You’d think this sort of stuff belonged to the past – but no. Apparently, Microsoft is afraid of Android on its Windows 8 tablets, because Intel has just announced that it will provide no support for Linux on its clover Trail processors. Supposedly, this chip is “designed for Windows 8”. What?
Yes, what – I think that’s a pretty reasonable reaction here. Intel has been relatively forward with its support for Linux, and I don’t think the chipmaker has ever specifically said a regular x86 chip is designed for one particular operating system. As said, the chip is regular x86, so there’s no reason it wouldn’t run Linux – sure, there are some added power states, but that’s nothing Linux can’t add support for.
Intel didn’t want to address why, specifically, it won’t support Linux, but it did explain that the operating system needs to “hint” the processor about power states, and that Linux didn’t support these. This is, of course, all smoke and mirrors; Intel could easily detail the specifications so Linux can add support for it.
As such, I would say this is nothing but a deal with Microsoft to make it harder for Android to run on this platform. While the lack of support won’t deter a single enthusiast (Linux will eventually run on this just fine), it will make it impossible for OEMs to build Clover Trail machines for Android.
It’s all pretty pathetic, really. Yet another regression in the technology industry.
I am not sure this actually prevents OEMs from building Clover Trail systems. It just means the OEM would have to take the burden of certifying compatibility. That compatibility would come slower if Intel is not cooperative with the linux community.
If it is the result of a MS deal…. slowing down linux/android may be all MS hoped to accomplish.
Now I suppose that Intel could add DRM that actively prevents linux from working on those chips.
It seems like a poor plan for a chipmaker to actively limit their potential market…. even if MS dropped cash on your doorstep.
Edited 2012-09-14 23:09 UTC
A poor plan and, if it’s an hidden exclusive deal, maybe also an illegal one.
Its more likely it doesn’t have a thing to do with MS and has everything to do with IP. Its pretty well known that Intel has been using PowerVR IGPs in many of its mobile processors and PowerVR really couldn’t care less about Linux support.
So what is Intel supposed to do? The IGPs they have in the core series will blow the power budget, their other in house IGP suck, so that pretty much leaves the PowerVR team.
If Linux would have gotten more than 1% of the market this wouldn’t have happened, but getting the devs on the same page is like herding cats so give it up, Intel had to make a call and take the best they could get that would support the most consumers. After all its not like they could call up Nvidia after they shafted them out of the IGP business could they?
Really, Android and Linux Servers only have a 1% market share. TIL
This is the classic FOSSies move called “moving the goalposts” and is frankly bull.
Android is a proprietary OS owned by Google, it has as much to do with FOSS as OSX, and servers? Not gonna be running Atom chips, especially not one designed for tablets and netbooks.
So just to be clear we are not talking about your router, cell phone, or the cluster at CERN, okay? Geez what is it with you guys acting like religious whackos and refusing to stay on topic? And if you would like a link to share to back me up? All you had to do is ask..
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qp…
If you will kindly look at the actual figures you’ll see WinVista, the most HATED MS OS since WinME, has FIVE times the share of Linux. In fact up until last quarter JavaME actually had you beat by .04%.
So I’m sorry but why should Intel care about an OS that has 1.05% share in the consumer market, the market this chip is aimed at? Answer they shouldn’t, because obviously not enough people buy your product to make it worth caring about.
But don’t blame me, I’m just stating facts. if you don’t like it quit letting the devs get away with murder and demand a better product. that’s how the free market works you know, if you offer a good product you do good, a bad product does bad. Even MS isn’t immune to that, see Vista.
I would not of disagreed with you if you had said Linux on the desktop but you blanket statement that Linux as a whole has 1% share is incorrect. Feel free to continue your rant below.
Do we REALLY have to spell such things out when we are talking about CONSUMER chips now? Really? Since i got modded down by the groupthinkers i guess so.
But you show me ONE, just one mind you, company that offers Linux servers running Clovertrail and I’ll be happy to retract, but since we are all supposed to be logical thinking adults here and the entire article is talking about a tablet chip I honestly didn’t believe i had to put out that a consumer chip is not gonna target an OS that has 1.05% of the consumer market.
