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Microsoft Taking Over the BIOS

Posted by michael on Fri Oct 03, 2003 05:38 PM
from the bios-ain't-done-till-linux-won't-run dept.
Microsoft Hardware
dtjohnson writes "According to this story, Microsoft has entered into an agreement with BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies to integrate the BIOS with Windows. This has the potential to turn PCs into Windows-only machines and also could result in widespread incorporation of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology into new PCs. It looks like Microsoft is beginning to flex their marketplace monopoly muscles again, after taking a couple of years off."
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  • Looks like we need to start checking to be sure our next motherboard's flash can be reprogrammed with LinuxBIOS [linuxbios.org].

    • How long? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pan T. Hose (707794) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:29PM (#7129104) Homepage Journal
      One only has to wonder how long before TCPA chip will refuse to load Linux BIOS loading only "trusted" Windows BIOS which will of course never load "untrusted" GNU OS. Truely scary perspective especially considering the fact that back in 1997 we all thought The Right to Read [google.pl] was a huge overexeggaration. I think it is time to renew my EFF membership. I believe everyone should do that instead of just complaining on Slashdot.

      • Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Informative)

        by Tauvix (97917) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:52PM (#7128791)
        According to the LinuxBIOS page, they have successfully booted Win2k off of LinuxBIOS.

        The biggest thing I see as a problem is the limited motherboard support of the project. However, I suspect that after the first one or two motherboards come out with this new MS-BIOS on it, community support for porting LinuxBIOS will increase.
          • Oh, yeah, I'm sure Dell and HP and Gateway and all the rest are going to LOVE a requirement to pay a Phoenix tax as well as the Microsoft tax! Not to mention what AMI and Award will think of this.

          • Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Tauvix (97917) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:13PM (#7128991)
            Ah, I may have misread.

            However, I think we'd be at least 5-7 years, and more likely 10 years, from that happening. It certianly won't be part of the Longhorn release. Here's my reasoning:

            1) The Longhorn release is nearly to the Beta stage, and we are likely more then a year off from seeing the first motherboards with this particular type of BIOS.

            2) Even if they wanted to try and lock people down into "You can only use Windows if you use MS-BIOS," there's still going to be the problem of backwards compatibility. Historically, Microsoft has wanted to push out OS upgrades to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. This means that it needs to be able to run on hardware manufactured during the lifetime of the previous incarnation of windows, if not the last two incarnations. For example, you can run Windows XP on hardware that ran Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, and Windows 2000...You may not be terribly happy with it, but you can do it.

            Yeah, there are ways around both of those, and they aren't the only reasons why I don't think we'll see that tight of required integration anytime soon.

            However, I do think now is the time to start looking at alternitives. LinuxBIOS is an option, however, it has quite a bit of work to go, and it doesn't have the corporate backing to make it happen that Phoenix and Microsoft can lever behind this.

            Much like with DRM, I am interested to see where this will go, and am avidly watching for more news, but until there are some more definate answers, that's all I'm going to do. I'm a network engineer. I don't have the technical skills to design an alternate technology, nor am I in a position where I can affect things politically (other then writing to my representives). I will continue to watch, learn, and comment where appropriate. :)

            • Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Informative)

              by willtsmith (466546) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:36PM (#7129149) Journal
              Don't forget about Dual-BIOS motherboards. One could be a WinBIOS, the other a Linux BIOS.

            • Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Interesting)

              by MarcQuadra (129430) * on Friday October 03 2003, @08:58PM (#7129893) Journal
              It's going to have to be much sooner than that to replace the PC BIOS with something more modern. There's really only so much you can do with an 8-bit BIOS (which is what we have now, right?). The BIOS should be somewhere you can check RAM and Disk integrity, set up TFTP sessions, simple boot scripts, and get a list of what's actually connected to the computer to pass to the kernel.

              OpenFirmware is absolutely INCREDIBLE, and if more companies were on-board it would get even better. On a Macintosh (O.F.) you just hold 'option' at boot and you get a menu of all bootable drives connected to the machine, be they FireWire, IDE, SCSI, or USB (actually USB is disabled out of sanity). You can get a device list even better than most Operating Systems can provide from OF.

