 year support period then I guarantee that Dell and SuperMicro would jump at building and shipping ARM servers - but this hasn't happened, instead we got a ridiculously impractical "Windows IOT" SKU which feels more like a toy than the basis for business critical infrastructure. Server applications are much easier to port to ARM than desktop applications, given their lack of dependence on hardware associated with x86, like 3D graphics acceleration - or just users' expectation that a single executable binary should work everywhere. Servers are operated by businesses with professional sysadmins who know how to rebuild open-source applications for their machines or at least know the difference between downloading a program lablled "Thumb-2" vs "x64". Furthermore probably most server applications run on Java or .NET and can be trivially ported over to ARM. The fact we haven't seen a true Windows Server ARM means that we can immediately dismiss consumer-level releases of desktop Windows for ARM for now.

earenndil 9y ago
> I'll point out that there is a very obvious use-case for Windows-on-ARM: low-power rackmountable/high-density server hardware for applications like web-servers and IO (not CPU)-bound database servers ...but why is this better than linux-on-arm? Windows server hasn't been generally very successful.

whywhywhywhy 9y ago

So just like the most popular ARM computer on the planet then… This is the norm for ARM, as much as we don’t like it and it will be the same when Apple eventually ships an arm laptop.