5 ms·

Not to be too anti-microsoft. But this seems like they're bringing the EUFI into windows, therefor allowing them in the future to make it harder than it already

Not to be too anti-microsoft. But this seems like they're bringing the EUFI into windows, therefor allowing them in the future to make it harder than it already is(or eventually impossible) to actually get into the EUFI to install a competing OS. I admit I'm decently "tin-foil hat" about microsoft, but every new laptop I've bought over the last 10 years have been progressively harder to get into UEFI/BIOS to remove windows and install a new OS.

amiga-workbench 8y ago
Ubuntu runs on Windows now, why would you ever need to leave ;)
- solarengineer 8y ago
  Embrace, extend, extinguish. I am one of those wary of Microsoft. The current CEO was around during the Halloween Diaries. Even if he is well meaning, he is just an employee who can be replaced any day at the whim of large shareholders like Ballmer and Gates who consider Linux to be a virus.
  - Analemma_ 8y ago
    Ballmer is still Microsoft's single largest shareholder, and he has seen his personal wealth grow dramatically under Nadella’s tenure. You’re telling me he hates Linux so much that he’s willing to tank his own fortune, to the tune of billions of dollars, to stab ineffectually at it? Please. Nobody at Microsoft ever had a committed ideological opposition to Linux, it was a pragmatic decision based on what they perceived as a threat to their business. That certainly doesn’t negate the damage of all the shit they pulled, but it does mean that it is highly unlikely that they’re going to reverse course and start extinguishing Linux for ideological reasons now that they’ve figured out how to make money without Linux being the enemy.
    - coffekaesque 8y ago
      The problem is what they will do when they are at the top (or hitting rock bottom). Or when their stakeholders want to milk the cow. It's similar to how you don't want companies to have your personal data, even if you trust them "100%". When money becomes a problem, or a solution, you'll be their last priority. Some of the news about Windows 10 would be unthinkable a few years ago. Priorities change, and this company in particular has a history of being extremely hostile.
      - Analemma_ 8y ago
        You’re making a different argument here then the person I replied to though. solarengineer was implying that WSL is a plot to extinguish Linux, which is ridiculous. But that’s not saying that Microsoft is 100% trustworthy or that they will never do anything bad ever again. I’m only saying that the “sinister plan” for this one particular software component is to make Windows more useful to Unix-land developers, to try and get them to buy Windows PCs instead of the usual MacBook Pro. Notice how that explanation still assumes Microsoft is still doing it for their own financial benefit, but doesn’t require an agenda to destroy Linux. They have realized that this isn’t a zero-sum game.
        gronne 8y ago
        I am convinced this is a “plot” to kill the linux desktop / keep people on windows. Its better, free and you control it - why would they not want to kill it.
        jrs95 8y ago
        Because almost nobody uses it so they don't care. The only reason they even made WSL was to compete with Mac, and make devices with odd hardware that didn't easily run desktop Linux (like Surface) more appealing to developers.
        pizzazzaro 8y ago
  - nindalf 8y ago
    > Embrace, extend, extinguish. It's disappointing that literally anything that Microsoft does has this same comment right on top. Does it add anything to the discussion? We've all seen this comment at least a thousand times in the last 15 years. You haven't even taken the trouble to chalk out a plausible path for embracing and extending. Forget that, you haven't mentioned who they're embracing and extinguishing. At this point it's just repeating a tired meme for the sake of karma. Not calling you out in particular, but here are other tired HN memes that can be reliably milked for karma * If you're not paying, you're not the consumer, you're the product. * It can be difficult to explain to something to someone when their job depends on not understanding it * Joel Spolsky's article on rewrites
    - solarengineer 8y ago