              All that has to happen is a small system to give OF a GUI for general-purpose stuff that he BIOS handles now, like editing the time and some options. Also it would be nice to have extension APIs for disk checking and basic kernel argument-passing.

              LinuxBIOS isn't what you think it is, it's just a way to bypass the normal BIOS to pull a kernel off the network, it's not structurally capable of 'taking over' because it was designed from the beginning as a 'means to an end' for clustering. It has far LESS functionality than a typical BIOS, and the development lag time makes it infeasible for a mass switchover.

              We really need to make sure that the 64-bit motherboard manufacurers start using OpenFirmware, it's the perfect opportunity to facilitate a switch to a more modern and sane BIOS. If Microsoft gets involved we're SURE to see major problems and serous bloat on the board.

              • Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Interesting)

                by NanoGator (522640) on Friday October 03 2003, @07:14PM (#7129425) Homepage Journal
                "So...do you want to play games which happen to run under Windows, or do you really really want to run Windows?"

                Yes.

                ".for my purposes Windows is completely a throw away OS which I won't even give a second thought about reinstalling if it starts acting up (ala blue screens...etc)"

                I don't have the stability problems you problem imagine I'm having. I'm a 3D Artist. My computer has to be stable. It has to run in dual monitor mode. I have to be able to buy hardware from the store and get it up and running quickly. These are not things that Linux cannot do, but it is bonehead simple in Windows to get it all running. I do lots of rendering. I can't afford to lose time on a render. Niether Windows 2000 nor Lightwave has let me down. I don't come back on Monday to find that the render died on Saturday.

                "Since I wouldn't run Windows if my games ran under linux, I wouldn't say I want to use Windows...I instead want to play my games and Windows happens to be the only vehicle that will allow me to do that."

                Yes, you would say that. However, I have not found that Linux is quite there for me. Though it has become more attractive in recent months. I honestly feel I'll be running on it in 2004 or 2005. I'm not a Windows zealot, but I'm not going to switch to Linux just to flip off Microsoft.

                  • Re:Thank goodness for LinuxBIOS (Score:5, Insightful)

                    by NanoGator (522640) on Friday October 03 2003, @08:29PM (#7129766) Homepage Journal
                    "Most of slashdot is disillusioned, thinking windows is 100% shitty."

                    There's some truth to that. I'm sitting here using Windows 2000, but most of the Slashdotters stopped using Windows back at 95 or 98. Those OS's were 100% shitty. I will never defend either of them (or ME) because they really were incredibly unstable.

                    Then the switch to Linux happens, and nobody has sat down and used Windows 2000. So they have no idea that the stability is a hell of a lot greater (it's based on NT instead of DOS) or that work can actually be done about it.

                    I can't say I blame a lot of the peeps here who think the BSOD jokes are funny. I wish they'd understand that Windows development didn't suddenly stop in 1998, though.

  • bleh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 03 2003, @05:40PM (#7128653)
    so now the bios wont be reliable either?

      • Re:bleh (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jwilcox154 (469038) on Friday October 03 2003, @07:03PM (#7129378) Homepage Journal
        "Then again, some upstart company may do the same to Phoenix as they did to IBM when they 'made' BIOS :-)"

        One Problem with that, the DMCA. If the DMCA would have existed 20 Years ago, IBM would have sued Phoenix & Compaq under the DMCA, and PCs today would still cost over $5000, because IBM would be the only PC manufacturer around. In other words, if someone reverse Engineers the new M$ BIOS, they would have Phoenix & Microsoft suing them under the DMCA.

  • BIOS has a new meaning? (Score:5, Funny)

    by placeclicker (709182) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:42PM (#7128671) Journal
    Basic Insecure Operating System ?

  • Alternative (Score:5, Insightful)

    by shawkin (165588) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:44PM (#7128701)
    Say hello to Linux on PPC. Or, for that matter, some BSD flavor on PPC. Speaking of BSD, there's always the Mac OSX option.

      • Re:Alternative (Score:5, Informative)

        by cygnus (17101) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:14PM (#7128994) Homepage
        Why go from an x86 with propriety BIOS to PPC with propriety BIOS?

        what makes you think it's proprietary? it's not. it's called Open Firmware [sun.com] and it's an IEEE standard.

