6 ms·

I am a bit fuzzy on the details, but I think I recall Microsoft charging OEMs for selling devices without an OS installed. So some vendors have gotten into the

by krylon 5y ago

I am a bit fuzzy on the details, but I think I recall Microsoft charging OEMs for selling devices without an OS installed. So some vendors have gotten into the habit of selling devices with FreeDOS preinstalled. One of my laptops came with FreeDOS preinstalled, and it was about € 50,- cheaper than the version with Windows. Being a Linux person, I gladly took the discount. I did run into a use case where FreeDOS was insufficient, though - in my last job, our automation people were maintaining an industrial plant whose SCADA software ran on DOS. I have no clue what they did, but apparently it would only run well on MS-DOS. One of our engineers suspected that timing issues regarding the serial port played a role, but in the end, we never found out. I installed MS-DOS 6.22 on two machines, and that was the end of it. I got a kick out of it, though. Imagine installing an early 1990s OS on late 1990s hardware in ~2016.

rgacote 5y ago
Worked at an OEM and Microsoft charged a license fee for every processor out the door regardless of whether the system had DOS, Novell, or nothing at all installed.
- grishka 5y ago
  Why was this legal?
  - burnte 5y ago
    Eventually it wasn't under the antitrust settlement.
- ginko 5y ago
  How can this be? How can they charge licensing for a device that doesn't contain any MS software?
  - przemub 5y ago
    They would force such a licence agreement on every OEM, small or large. There was a lot more dirty tricks involved to monopolize the market. Look up BeOS history, for example. The OEMs installed BeOS on a second partition, and they could not show it in the bootloader, because of these agreements. Microsoft and Bill Gates built their position on pure evil.
    - bruce511 5y ago
      Microsoft was a big player, and certainly had clout, but the word "force" is inaccurate. To answer the grand-parent-post, they got a license per CPU because the retailers _agreed_ to that model. MS would argue that every cpu sold ran an MS operating system (legal or illegal) so licensing the CPU made it cheaper for legit users (ie lower price) and pirate users ultimately paid as well. This left other OSs out in the cold but the number of actual legit users installing something else was a rounding error. Shops could _choose_ to just sell dos or windows when the customer wanted it, but they paid a higher price via that model, so few (if any) shops went that way. MS certainly played lots of dirty tricks but OEM pricing is not really dirty, it's just sensible business when you have that sort of market dominance and your software is pirated so heavily.
      - trulyme 5y ago
        > This left other OSs out in the cold but the number of actual legit users installing something else was a rounding error. Isn't that the whole point? They forced the OEMs to drop other OSs by abusing their monopoly position. If this is not dirty I don't know what is. But yes, MS has plenty of other dirty moves in their past. I don't trust them one bit, even with their new clothes on.
      - nix23 5y ago
        >retailers _agreed_ to that model. I fix it for you: Had to agree otherwise not a single Windows license for your company in your lifetime for a reasonable price anymore.
        bruce511 5y ago
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - krylon 5y ago
    Because they can. Or could anyway. I agree it's not fair. But money makes the world go 'round, as they say.
  - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
    Because the reality is that the OEM doesn't want to track OS installations and Microsoft doesn't want to audit that tracking. With per-CPU licensing, the OEM can just say "here's our invoices from Intel".
    - mixmastamyk 5y ago
      When they already track configurations on their orders page?
      - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
        The "per-CPU" policies were primarily at issue ~20-25 years ago. Most of the big OEMs didn't even offer significant customization unless you were buying for a whole office or organization.
  - bitwize 5y ago
    Because it was either agree to those terms, or don't license Windows -- by an enormous margin the most popular PC OS -- for OEM distribution at all.
    - badsectoracula 5y ago
      Or MS-DOS. I was reading a book on Microsoft's history and they did that back in the DOS days: any IBM PC clone that was sold had to pay for the MS-DOS license regardless of if the PC would be running MS-DOS or not. So unless someone explicitly asked for DR-DOS (and was fine to pay for both the MS-DOS and the DR-DOS license since the former would need to be paid anyway), manufacturers just used MS-DOS because it was "cheaper" (and with MS-DOS being the "standard" it isn't like they could afford to not license it). The book was written in 1993 btw.
abrowne 5y ago
My understanding is that it's more a way to sell a computer for people who don't want a bundled OS, but without it really having no OS. This way the new computer will at least start up to something instead of an error message that can potentially imply storage failure. Edit: Especially since some of these purchasers are not technically-minded Linux users, who can handle a blank disk error, but people who want to use their (ahem) specially-aquired Windows licenses. My current home computer is an HP EliteBook I custom ordered with FreeDOS to install Linux on. (Also got the matte touchscreen!)
