There’s a brouhaha about how motherboard maker Foxconn has tweaked its BIOS to not run Linux without a lot of tweaking. You can read about it here or at Slashdot here.
What I found interesting is a quote from Bill Gates about how he was mad that Linux was (and is) able to use ACPI found in computer BIOSes. He wrote in an email:
One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn’t try to make the “ACPI” extensions somehow Windows specific.
It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work.
Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me.
Maybe we could define the API’s so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.
And here’s the money quote:
Or maybe we could patent something related to this.
If that isn’t direct evidence that Gates and Microsoft are using patents to stop Linux, I don’t know what would be.
And before someone claims that Gates was merely protecting ACPI, it’s an open standard. In other words, it’s not his to protect.
#2 – So you do acknowledge that OS X is the OS to emulate and that MS must contend with? And all this time we just thought you were a fucking Vistard.
Not surprised. Just one of the sleazy tactics used by the scumbags at M$ to corner the market and stick the world with one of the worst OSs on the market. The M$ motto, if you can’t beat them, then cheat, bribe and lie.
Pedro, I bet you are a Mac user. Perhaps even a Mac dealer? What better way to start defensive replies on how superior Apple is to MS. Sales have never been better eh?
#1 you got that backwards. A Mac can run any os, they don’t like os x running on anything else.
M$ wishes they had that much control over hardware companies! But I don’t think they do, not anymore, manufacturers are tired of the strongarm tactics. Specially when their bottom line is adversely affected.
A klingon walks up to Bill Gatus of Borg, pulls out a phaser rifle, shouts out ‘ASSIMILATE THIS’, and … you can guess the rest…
“Bill Gates admits the real purpose of patents is to stop competition, not to protect innovation!”
Duh! That’s why we have patent law. It is to protect the patent holder for a finite amount of time so they can sell without competition. You didn’t know this is why we have patent laws?
Paddy-O said
“Bill Gates admits the real purpose of patents is to stop competition, not to protect innovation!”
Duh! That’s why we have patent law. It is to protect the patent holder for a finite amount of time so they can sell without competition. You didn’t know this is why we have patent laws?
Funny, according the Constitution of the United States, where I live:
Article 1, Section 7:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
As for your country….
J/P=?
Wow, people are talking as if this email was sent yesterday. The email dates back to 1999.
Every does that. IBM, APPLE, AT*T, Verizon, Lucent
Patent system is screwed up in USA!!!
I would too.
Also look at what happen to Tivo guy, he didn’t want to patent anything because he believe it stop innovation, and see what happened? Everybody start making crappyer DVR’s and consumers are stuck with them.
Wake up and welcome to 1999 you stupid windows bashing twats.
Gates just said what EVERYONE who works on OSes thinks “Wouldn’t it be great if we could use hardware features created for other systems on out own without having to do any work”.
MS does it, Apples does it and you stupid lintards do it!
Who the hell cares.
#8, Cow-Paddy,
It is to protect the patent holder for a finite amount of time so they can sell without competition.
Almost true. We also have Anti Trust legislation that prevents companies from using their market dominance to injure or prevent competition. Several times in the past large companies have been broken up because their business practices were not in America’s best interest and / or they stifled competition.
Second, the patent laws do not prevent competition, they acknowledge that a certain person / company owns a design or product and have exclusive rights to that product. Anyone may create a similar product that does not use the patent’s ideas.
#9 “by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;”
Umm, why do you think it says EXCLUSIVE and LIMITED time?
I said, “It is to protect the patent holder for a finite amount of time so they can sell without competition.”
Notice the similarity? Some people…
NT? Sure it’s the base for XP, but is NT for sale?
The patent laws are so messed up that the last I heard most software companies would like patents limited so they will have to fight fewer law suits.Congress won’t give cause disney owns them among other things.
Any way Apple stopped the mac clones which pretty much proves that Jobs and Gates agree about something.
Foxconn mobos are set up to NOT allow Linux to run? Where the hell did this come from? I’d sure like to read more about that!!
YOU DON’T KNOW THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE!!!!
ONCE YOU STEP DOWN THE PATH OF .NET THERE IS NO TURNING BACK!
There was a recent article indicating the Patent Office may soon be dropping all software patents.
Link
Judge Jewdy said I am an Apple fanboy\girl wawaw wawhwahwah Apple rules wahwahwaawa applewawahwhwh steve jobs wahwahwawa
“It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work.”
It seems unfortunate that Gates believes that only M$ does any “work”. As if Linux sprang out of thin air. Hundreds of coders have worked on it! And they’ve had to work around plenty of problems and stumbling blocks designed into PCes, by Microsoft and its “partners”. If Gates’ biggest regret is that they couldn’t make APIs abstruse enough that only Windows could use them? Then apparently he’s never given a rat’s ass about improving OS performance. He’s still conceiving of PC software as a means of monopolization, and NOT INNOVATION!
If world governments could be pressed to declare Personal Computing devices as a public resource (or something). So it can’t be proprietarily designed to exclude out users’ choices in software and use. Then a lot of this nonsense would cease. At what point do we stop treating the PC as a luxury item? That’s perfecting Ok for some monopoly to control it use? This collusion between Microsoft and chip makers, should be under US Government (if not International) scrutiny, at all times. The patent laws do not exist in order that patents should grow, multiple, and consume, like a cancer! I guess Gates considers himself the John D. Rockefeller of PCes. Developing his own “PC Trust”. I wonder how long before our anti-trust laws are updated and enforced again?