        Open, as in, not proprietary, and you can hack it yourself easily, if you feel like learning Forth.

  • JUST in the sake of fairness... (Score:5, Informative)

    by JayBlalock (635935) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:44PM (#7128703)
    I feel compelled to point out that there's nothing in the article SAYING the bios would prevent other OSes from being installed. Nor, from the description, there is no reason it would have to happen, unless it was deliberately implemented.

    MicroSoft is undoubtedly up to no good with this, but we don't need to go Chicken Little without a little more evidence...

    • With any other company I would hold off before passing judgement. However, Microsoft's long history of abuses makes it only natural to assume they WILL implement a windows-only BIOS. I'll take this one step further. Expect a future version of Windows to REQUIRE this BIOS, giving Microsoft an even tighter lock on the market.

    • Re:JUST in the sake of fairness... (Score:5, Funny)

      by DrEldarion (114072) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:59PM (#7128872) Homepage
      You forget that this is Slashdot. If Microsoft does ANYTHING, no matter how good it may be, the people here will accuse them of doing it for some nefarious purpose.

      Microsoft Cures Cancer
      Posted by michael on Friday October 03, @06:38PM
      from the You-know-they're-evil-just-admit-it dept.
      Anonymous Coward writes "Microsoft researchers have discovered the cure for cancer, and MS is paying for any cancer patient's medical treatment" Micro$oft is up to their same old tricks - this time exploiting the sick and feeble to further their own agenda. Have they no shame?

      -- Dr. Eldarion --
      • Microsoft Cures Cancer
        Posted by michael on Friday October 03, @06:38PM
        from the You-know-they're-evil-just-admit-it dept.
         Anonymous Coward writes "Microsoft researchers have discovered the cure for cancer, and MS is paying for any cancer patient's medical treatment" Micro$oft is up to their same old tricks - this time exploiting the sick and feeble to further their own agenda. Have they no shame?
        Well, actually, Micro$oft wouldn't exactly cure cancer, they'd put it into remission for two or three years. You'd have to purchase new and "improved" treatments each time it came out of remission, in order to live for a few more years.

        Oh, and they wouldn't be paying for the initial treatments out of the goodness of their hearts, but treatment would be funded by vouchers given to victims in prior settlments of court cases against MS.

    • Re:JUST in the sake of fairness... (Score:5, Funny)

      by kfg (145172) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:18PM (#7129028)
      Hey Honey?

      Yeah, that Dahmer character has invited us over for dinner.

      I know, I know. But that doesn't mean he's going to eat us.

      This time could be different.

      KFG

  • Apple is Different (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Balthisar (649688) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:49PM (#7128765) Homepage
    Apple has no BIOS on a chip anyware. Yes, there's Open Firmware, which is an open standard -- you're NOT locked into any type of control by Apple. You can run Linux on them. You have full control. THAT'S how it's different than Apple.

    Oh, you mean the old "Apple ROMs"? That's been ancient history for at least four years, maybe more. There's no more Mac ToolBox on ROM -- it's all loaded into memory from the hard drive.

    I am very, very concerned about this move. I run Linux on my Intel box with the current motherboard. Anyone got a good supply of fast PPC motherboards? I could do Linux that way, I guess....

  • DRM will be optional. (Score:5, Informative)

    by zeekiorage (545864) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:53PM (#7128805)

    Right at the end of the article you will notice that the users will have an option to turn off the DRM...

    Phoenix said the DRM-enabled CME was not part of Microsoft's NGSCB, but that the technology was complementary. The CME would allow PC makers to embed digital rights management directly into the hardware, though they would have the option of allowing users to turn it off.