bityard 5y ago
You could be right, but my likewise fuzzy recollection was that the contract that OEMs had with MS said that every PC that was sold had to have an OS on it. Because the implication was that a PC sold without an OS was likely to have a pirated version of windows installed by an end user. The contract didn't say that it had to have a Microsoft OS because they were a little leery of anti-trust accusations at the time. Very few OEMs used the FreeDOS loophole because they would go out of business if MS decided to pull the OEM contract.
grishka 5y ago
I've heard an explanation that they sell laptops with FreeDOS because in some places it's illegal to sell a preassembled computer with no OS. The expectation is that, yes, you would wipe it and install Linux, because most of the hardware in the thing doesn't even have DOS drivers. Some OEMs don't sell laptops with DOS, but instead have a procedure where you can "return" the Windows license that came with it and get a refund.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  I think there’s a carve out for alternate DOS environments due to some litigation over DR-DOS and PC-DOS. IIRC, its a Compaq thing that came over when HP bought them. Also, I don’t think DOS can connect to AD. Otherwise, Microsoft’s terms are basically anything that isn’t an ATM machine, server or IoT needs a windows license. In enterprise agreements, you need to buy Windows licenses for MacOS devices too.
  - grishka 5y ago
    > In enterprise agreements, you need to buy Windows licenses for MacOS devices too. Why would you tell Microsoft that you've bought some Macs? It's not like they're the IRS, they're just a company. They have no business to know any of this.
    - Spooky23 5y ago
      When you enter into an EA, you agree to report annually on the census of devices that meet that criteria. Also, you need CALs to use Windows server based services like AD and file servers (unless you’re using a NAS)
      - grishka 5y ago
        Well, if those devices use Windows server based services, then it makes more sense. But if they do not, Microsoft would have no way to know about their existence.
VLM 5y ago
Interrupt latency. On dos you own the machine down to bare metal for better or worse, usually worse, but software only slows things down. I suspect if you stuck a protocol analyzer on it you'll find one of three situations: Someone did simplistic polling instead of a windowing protocol so increased latency makes the overall system unusably slow. 0.1 ms vs 10 ms per handshake is not noticeable to humans but if your scada sequentially polls 10000 parameters thats the difference between a poll taking 1 second or about two minutes... The other scenario is keep alive signaling where the computer needs to assure the CNC machine that its still alive and sane every 10 ms or the controller initiates an emergency shutdown. Can't have a giant lathe or printing press running off wild not under active computer control. So windows wants to multitask and do who knows what for 50 ms, and the scada shuts down. The final situation is they're doing something "weird" at the hardware level like signaling over the control pins instead of over the serial ports. Like toggling the RS-232 DSR pin turns on the milling machine motor for 10 ms instead of sending a serial RX/TX power command every 10 ms. Windows opinion of DSR, IIRC, is DSR means the serial port driver registered in windows and is not available to end users. Been a long time since I've had to deal with that so I might misremember.
- boznz 5y ago
  DOS and BIOS had some pretty crappy interrupt calls for Serial port access and as DOS was single threaded and you could hang the PC if not careful. In timing critical cases you were safer accessing the serial controller directly.. Of course strictly verboten under any real OS and one of the reasons a lot of older timing critical software was problematic to move to windows or other hardware.
  - deadlyllama 5y ago
    Not just timing critical stuff. BIOS calls for serial were slow, character at a time. If you wanted to fill a buffer and keep processing you wrote your own interrupt driven serial code or used a good library. No serious software on DOS would use the BIOS serial code. This sort of thing was just normal. No multitasking so you had full control of the hardware. Third party libraries or custom code for serial, sound, graphics, often keyboard. Drop into assembly for extra speed. DOS was basically a library for filesystem access, process creation and limited memory management! I still have 1.193180Mhz burned in my brain...
lloydatkinson 5y ago
How is it possible for them to charge them for not having an OS at all?
- AdrianB1 5y ago
  It's been long since, so I don't remember all the details, but it was a government anti-piracy regulation at that time in some countries that you either ship with another OS or you pay MS because practically all computers sold without an OS were used with some pirated MS OS. Such laws existed and may still exist, I remember Germany had some tax on CD-RW disc sales because "they were used also for piracy". All it took was "lobby" at the right level of government.