      The various responses to my "embrace, extend, extinguish" got me thinking about why I continue to be apprehensive about Microsoft. Perhaps it is because of my experiences with Microsoft and their dirty ways. They have a history of screwing the user over. A bit of a rant/recall follows: I had lost content to a doublespace bug and was asked to pay for drive space via an MS DOS upgrade to 6.22, I have seen how Microsoft encouraged piracy in schools and colleges in India, how they have used FUD to suppress open source education and adoption efforts in the government and education spaces. I also recollect all the dirty stuff around Frontpage "extensions", IE extensions + IE's excessively forgiving tendencies to HTML violations and incorrectness, how MS took spyglass software and did bad things with it. Later, the Haloween Documents showed how MS said one thing in public and plotted another thing in private. They were Gurus of scheming behaviour. Then there was the Microsoft Windows tax, where you had to pay the Windows license fee even if you planned to run Linux on your computer. I also had to struggle with the MS Java, J++ rubbish. Microsoft used to do such bad things so deliberately. I also recall bad things around UEFI, around making it difficult for Linux distros to dual boot on laptops (which got resolved later). Recollecting all of the above doesn't make it easy for me just to accept that with some code releases and PR announcements, MS would have turned over a new leaf. People behave as they are measured. Satya Nadella is changing the public image of Microsoft, and even walking the talk. I learned just now on Wikipedia that he tripled MS stock, and that anonymous polls within MS have called him the best CEO of a US company. I am not an MS employee, so I won't know if he has managed to change the internal cultural tendency of being insincere and vicious (see above for examples). I'm just apprehensive that at the end of the day, he is just an employee. Employees can get fired anytime, overruled anytime. Perhaps I am being unfair to MS and Satya Nadella, and to all those MS employees who are giving their best. To them all - I apologise for my ill will.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    Microsoft no longer sees Linux as a threat because it isn't a threat to their business anymore. Any damage that Linux can do has already been done and can't be changed. So few people use Linux on the desktop that they have no reason to even be worried in trying to prevent people from using it. All that would do is push developers back towards Mac, which is the opposite of what they're trying to accomplish. Microsoft has seen huge growth under Nadella, and that was accomplished through selling cloud services. Linux does not threaten this business model or the future of the company in any way. There's nothing to "Embrace, extend, extinguish".
- executesorder66 8y ago
  Here's a pile of feces with some gold in it. Why would you ever clean off the feces? ;)
- gnulinux 8y ago
  Absurd comment. Why have another operating system attached to my operating system? Aside from obvious reasons why this is a bad idea (performance, bloat, security, ads...) this sounds like an operational headache and any person doing this everyday would be reducing their productivity. If you wanna use Windows just use Windows. If you wanna use linux, just use that.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ohthehugemanate 8y ago
Can you explain what you mean? I don't see how open sourcing their UEFI implementation is in any way "bringing UEFI into windows".
- kop316 8y ago
  As a guy who (used to) dual boot, I think I can offer some insight. When I had Windows 10 dual booted with Linux, Windows had this extremely annoying habit of changing my UEFI boot order when it updated so that Windows was the first to boot, rather than Linux (where I can use GRUB to load Windows). I then had to manually revert the change at the bootloader. With this exposed, it would not surprise me if their "default" implementation is to make sure Windows boots first, and revert the UEFI boot up that upon every boot up. An average user will likely not be aware of that, or the heavy Linux user who only boots into Windows occasionally.
  - ohthehugemanate 8y ago
    sure, bitlocker is a major pain on my dual boot device. But isn't that IMPROVED by open sourcing the implementation? It exposes that kind of stupid behavior, and for the implementation to be useful, that stuff can't be in there anyway. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what's being open sourced?
    - kop316 8y ago
      I'm not certain what is open sourced. What I saw is that Windows iis going to be able to access certain features of uefi, so they would be more standardized than anything. Also, I didn't even have bitlocker turned on, that was just Windows being a PITA with regards to daul booting