But YOU know and I know that it was really just moving the goalposts, C’mon, be honest. We see this in every single article that has anything to do with Linux desktops, we’ll get “But Linux has server share” which has exactly diddly and squat to do with the topic at hand. This chip isn’t aimed at servers, routers, or HPC, this is aimed at consumer devices and on X86 Linux has done VERY poorly, this isn’t exactly earth shattering news here.
This chip is aimed at low power consumer devices, like phones and tablets… Linux is actually doing very well in this space in the form of Android.
This is a profoundly false statement. Android is available under a very liberal license with full source and all tools needed to build it. It’s development model may be closed, but that doesn’t mean that the finished product is proprietary. You could take Android and fork it today into a new OS. That’s the very essence of being open-source.
The statement “owned by Google” is untrue as well. Nobody “owns” a piece of software, software isn’t tangible goods. Rather, one owns the copyright to a piece of software. And even if take it that you meant that Google owns the copyright to Android, that’s potentially untrue as well. Depending on how you define Android, the copyright is owned by a large group of people, starting from the Linux kernel, drivers, through lots of the userspace libraries, none of which were developed solely by Google (and thus they don’t “own the copyright” to them, but only potentially to portions). The upper Android software stacks are almost exclusively Google-copyrighted, but as I pointed out above, these are available under a very liberal open-source license.
If only it was that easy to compile desktop figures, but sadly it’s not. Windows figures are artificially inflated because it’s nearly impossible to buy a laptop or pre-build PC without having Windows and nobody has any idea the extent of Linux installations out there.
The most we can do is form estimates based on user agent strings, Linux downloads and Windows sales, but even all that is error prone:
* user agent strings can be and often are faked
* user agent strings are only representative of the visitor base on that particular site Рthus is biased towards the type of client̬le that site attracts (ie OSNews.com will have more Linux users than MSN.com)
* user agent strings don’t take into account whether it’s a personal computer (which can run anything the user wants) or a work computer (which often tends to be Windows PCs due to MS Office and Exchange compatibility)
* Not all Linux downloads are via distro.com or their mirrors (bit torrent et al are often encouraged)
* One Linux ISO could be used to set up an infinite number of PCs
* and I’d already touched on the Windows sales issues earlier.
So in short, arguing any kind of market figures as “fact” is just proving how little you really know about this subject.
Furthermore, I’d be more inclined to go with Thom’s verdict: MS have already blocked Linux on many future ARM devices (secure boot UEFI), so this is a back-handed way of pushing Linux out of the portable x86 space as well as Redmond know full well that a public maneuver -such as the mandatory secure boot UEFI- would see Microsoft in trouble with the EU quicker than a whore drops her knickers.
Really? Better tell Dell, System76, and a dozen other Linux OEMs they don’t exist then.
And if you are talking retail? As an actual retailer who USED to sell Linux desktops I’ll be happy to tell you why that is, because Linux devs destroy any chance by constantly fiddling with the internals. You see with web sales all sales are final, NO after sale support. this is the exact opposite of retail where if you don’t offer at least basic support your sales dry up and blow away, and I can tell you that Linux drivers breaking every update made Linux cost me MORE than Windows by a long shot. At $35 an hour frankly it only takes ONE forum hunt because pulse puked on sound or the WiFi driver was totaled for it to make the $80 cost of Win 7 Home the better deal. This is only gonna get worse with Win 8 as its just $40 for Pro.
But hey, don’t take my word for it, please look at this list of over 100 major show stopping bugs with links. If you’d like I’ll be happy to post the original page from 3 years ago to let you compare and see how many of them still haven’t been fixed after 3 years. Linux works on servers because admins get paid a high 5 figures to do nothing but fix the stuff the devs break, this is the complete opposite of the home market. Even one of the RH devs says the Linux desktop is suckage and the entire system is unsustainable, link provided below.
http://linuxfonts.narod.ru/why.linux.is.not.ready.for.the.desktop.c…
https://plus.google.com/109922199462633401279/posts/HgdeFDfRzNe
I didn’t say they don’t exist. I said they were rare.
Of course we’re talking retail. Did you actually read my post?
I’m not really sure why you’re arguing this with me because I was never making a claim that Linux was ready for the desktop. Just about market share figures.