    • Re:DRM will be optional. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DunbarTheInept (764) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:03PM (#7128913) Homepage

      [...]
      have the option of allowing users to turn it off.
      Unless *large number* of users do this, it won't help. Because what will happen is that more and more you will find media that refuses to run unless you have it turned on, and so your choice will be to leave it turned on, or never display any media again. And no amount of explaining the situation to the public will ever work. You'll say, "This sucks because it means I have to run only approved Windows software and I don't even want to run Windows" - and people will hear "Hi, I'm into piracy." And in the battle of public opinion, you can't beat the 500 pound elephant willing to lie.
    • Yeah, DRM will be optional for a while. But when 90% of users are switched over to Windows2007, then banks will start to require DRM enabled computers to do your financial transactions over the web (balance transfers, checking the mortage status, etc.). Then the Powers-That-Be(TM) will decide that in order to crack down on terrorists, all on-line banking transactions will have to use a computer with DRM (and it just so happens that all transactions will also be simulatneously logged on IRS computers). Then on-line retailers will get in the act. First the Amazon's and E-Bay's will start to require it to reduce fraud. Then the banks will stiff-arm *all* merchants to only allow credit card transactions from DRM enabled machines. Of course on-line bill paying will go the same way. And now since the majority of people have these computers, other web-site operators will start to think "What kind of 'hacker' is visiting my site without a properly 'secured' browser? And what kind of data mining can I do now that I have a guarenteed identity behind the computer that I can sell to someone else!" So as more companies start to jump on the bandwagon, Grandma complains, "Some ladies in my knitting circle can't see my blog!" So the blogging software companies have to also incorporate DRM. Finally, the only people left using non DRM computer will be linux enthusiasts and criminals/terrorists. And since these two groups are about equal in size it'll be about a 50% chance that any web-surfer using a non-DRM computer is a criminal. Finally, DRM will be mandated by law and all objectors will be (secretly) rounded up and quitely disposed of (via the Patriot VI Act). So I know that I sleep sound at night knowing that DRM is *optional*.
  • Is there a definitive point in time, a single event that started this all?

    DRM this, RIAA that, MPAA my freakin head is spinning. When did DRM become so damn vital to companies like these? Was it napster that freaked everyone?

    Because of all this crap, A friends ISP got shut down because someone complained to his upstream provider that one of his users was sharing software, no warning, no proof, no due process...crazy.

    I spend $6000 on an HDTV last year that is already obsolete because it doesnt have the flavor of the month DVI copyrite protection connector. Hey man, check out this bad ass new DVD player that upconverts to 1080i, oh what you dont have DVI with HDCP, oh im sorry youre fucked. We had the 15pin RGB connector, then component video, then firewire, then DVI, then DVI with HDCP, and now we have HDMI. make up your freakin minds.

    Or how about a cd I bought that would play in my high end REGA Jupiter cd player because it had copywrite protection.

    I upgraded my video card and had to reactivate Windows XP on my workstation at work. What a pain in the a$$ I paid for the windows license.

    This shit makes physically ill to the point where I want to start firebombing some of these companies.

    I obviously blame these corporations and industry groups, but what started it all? Why are they so convinced that anyone using a computer is out to ruin them.

    Why am I being affected by all this crap, I dont fileshare, I dont rip CDs for friend, I dont steal cable. Im a somewhat honest consumer, why am I getting nailed with all this crap that really isnt going to make ANY dent in actual piracy?

    Are you listening to me Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA, Sony, Adobe, Disney and all you other fuckers. You cant stop piracy, all youre doing is driving me freakin nutts, and Im your paying customer!!!

    • Re:Who do I blame for all this crap? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FractusMan (711004) * on Friday October 03 2003, @07:00PM (#7129349)
      There was no specific event, no. It has been happening ever since people found ways to pirate music/software. First software, I believe. It's been getting more and more important for companies to protect their products. First came CD keys for online play. People came up with CD key generators. Why? It's not to fight back against The Man, it's cause they want free software. Copyprotection right on the CD itself. Protection emulators (www.daemontools.org, I believe, is a good one, or any other disc image emulator). Again, it's not so you can emulate your favorite CD without having to switch CDs. The main purpose is so you can have a virtual CD of a game/program you may or may not own. It's an unspoken truth. The same with those game cracks you'll download. In the .nfo files, that little disclaimer that makes the software pirates seem like reasonable guys by saying "Buy the software! We did!" Yeah, and then you gave it away for free along with detailed instructions on how to make sure this illegal copy works. Great way to support the developers. More protections came up, more people helped crack them. I mean, there are good crackers and there are bad crackers. Good crackers are like Ritz and President's Choice. Bad crackers are those guys who make it harder for software creators of any sort to make money. So, it seems a pretty natural progression from my point of view. The "Man" is saying, "Okay, you want to play hardball, we'll play hardball." Bang, DRM comes into play. The same as always, it's the few ruining it for the many. Of course, it's not all one sided. Bad business practices, muscle flexing of niche markets, unneccesary distrust of the public... They're all factors too. But do NOT fool yourself into thinking DRM was purely some kind of evil scheme to Get Your Money.