amiga-workbench 8y ago

Ubuntu runs on Windows now, why would you ever need to leave ;)

solarengineer 8y ago
Embrace, extend, extinguish. I am one of those wary of Microsoft. The current CEO was around during the Halloween Diaries. Even if he is well meaning, he is just an employee who can be replaced any day at the whim of large shareholders like Ballmer and Gates who consider Linux to be a virus.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  Ballmer is still Microsoft's single largest shareholder, and he has seen his personal wealth grow dramatically under Nadella’s tenure. You’re telling me he hates Linux so much that he’s willing to tank his own fortune, to the tune of billions of dollars, to stab ineffectually at it? Please. Nobody at Microsoft ever had a committed ideological opposition to Linux, it was a pragmatic decision based on what they perceived as a threat to their business. That certainly doesn’t negate the damage of all the shit they pulled, but it does mean that it is highly unlikely that they’re going to reverse course and start extinguishing Linux for ideological reasons now that they’ve figured out how to make money without Linux being the enemy.
  - coffekaesque 8y ago
    The problem is what they will do when they are at the top (or hitting rock bottom). Or when their stakeholders want to milk the cow. It's similar to how you don't want companies to have your personal data, even if you trust them "100%". When money becomes a problem, or a solution, you'll be their last priority. Some of the news about Windows 10 would be unthinkable a few years ago. Priorities change, and this company in particular has a history of being extremely hostile.
    - Analemma_ 8y ago
      You’re making a different argument here then the person I replied to though. solarengineer was implying that WSL is a plot to extinguish Linux, which is ridiculous. But that’s not saying that Microsoft is 100% trustworthy or that they will never do anything bad ever again. I’m only saying that the “sinister plan” for this one particular software component is to make Windows more useful to Unix-land developers, to try and get them to buy Windows PCs instead of the usual MacBook Pro. Notice how that explanation still assumes Microsoft is still doing it for their own financial benefit, but doesn’t require an agenda to destroy Linux. They have realized that this isn’t a zero-sum game.
      - gronne 8y ago
        I am convinced this is a “plot” to kill the linux desktop / keep people on windows. Its better, free and you control it - why would they not want to kill it.
        jrs95 8y ago
        Because almost nobody uses it so they don't care. The only reason they even made WSL was to compete with Mac, and make devices with odd hardware that didn't easily run desktop Linux (like Surface) more appealing to developers.
        pizzazzaro 8y ago
- nindalf 8y ago
  > Embrace, extend, extinguish. It's disappointing that literally anything that Microsoft does has this same comment right on top. Does it add anything to the discussion? We've all seen this comment at least a thousand times in the last 15 years. You haven't even taken the trouble to chalk out a plausible path for embracing and extending. Forget that, you haven't mentioned who they're embracing and extinguishing. At this point it's just repeating a tired meme for the sake of karma. Not calling you out in particular, but here are other tired HN memes that can be reliably milked for karma * If you're not paying, you're not the consumer, you're the product. * It can be difficult to explain to something to someone when their job depends on not understanding it * Joel Spolsky's article on rewrites
  - solarengineer 8y ago
    The various responses to my "embrace, extend, extinguish" got me thinking about why I continue to be apprehensive about Microsoft. Perhaps it is because of my experiences with Microsoft and their dirty ways. They have a history of screwing the user over. A bit of a rant/recall follows: I had lost content to a doublespace bug and was asked to pay for drive space via an MS DOS upgrade to 6.22, I have seen how Microsoft encouraged piracy in schools and colleges in India, how they have used FUD to suppress open source education and adoption efforts in the government and education spaces. I also recollect all the dirty stuff around Frontpage "extensions", IE extensions + IE's excessively forgiving tendencies to HTML violations and incorrectness, how MS took spyglass software and did bad things with it. Later, the Haloween Documents showed how MS said one thing in public and plotted another thing in private. They were Gurus of scheming behaviour. Then there was the Microsoft Windows tax, where you had to pay the Windows license fee even if you planned to run Linux on your computer. I also had to struggle with the MS Java, J++ rubbish. Microsoft used to do such bad things so deliberately. I also recall bad things around UEFI, around making it difficult for Linux distros to dual boot on laptops (which got resolved later). Recollecting all of the above doesn't make it easy for me just to accept that with some code releases and PR announcements, MS would have turned over a new leaf. People behave as they are measured. Satya Nadella is changing the public image of Microsoft, and even walking the talk. I learned just now on Wikipedia that he tripled MS stock, and that anonymous polls within MS have called him the best CEO of a US company. I am not an MS employee, so I won't know if he has managed to change the internal cultural tendency of being insincere and vicious (see above for examples). I'm just apprehensive that at the end of the day, he is just an employee. Employees can get fired anytime, overruled anytime. Perhaps I am being unfair to MS and Satya Nadella, and to all those MS employees who are giving their best. To them all - I apologise for my ill will.
- jrs95 8y ago
  Microsoft no longer sees Linux as a threat because it isn't a threat to their business anymore. Any damage that Linux can do has already been done and can't be changed. So few people use Linux on the desktop that they have no reason to even be worried in trying to prevent people from using it. All that would do is push developers back towards Mac, which is the opposite of what they're trying to accomplish. Microsoft has seen huge growth under Nadella, and that was accomplished through selling cloud services. Linux does not threaten this business model or the future of the company in any way. There's nothing to "Embrace, extend, extinguish".
executesorder66 8y ago
Here's a pile of feces with some gold in it. Why would you ever clean off the feces? ;)
gnulinux 8y ago
Absurd comment. Why have another operating system attached to my operating system? Aside from obvious reasons why this is a bad idea (performance, bloat, security, ads...) this sounds like an operational headache and any person doing this everyday would be reducing their productivity. If you wanna use Windows just use Windows. If you wanna use linux, just use that.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ohthehugemanate 8y ago

Can you explain what you mean? I don't see how open sourcing their UEFI implementation is in any way "bringing UEFI into windows".

kop316 8y ago
As a guy who (used to) dual boot, I think I can offer some insight. When I had Windows 10 dual booted with Linux, Windows had this extremely annoying habit of changing my UEFI boot order when it updated so that Windows was the first to boot, rather than Linux (where I can use GRUB to load Windows). I then had to manually revert the change at the bootloader. With this exposed, it would not surprise me if their "default" implementation is to make sure Windows boots first, and revert the UEFI boot up that upon every boot up. An average user will likely not be aware of that, or the heavy Linux user who only boots into Windows occasionally.
- ohthehugemanate 8y ago
  sure, bitlocker is a major pain on my dual boot device. But isn't that IMPROVED by open sourcing the implementation? It exposes that kind of stupid behavior, and for the implementation to be useful, that stuff can't be in there anyway. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what's being open sourced?
  - kop316 8y ago
    I'm not certain what is open sourced. What I saw is that Windows iis going to be able to access certain features of uefi, so they would be more standardized than anything. Also, I didn't even have bitlocker turned on, that was just Windows being a PITA with regards to daul booting