In fact did you actually read my post? Because you’re doing this tired old habit that many on here exhibit, where they feel compelled to educate your opponent without even thinking about the post your replying to nor the points it raised.
If you read my post again, you’ll see that I deliberately avoided any personal commentary on the state of desktop Linux. It’s the very type of argument I actively try and avoid these days because everyone feels so passionately that the other person is wrong and needs to be educated otherwise. Thus, quite frankly, a futile debate that almost always ends with stupid comparisons and trolling.
You hate FOSS / Linux, I get that. But please don’t take your personal prejudices out on me.
Let’s be clear, this is pure unsupported conjecture. (N.B. not agreeing with you doesn’t mean I agree with Thom.)
How about at least putting out a binary blob driver, like lots of vendors do? (nVidia, AMD, Broadcom, etc.) This argument has been shown to be wrong before.
You do realize that the non-Apple tablet market (for which this chip is almost certainly targeted) is about 100% Android (and thus Linux)? Windows 8 has 0% of the market. Thus, from a pure business perspective (even accepting your above arguments about IGPs), it makes next to no sense at all to target a non-existent market with a new product, unless there are other motives behind it as well (such as an exclusivity deal with Microsoft). Just to drive this point home a bit better, let’s quote the linked article on the The Inquirer:
Is this absolute 100% proof that Intel and Microsoft have an exclusivity deal? No. But it makes it extremely likely, to the point of being beyond a reasonable doubt.
Edited 2012-09-15 10:22 UTC
An x86 port of Android would be a red headed stepchild…
Best case it would be no worse than the more common ARM devices, it would run the same platform neutral or open source apps, with equivalent performance and battery life.
Worst case…
It won’t run a large number of existing Android apps which are closed source and only compiled for ARM.
It will use more power than competing ARM designs, and therefore have inferior battery life.
An x86 windows tablet on the other hand, does offer benefits over an arm based windows tablet (availability of existing programs, albeit program unsuitable for use on a tablet ui)… The windows tablets will be different enough to the android tablets to mask any efficiency differences, and the x86 tablets will be sufficiently better than the crippled arm version of windows that many people will be happy to sacrifice some battery life for a massively superior device.
Whilst I agree with the main point of your post, I do question this assumption.
Android apps are written in “Dalvik”, which is modelled after Java (it is not derived from Java, since Dalvik has no Java code). As I understood it, a Java app, and hence a Dalvik app, contains bytecode and not compiled binary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_bytecode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_%28software%29
“Dalvik is the process virtual machine (VM) in Google’s Android operating system. It is the software that runs the apps on Android devices. Dalvik is thus an integral part of Android, which is typically used on mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers as well as more recently on embedded devices such as smart TVs and media streamers. Programs are commonly written in Java and compiled to bytecode. They are then converted from Java Virtual Machine-compatible .class files to Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files before installation on a device.”
Hence I would assume that Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files are architecture independent.
http://source.android.com/tech/dalvik/dalvik-bytecode.html
An x86 Android device could therefore execute the exact same Dalvik executable .dex files as an ARM device, without any re-compilation required.
Edited 2012-09-19 02:30 UTC
Love your analogy of herding cats to try bringing linux developers on the same page. Thing is, with cats, you don’t herd, you call them to you. I’m sure this approach could also work with developers.
Just a tip from one who breeds Burmese Cats
I can’t speak for all developers, but I work for more than just a saucer or milk – my rates are usually catnip and heavy petting.
Yes, it’s an MS deal. It’s all about money. Some of the responsible are also Microsoft customers who take part in this ripoff when they pay their MS tax.
Is it the 90’s again?
Proprietary software one again seeking to slow down free software just enough to keep the consumer annoyed.
Be careful with your proprietary software bashing. The world would be much worse off if proprietary systems and software disappeared. I hope you realize that, and then realize the grim reality of “be careful what you wish for” the all-software-should-be-free bible thumpers readily ignore.
Whoa, let’s be careful with proprietary software bashing or we could cause society grat trouble!
Now “the world would be much worse” is an assumption you must be very insightful – almost omniscient – to make, as it’s quite a demanding task to guess how a world without proprietary software would be. Anyway that hypoetical world has absolutely nothing to do with the topic here. It’s so far-fetched you must have felt at least on the edge of bad faith writing your comment.