    • Re:Who do I blame for all this crap? (Score:5, Funny)

      by buckminster (170559) on Friday October 03 2003, @08:08PM (#7129672) Homepage
      Let me get this straight, you've got the money to drop $6k on a HDTV and now you're in the mood to start firebombing companies?

      Ladies and gentlemen, the revolution has begun.

  • Some thoughts... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jugalator (259273) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:03PM (#7128910) Journal
    "The BIOS would also allow better control of unauthorised devices connected to a system, Microsoft said."

    Why is a protection against "unauthorized devices" suddenly necessary on BIOS-level? Has anyone even been victim of a device that should really have been "unauthorized" (whatever that means in this case) that has been connected to a PC? It sounds like they're talking about hardware, and that's what's puzzling me. Are Microsoft telling us that future devices might be set as "unauthorized" because they don't fulfill Microsoft's demands and standards for an authorized device, or what?

    Are Microsoft's customers saying "we should be able to protect ourself against unauthorized hardware" (I'm not hearing anyone), or are Microsoft just trying to shove a new feature down their throats because they need it for their plans?

    "Phoenix's Core System Software (CSS) is a next-generation BIOS with a more sophisticated integration of operating system and hardware, for example making it easier for system administrators to remotely monitor the hardware configurations of their systems."

    As with all computer software, complexity increases the chance of bugs and often also security exploits. How can Microsoft and Phoenix assure these "enhancements" to the BIOS don't do this? They can't? Well, then we might have an interesting future with really messy exploits ahead (with potential for viruses to gain direct hardware access and control), and also BIOS crashes due to the added complexity.

  • Not overly concerned... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Junta (36770) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:21PM (#7129048)
    Maybe a few years ago, this would be frightening, but as it stands, it is far too late to fear the PC industry being locked into Windows. Even if you think the home user base is unimportant, IBM, Dell, HPaq, Sun, Racksaver, and others have a significant investment in Linux in particular, and even if MS managed to get all the current independent motherboard companies on board for this, most any of those players would easily overcome it to keep the Linux revenue stream going.

    You have Clustering, server farms, web hosting, and a not so insignificant workstation and desktop market that is heavily leaning in the direction of linux (dominating the first three, and making very serious inroads into workstations and power user desktops). That's a whole lot of revenue for the likes of the big companies to just shrug and give up at Microsoft's whim.

  • New MS BIOS source code leaked! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LesPaul75 (571752) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:41PM (#7129189) Journal
    Here it is!

    F000:E05B call check_for_linux
    F000:E061 jc do_error_beep_and_halt
    F000:E063 nop
    F000:E064 nop
    F000:E065 nop
    F000:E066 int 19
    All kidding aside... I write BIOS code for a living, and this scares the crap out of me. What Microsoft wants is to basically eliminate the BIOS, except for the jump to the OS code (the "int 19" above). Windows already does just about everything that we do in the BIOS, like PCI device enumeration, etc...

    No doubt, this would make Microsoft's life a lot more simple, but I think it would give them too much control -- way too much. DRM would just be the start of it.

    I wonder what the EFI proponents (Intel) think about this deal...

  • DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlimFastForYou (578183) <konsoleman AT yahoo DOT com> on Friday October 03 2003, @07:21PM (#7129463) Journal
    I can see all the thick-skulled cops now..

    "Sonny, you clearly circumvented technological security mechanisms by using illegal software (MS didn't give it a run-license) to install Linux. You clearly broke the law and now it's federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison for you. Don't drop the soap, sucker! I despise scum like you."