by krylon 5y ago

rgacote 5y ago

Worked at an OEM and Microsoft charged a license fee for every processor out the door regardless of whether the system had DOS, Novell, or nothing at all installed.

grishka 5y ago
Why was this legal?
- burnte 5y ago
  Eventually it wasn't under the antitrust settlement.
ginko 5y ago
How can this be? How can they charge licensing for a device that doesn't contain any MS software?
- przemub 5y ago
  They would force such a licence agreement on every OEM, small or large. There was a lot more dirty tricks involved to monopolize the market. Look up BeOS history, for example. The OEMs installed BeOS on a second partition, and they could not show it in the bootloader, because of these agreements. Microsoft and Bill Gates built their position on pure evil.
  - bruce511 5y ago
    Microsoft was a big player, and certainly had clout, but the word "force" is inaccurate. To answer the grand-parent-post, they got a license per CPU because the retailers _agreed_ to that model. MS would argue that every cpu sold ran an MS operating system (legal or illegal) so licensing the CPU made it cheaper for legit users (ie lower price) and pirate users ultimately paid as well. This left other OSs out in the cold but the number of actual legit users installing something else was a rounding error. Shops could _choose_ to just sell dos or windows when the customer wanted it, but they paid a higher price via that model, so few (if any) shops went that way. MS certainly played lots of dirty tricks but OEM pricing is not really dirty, it's just sensible business when you have that sort of market dominance and your software is pirated so heavily.
    - trulyme 5y ago
      > This left other OSs out in the cold but the number of actual legit users installing something else was a rounding error. Isn't that the whole point? They forced the OEMs to drop other OSs by abusing their monopoly position. If this is not dirty I don't know what is. But yes, MS has plenty of other dirty moves in their past. I don't trust them one bit, even with their new clothes on.
    - nix23 5y ago
      >retailers _agreed_ to that model. I fix it for you: Had to agree otherwise not a single Windows license for your company in your lifetime for a reasonable price anymore.
      - bruce511 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- krylon 5y ago
  Because they can. Or could anyway. I agree it's not fair. But money makes the world go 'round, as they say.
- 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
  Because the reality is that the OEM doesn't want to track OS installations and Microsoft doesn't want to audit that tracking. With per-CPU licensing, the OEM can just say "here's our invoices from Intel".
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    When they already track configurations on their orders page?
    - 0xcde4c3db 5y ago
      The "per-CPU" policies were primarily at issue ~20-25 years ago. Most of the big OEMs didn't even offer significant customization unless you were buying for a whole office or organization.
- bitwize 5y ago
  Because it was either agree to those terms, or don't license Windows -- by an enormous margin the most popular PC OS -- for OEM distribution at all.
  - badsectoracula 5y ago
    Or MS-DOS. I was reading a book on Microsoft's history and they did that back in the DOS days: any IBM PC clone that was sold had to pay for the MS-DOS license regardless of if the PC would be running MS-DOS or not. So unless someone explicitly asked for DR-DOS (and was fine to pay for both the MS-DOS and the DR-DOS license since the former would need to be paid anyway), manufacturers just used MS-DOS because it was "cheaper" (and with MS-DOS being the "standard" it isn't like they could afford to not license it). The book was written in 1993 btw.

abrowne 5y ago

My understanding is that it's more a way to sell a computer for people who don't want a bundled OS, but without it really having no OS. This way the new computer will at least start up to something instead of an error message that can potentially imply storage failure. Edit: Especially since some of these purchasers are not technically-minded Linux users, who can handle a blank disk error, but people who want to use their (ahem) specially-aquired Windows licenses. My current home computer is an HP EliteBook I custom ordered with FreeDOS to install Linux on. (Also got the matte touchscreen!)