Nobody would freakin ever complain about proprietary software if there wasn’t the suspicion – as in this case – that someone’s trying to compete outside the boundaries of what’s legitimate this way damaging other entities.
What the heck has this to do with hating proprietary software? All players should just play fair, but maybe that’s outside the scope for some of them. The details aren’t known yet, but I would get very annoyed by a hypotetical company making it more difficult for an open source OS to support a new processor. It sounds like a steer from the usual Intel policy and as such it does not seem to be happening just by chance.
If you think this shows how bad free software supporters are (the vast majority of which I’m sure don’t want proprietary software to disappear but just like having more choice and the possibility to know what the code they’re using really does) feel free to voice your personal reality, but be aware it sounds quite crazy.
It doesn’t take being omniscient to imagine what a world without proprietary software would be like. Stop being so dramatic and ridiculous. Take a look at what advancements have come as a result of proprietary systems, and take a look at what advancements have come as a result of free & open systems. It’s not hard to see what drives things. Here’s a hint — it isn’t good will & intention, it’s profit & economics. Take a look at the world you live in … people by far do not do things in good faith or for the betterment of society. It’s almost comical you think that’s far-fetched. It’s reality, like it or not.
There has always and will always been suspicion. There will always be someone complaining about something. Because, there will always be those who have and those who have not. Those who get, and those who don’t. Again, take a look around you and you’ll discover no shortage of companies in all areas of business who act in their own best interests, including when that sometimes means playing hardball — and yes, even causing damage to competitors in some way. If you hate this kind of behavior, you must hate that you live in a world that revolves around economics.
If Intel developed a chip line to work specifically with linux would you still be so upset? Are you actually expecting everyone to believe that Intel apparently partnering with Microsoft for a specific product line is outrageous? Have you even bothered to look up what other companies have done or are doing the exact thing?
The vast majority of free-software “supporters” I’ve been exposed to don’t say they just want more choice.. They claim closed software is horrible, evil, all about profit$, harmful, blah blah blah.. I guess we’ve been exposed to vastly different types of free-software “supporters”.
I don’t have a personal reality. It would be nice if people could have one but that’s not the way the world works. I suppose to someone who has their head in the clouds, reality would sound quite crazy. For people who are aware of it, the response would probably be along the lines of ‘yeah, no kidding’.
The internet.
Did you actually just say that? …..Wow.
Yes. Do you want more examples?
Many of todays programming languages: Python, PHP, Haskell, Erlang, Ruby, D, Caml etc etc.
Stuff that powers the internet: nginx, apache, lighttpd, varnish, RoR, tomcat, jetty etc etc.
The list goes on.
But hey, lets pretend open and free has never advanced or contributed anything, if that makes you feel better.
Python development got funded by the companies Guido worked for.
PHP development is funded by Zend.
Haskell development is funded by Microsoft Research.
Erlang was developed at Ericson, before it got released as open source.
The list goes on.
Very few successful open source projects, if any, would have succeeded if it wasn’t for the dirty money that some companies selling closed source software invested on it.
I used to be a big open source fan until I realized, that without a way to pay for bills, being a fan does not help much.
[Remnove comment that does not apply anyway]
Maybe, maybe not but that’s not what we’re discussing anyway.
You could also argue that a lot of commercial projects would not have succeeded without the OSS projects they build on and use but that’s also not the point.
Who’s talking about dirty money anyway? Not me that’s for sure.
The point is, for those of you who somehow fail to see it, both closed and open-source software and systems spur advancements and contribute to the field.
I really don’t know why some are so dead set against this simple fact.
Edited 2012-09-15 12:11 UTC
Let’s keep that strawman away from this argument. Free Software is about keeping the power at the consumer side. We still are willing to pay for software but always keep in mind that a competitor can take the source and provide the same service.
You could say much the same about research in to medicine or investment in tertiary education research projects, – are you bitterly opposed to those too?
I am not opposed to anything.
I also prefer open source over commercial software, if possible.
But I got to understand that a world where all software is free is not possible, given the constraints of how the work market functions in most countries.