    I hope people will keep in mind what legislation of technology does when they whine to their congressmen about spam. When you beg the government to make certain emails illegal, they have to define "illegal email". Now are you sure you would like the US Congress to define "illegal email" _for you_?

  • Simple and More Reliable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Bruha (412869) on Friday October 03 2003, @07:22PM (#7129465) Journal
    "Microsoft said integration should mean simpler and more reliable computers."

    I cant believe in the face of every virus MS has been responsible for spreading or allowing to spread due to crappy code they think a BIOS with MS system calls in it wont be a problem.

    I can see the next ms.blaster worm that wipes your bios requireing you to replace the ROM.

    • Re:Well (Score:4, Funny)

      by donutz (195717) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:41PM (#7128668) Homepage Journal
      I, for one, welcome our new BIOS controlling overlords.

      I, for one, welcome the day when people realize that joke just isn't funny anymore.

      All your overload joke are belong to us!

    • Could you explain? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FreeLinux (555387) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:50PM (#7128772)
      Could you explain to me exactly who the lot of companies are? It is my belief that corporations as a whole will either not care at all or will regard this as a very good and important feature that will allow their operating system of choice(Windows) to operate more reliably and securely thanks to DRM and Trusted Computing blah blah blah

      Most corporations will welcome this with open arms.

      • Re:Could you explain? (Score:5, Funny)

        by SkArcher (676201) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:56PM (#7128842) Journal
        Mmmmm, want to go and tell that to Valve?

      • Re:Could you explain? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by King_TJ (85913) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:29PM (#7129110) Homepage Journal
        I think it's still too early to tell if this is a good or a bad thing. It all depends on how its implemented.

        If Microsoft uses it to let companies build "Windows only" PCs or to enforce their form of DRM, then I suspect most I.T. managers and staff will realize it's *NOT* a good thing.
        (Even if I work for a company that runs all Windows products on the desktop today, that doesn't mean I'd prefer products that don't let me have any other alternatives.) As computers age, they tend to become good candidates for alternate OS's - even in environments using strictly Windows on the user desktops. (If you're not going to elminiate your current crop of dated Pentium 1 and 2 systems, for example, they still make good Linux web servers or print servers. They also make good pseudo thin clients running the Citrix ICA connector. (You can still do that even under plain old MS-DOS, with some limitations, and serve Windows 2000 or XP desktops to an old 486.)

      • No win here for major PC vendors! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Masarand (598211) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:30PM (#7129113)
        I work for a Fortune 500 that wouldn't touch this. We run Linux, OpenBSD on 100's of machines. I don't suppose IBM, HP and many others would go for a Windows-only BIOS.

        This in turn means that Dell et al will either

        • Offer a choice of BIOS (Windows or open) with all the support issues that entails.
        • Only ship the new BIOS if it support Linux and friends
        • Lose a few major customers (yeah, right.)

    • Re:Its a two-way street... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by yanestra (526590) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:51PM (#7128783) Journal
      Besides, if the BIOS "API's" are available to Windows, how long do you REALLY think it will take for open-source developers to reverse engineer it?
      I beg your pardon, isn't it illegal to crack digitally protected media? -- And I'm sure, it will be digitally protected.

      Years of lobby work finally pay off - in the USA like in Europe.

    • Re:Is this bad? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ydnar (946) on Friday October 03 2003, @05:53PM (#7128809) Homepage
      Macs havent had a BIOS for years--not in the traditional sense anyway. They use Open Firmware, an architecturally-neutral BIOS replacement (originally?) developed by Sun. It's pretty nifty...

      More info here [sun.com].

    • Re:Is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by doorbot.com (184378) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:06PM (#7128928) Journal
      The BIOS OS integration on the Mac has always been a thing of beauty, and it makes sense that M$ would (after 20 years) start to catch up by now.

      Except Apple sells PCs and Microsoft doesn't. Apple also used a customized version of OpenFirmware (stripped down version of Sun's OF, IIRC), while Microsoft is making it's own BIOS. Microsoft isn't catching up, they're trying to drag the whole PC market into their realm of control.