bityard 5y ago

You could be right, but my likewise fuzzy recollection was that the contract that OEMs had with MS said that every PC that was sold had to have an OS on it. Because the implication was that a PC sold without an OS was likely to have a pirated version of windows installed by an end user. The contract didn't say that it had to have a Microsoft OS because they were a little leery of anti-trust accusations at the time. Very few OEMs used the FreeDOS loophole because they would go out of business if MS decided to pull the OEM contract.

grishka 5y ago

I've heard an explanation that they sell laptops with FreeDOS because in some places it's illegal to sell a preassembled computer with no OS. The expectation is that, yes, you would wipe it and install Linux, because most of the hardware in the thing doesn't even have DOS drivers. Some OEMs don't sell laptops with DOS, but instead have a procedure where you can "return" the Windows license that came with it and get a refund.

Spooky23 5y ago
I think there’s a carve out for alternate DOS environments due to some litigation over DR-DOS and PC-DOS. IIRC, its a Compaq thing that came over when HP bought them. Also, I don’t think DOS can connect to AD. Otherwise, Microsoft’s terms are basically anything that isn’t an ATM machine, server or IoT needs a windows license. In enterprise agreements, you need to buy Windows licenses for MacOS devices too.
- grishka 5y ago
  > In enterprise agreements, you need to buy Windows licenses for MacOS devices too. Why would you tell Microsoft that you've bought some Macs? It's not like they're the IRS, they're just a company. They have no business to know any of this.
  - Spooky23 5y ago
    When you enter into an EA, you agree to report annually on the census of devices that meet that criteria. Also, you need CALs to use Windows server based services like AD and file servers (unless you’re using a NAS)
    - grishka 5y ago
      Well, if those devices use Windows server based services, then it makes more sense. But if they do not, Microsoft would have no way to know about their existence.

VLM 5y ago

Interrupt latency. On dos you own the machine down to bare metal for better or worse, usually worse, but software only slows things down. I suspect if you stuck a protocol analyzer on it you'll find one of three situations: Someone did simplistic polling instead of a windowing protocol so increased latency makes the overall system unusably slow. 0.1 ms vs 10 ms per handshake is not noticeable to humans but if your scada sequentially polls 10000 parameters thats the difference between a poll taking 1 second or about two minutes... The other scenario is keep alive signaling where the computer needs to assure the CNC machine that its still alive and sane every 10 ms or the controller initiates an emergency shutdown. Can't have a giant lathe or printing press running off wild not under active computer control. So windows wants to multitask and do who knows what for 50 ms, and the scada shuts down. The final situation is they're doing something "weird" at the hardware level like signaling over the control pins instead of over the serial ports. Like toggling the RS-232 DSR pin turns on the milling machine motor for 10 ms instead of sending a serial RX/TX power command every 10 ms. Windows opinion of DSR, IIRC, is DSR means the serial port driver registered in windows and is not available to end users. Been a long time since I've had to deal with that so I might misremember.

boznz 5y ago
DOS and BIOS had some pretty crappy interrupt calls for Serial port access and as DOS was single threaded and you could hang the PC if not careful. In timing critical cases you were safer accessing the serial controller directly.. Of course strictly verboten under any real OS and one of the reasons a lot of older timing critical software was problematic to move to windows or other hardware.
- deadlyllama 5y ago
  Not just timing critical stuff. BIOS calls for serial were slow, character at a time. If you wanted to fill a buffer and keep processing you wrote your own interrupt driven serial code or used a good library. No serious software on DOS would use the BIOS serial code. This sort of thing was just normal. No multitasking so you had full control of the hardware. Third party libraries or custom code for serial, sound, graphics, often keyboard. Drop into assembly for extra speed. DOS was basically a library for filesystem access, process creation and limited memory management! I still have 1.193180Mhz burned in my brain...

lloydatkinson 5y ago

How is it possible for them to charge them for not having an OS at all?

AdrianB1 5y ago
It's been long since, so I don't remember all the details, but it was a government anti-piracy regulation at that time in some countries that you either ship with another OS or you pay MS because practically all computers sold without an OS were used with some pirated MS OS. Such laws existed and may still exist, I remember Germany had some tax on CD-RW disc sales because "they were used also for piracy". All it took was "lobby" at the right level of government.