Software can only be free, if enough money for continuous source of income for the developers, can be guaranteed by other means other than selling boxed software. At a level that the developers can achieve the same lifestyle as with closed source software.
The moment this fails, we’re back at the closed source model.
For being such a “fan” of open source, you don’t seem to understand what the term actually means. Hint: It has nothing to do with the strawman you just put forth.
OK, so what proprietary software vendor pays for open source ? I think you are confused.
A lot of money from businesses, sure.
Most of the money for open source comes from hardware vendors and services companies (think companies like IBM, RedHat).
I guess I also see Google, Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal and similair online properties as services companies as they don’t sell any software.
They do have proprietary software but they don’t sell it, they just deliver a service.
You may want to do your homework before you make all those claims. Also, who said anything about open never advancing or contributing anything? How typical — someone gets upset by a comment and rather than address the truth in it, they get all dramatic and go on a rant over something that was never said in the first place.
Your reaction makes it very clear you have no clue what you are talking about regarding open systems.
If it wouldn’t be for open systems, you would not have internet the way it is today, and it probably would not even exist. You would have a lot of company-specific networks instead, like a Google network, and a Microsoft network, and so on. If it wouldn’t be for open systems, email would not exist, ftp would not exist, ssh would not exist, http would not exist.
A lot of technologies in IT would not exist the way they do today. Even OSX wouldn’t exist the way it is today, since they wouldn’t be able to build it on top of BSD.
That does not mean that there is no proprietary technology that made big advancements or anything like that. But saying that open systems is irrelevant, just shows you are clueless.
Btw, the big difference between open systems and closed systems is that open systems allow others to build on top of them and takes things even further. Closed systems only allow the creator of the closed system to build further on it.
Edited 2012-09-15 08:29 UTC
Open Systems != Open source.
You can have open systems, where interfaces and protocols are defined, without open source.
Actually Email and other communication mechanisms fall under that situation. They are protocols defined by RFC documents, and they exist way before open source.
No, they don’t exist way before open source 🙂 . Open source in software exists at least since the 1950s, when IBM published the source code of mainframes to people and the SHARE user group shared their code libraries.
http://www.cozx.com/~dpitts/ibm7090.html (that page contains a link to IBM 7090/94 IBSYS source, including COBOL and FORTRAN compilers.)
VM and the VM Community: Past, Present, and Future
http://www.princeton.edu/~melinda/25paper.pdf
http://www.share.org/
Edited 2012-09-15 14:39 UTC
Exactly. The OP is probably confusing the actual practice of opening source code with the time frame when the term FOSS was coined and ignoring that back in the 1970’s when most of these RFC were being drafted a lot of source code was shared freely in academic environments.
Until the late seventies software was widely regarded as a means to sell hardware and as such nobody really cared about users fiddling with source code except of course technical-minded people that enjoyed developing new stuff on top of the existing code and share their enhancements.
Edited 2012-09-15 15:04 UTC
I mean open source as it is known today.
You are kidding right ? Please learn your history.
With source software exited before closed source software.
It used to be true if you bought your hardware from a vendor you’d get the source with it. That was before the Internet even existed.
Wrong.
After all that rambling, some reasonable, some ridiculous, you end it by claiming I said open systems are irrelevant? Just one problem, …I said no such thing. I suggested the overall contributions to advancement resulting from the two be compared, not that one is relevant while the other isn’t. Apparently you don’t know the difference which explains, I guess, why you’re making ridiculous claims.
Wrong.
Without the open systems, Google wouldn’t even exists. They had no way to be populair or would even be able to index all the now public information that they did.
Technological advances driven by the market are all well and good, but they’re not very useful if people who would benefit can’t afford them.
Care to come out with an example?
Besides if the source is available linux support in slightly longer term means basically universal support.
Exclusivity is exclusive to closed systems world.
moondevil already did — refer to his previous post.
Why did you ignore my other questions? I’ll repeat one of them again and put it in bold so in case you somehow managed to “over look” it the first time: If Intel developed a chip line to work specifically with linux would you still be so upset?
A misunderstanding: my answer referred exactly to that question.
The simple fact is ALL FOSS software suffers from the “busted toilet” problem. What is the busted toilet problem?