    • Re:Maybe I'm lost (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gilroy (155262) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:00PM (#7128887) Homepage Journal
      Blockquoth the poster:

      But the paranoia involving all motherboards in the future to require Windows is obsurd because that is the sort of thing the justice department would not allow Microsoft/Motherboard manufactorers to do.

      Of course. Because this Justice Department has shown itself to be the ever-vigilant foe of monopolies, Microsoft in particular. It only took a six-year, multimillion dollar lawsuit among a dozen states and the federal government to end up causing Microsoft to do exactly nothing...
      Don't look to the DoJ to fix these wrongs -- Microsoft has the $$.

    • Re:Same as what Apple does (Score:5, Informative)

      by moof1138 (215921) on Friday October 03 2003, @09:52PM (#7130169)
      "Apple's special BIOS" is called Open Firmware. And it is called 'Open' for a reason - it is a documented open standard (IEEE 1257) that Apple implemented. Sun and IBM amonug others also use Open Firmware on their systems - it is enough of a standard that Apple engineers have referred people to Sun's docs on Open Firmware on the listservs in the past. The Mac OS may need Open Firmware to boot, but there is nothing preventing anyone from bootstrapping any other OS, and various PPC Linuxes and BSDs all use OF to bootstrap.

        • Re:Same as what Apple does (Score:5, Interesting)

          by GutBomb (541585) on Friday October 03 2003, @06:47PM (#7129247) Homepage
          they don't BLOCK the booting of OS 9. The ability to boot OS 9 was holding back the hardware development so they scrapped that ability. It's not like they said "ok, let's fuck the users of new machines that wish to use OS 9". they just thought that better hardware was more important than backwards compatibility with an obsolete operating system

        • Re:Same as what Apple does (Score:5, Interesting)

          by TheCrazyFinn (539383) on Friday October 03 2003, @07:30PM (#7129507) Homepage
          Actually the OS9 restriction is at the OS Level. Apple simply didn't write a new System Enabler for the latest revision of their core chipsets. without that, OS 9 can't boot on the new Hardware.

          This was done to forcibly EOL OS 9.2.2

        • Re:Except (Score:5, Insightful)

          by 3terrabyte (693824) on Friday October 03 2003, @11:07PM (#7130489) Journal
          You mean goodbye upgrades.

          We'll still be able to hack away on our (ever increasingly) obsolete computers.

          Also, take a look at the 8-bit computer enthusiasts. These guys know every inch of their 8-bit computers, and can make them sing. You can probably build one from scratch from common chip parts. The 80886? (err...i'm drunk) Assembly is out there forever, and we can always program on that.

          My point is, that even though our dual 3 GHz machines will become obsolete by the time your prediction comes true, we can always hobble along on our own computers. What it takes engineers at Intel to make today, they'll be teaching high schoolers in 20 years. (see 8-bit paragraph above)

          Due to saving money for a house, I have been hobbling along on my 400mhz AMD computer since I built it in '98. Can't play the new games on it, but I can still rip & encode [my] CD's and DVD movies on it. Just what the RIAA and MPAA wouldn't want me to do today.

          All I'm saying is that your prediction of comptuer armageddon isn't going to happen so quickly or overnight. Blu-ray discs are coming out 'real-soon-now' for the last 2 years. Your 3 years? 5 years? is probably more like 8 years, 10 years. Scared of the BIOS market being stolen by M$? I envision Open-BIOS becoming a reality. Chip burners are becoming cheaper and more common. We can make our own. Or know someone that does. Also marketplace ca$h is what's going to drive all this. China/Malaysia pirate capital of the world will be the last place that moves to DRM. They'll continue to fill the market with non-DRM bios because there WILL be a market for that for a while. Thus add another 2-3 years to your armaggedon date.

      • Re:history and Compaq (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gothicpoet (694573) on Saturday October 04 2003, @01:26AM (#7130968) Homepage Journal
        Except if the BIOS being part of Windows is deemed to be a means of securing Windows and/or encrypted, does that not then put it under the wings of the DMCA?

        And thus illegal to reverse engineer?

        Yeah, it's like IBM all over again... except that this time the law says that no one could reverse engineer a way out of the monopoly lock-in!

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