Its simple, if I ask you to paint me a picture or write me a song for free? i’ll have dozens to choose from, some of which will probably be good. If I ask you to come and fix my nasty busted toilet? I hope I enjoy peeing in the sink because it ain’t happening.
What does that have to do with software? Simple, regressions testing, bug fixing, QA and QC, all of these jobs are boring, tedious, thankless and dull jobs and in Linux…they just don’t get done. Don’t take My word for it, go to any bug tracker and see how old some of the bugs are, Ubuntu for example has 6+ year old bugs in their bug tracker.
The simple fact is with paid software if they don’t fix? People don’t buy and they go out of business. Apple and MS pay millions upon millions of dollars to do those lousy stinking jobs which is why your desktop doesn’t crash when you switch from a video to a chat window like X-Server has been known to do, those kinds of bugs get fixed because the corp pays to have them fixed.
I really wish FOSS didn’t have this problem, as a retailer I’d love a “third way” and frankly MS doesn’t do us little guys ANY favors on pricing, but its simply human nature. The reason it works on servers and Android works on phones? Google spends a billion a year on Android, corps spend hundreds of millions on Linux server so those bugs ARE being paid to be fixed. Its just because there is really no money to be made on the desktop (MS makes money by selling licenses by the hundreds of millions, without that kind of scale you can’t compete) nobody is sinking that money into it and the bugs just don’t get fixed.
Every year the desktop gets prettier, because again creating pretty things is a natural part of the human animal, but better? Nope, not really.
Sweeping generalization, it’s the new fact. This is bullshit. There’s good OSS software and bad OSS software, just like how there’s good closed-source software and bad closed-source software.
Because Linux is the only OSS software in the world and even if it isn’t we can extrapolate from it to everything else. There are many OSS projects with rigorous testing, both manual and automated, and there are many closed-source companies that does neither.
Wow, really. This is just as much nonsense as “all OSs software is crap”. It’s simply not true. Sometimes bugs get fixed in a timely manner, sometimes it takes forever and sometimes it never happens. This is regardless of if the software is closed or open.
Yes, naturally. Closed-source is bug free and when it isn’t all bugs are fixed in a timely manner. Hmm..yeah, maybe in some alternate reality.
I’ve never had this problem, EVER, on my OSS desktops; be it Linux or BSD.
Wait, are you talking about OSS or closed-source software?
It seems to me that you’re missing the core ingredient of lock-in here.
A large part of today’s dominant proprietary software is so buggy and painful to use that it surely never goes through serious QA anymore. Why do people keep buying then ? Because they need something to support their proprietary formats, their proprietary protocols, their proprietary hardware…
Software actors are not fairly competing in a free market with flying unicorns, glittery rainbows, and happiness all around. Everyone has its dirty weapons that the others cannot compete with, and will not hesitate to use it. Including the open-source actors.
How do you propose to make money out of free software?
In many European countries a software developer gets to earn at least 1000€ per month.
What is your proposal to have a company developing free software, server side, desktop, embedded, whatever platform, while being able to pay the developers and the usual monthly costs?
For the typical answer of offering the software and asking money for support and trainings, what do you do to keep your company alive, when I take your free software and charge less for support?
All you have to do is look at Red Hat. They have been going through 25% growth quarter after quarter pretty much since they went IPO. They don’t seem to have a problem with the Open Source way.
Problem is, how many Red-Hats can there be world wide?
Why do you think companies are moving to CentOS?
The limit how many companies can there be is set by the size of the market.
Red Hat has to constantly improve to stay ahead of the competition. They do take some shortcuts though (like keeping their git commit history secret to fight against OEL).
Regarding “your moving to CentOS” remark, it would be interesting if you could quantify your claim.
Most consulting projects we have helped companies to move to CentOS was to keep them using a RedHat like OS, without paying RedHat for support.
Interesting…
Lots of companies refuse to use linux or various other open source projects because they lack a big recognised vendor behind it…
And yet many are now moving away from redhat to centos? Just goes to show that vendor support isn’t really that important after all.
This question has been answered many times, and a number of business models exist to subsist on free software.
1) You can offer support by the “gurus” of the software
2) You can dual-license your software, asking money for the commercial license
3) You can sell non-free add-ons to your software
4) You can enter contracts for implementing customer desired features
5) You can lure users of your product into consuming your content/visiting your websites/etc.
6) You can create entirely new markets or overtake existing ones
Red Hat employs a number of kernel developers for the first reason. Also they do #4.
Digium (Asterisk) does at least #1, #2 and #3.
IBM, when they invested $1 bln in Linux certainly had #6 in mind.
Trolltech, before they were bought by Nokia, did #1, #2, #3 and #4, and after being bought stopped doing #3.
Mozilla Corporation, the for-profit subsidy of the Mozilla foundation, does #4 and #5
All those examples only work for enterprise software, where people are willing to pay for support.
When you don’t pay for support, like desktop software, it is not possible to keep a company afloat, just by doing PayPal donations.
The current enterprise runs mostly on proprietary software, this is partly due to inertia.
But if all enterprises were running open source desktop software, most people would do the same at home.
Because that is the software they know, they work with it every day.
Trust me, I support users who are not technical and they can use an open source desktop just as well as a no open source desktop.
The desktop runs Ubuntu LTS, which works really well for them. They had just as many problems (user not understanding something), than they had with running a Windows desktop. But the Ubuntu LTS desktop I’ve set up for them is more predictable then Windows.
Are you a software developer just selling services on top of only free software to both domestic and enterprise customers?
How do you pay your bills?
What’s with this obsession about how to pay your bills with OSS? You bring this up all the time even when it doesn’t relate to the topic at hand.
Because I my income depends on selling services around software development.
I used to be 100% open source zealot, until I had to start earning my own money, and discovered how hard it is to create any type of business around open source.
When I see people blindly defending open source, for me it always comes across as someone that wants everything for free, and does not earn its money selling software, so it is easy to state that everything should be free.
OK, you got burned, we get it. Happens to everyone at some time or the other. Now, get the hell over it.
Just because someone is defending or prefer open source doesn’t mean they think all software should be be free or that it’s some kind of evil sin if companies mix business models. In fact, I rarely see anyone making that argument and it certainly wasn’t made anywhere in this thread.
Open source is economically the best option for companies whose primary business is NOT to sell software. Any business whose products incorporate software, but the product itself is not the software per se, has a great business case to use open source.
Hence open source Android for businesses which sell phones, not apps.
Hence Samsung:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/257063/samsung_gets_serious_about_li…
http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-linux-foundation-apple-2012-…
Hence Toyota:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2011/07/toy…
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/72867.html
Hence the scientific projects such as the Large Hadron Collider:
http://www.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/09/large-hadron-collider–…
Hence the OIN community:
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/licensees.php
Hence Google:
http://code.google.com/opensource/projects.html
These companies and institutions all collaborate to invest in open source software, to the benefit of all of them.
This is how the bills are paid.
Edited 2012-09-16 12:17 UTC
But this is the message I was trying to get across, without success.
If your business is to sell software, instead of services around it, which is not always possible, then the open source model does not work for a sustained business.
You have a gift for misconstruing what people say.
lemur2 was talking about companies that work with software, where software was not the product. Like Amazon, where they use software to provide a service. Or google, where they use software to provide a service. Or every other web-based business, where software is part of the business process, but isn’t the thing sold to the user. For these people, working with open-source software vendors can make a lot of sense; they get a high-quality web server to build a site off of, or a high-quality operating system and platform to make a product out of (for example with Android and Valve’s upcoming set-top), or a high-quality database system, or etc. And they get it for free, with free improvements from the community over time.
For these people, contributing to the health of the project can also make sense, as long as it allows them to keep getting otherwise free high-quality software (especially if the cost of the contribution is much less than the expense of hiring a team of software engineers to create an equivalent bit of software).
People selling software is just a small part of the business.
Most customers need 1 of both:
1. a commodity solution
2. a custom solution
The commodity software is already available from large open source projects or large proprietary software companies. Or a commodity webbased solution, like Salesforce.com
The rest need a more custom solution, for example the enterprises someone mentioned in this thread or small businesses.
This is the kind of work that gets payed by project or by the hour.
Or software for some specialty industry, it is commodity software but only applies to that industry.
Sometimes such industry specific software gets such wide use that the companies that build it have become very large. I assume that is what happend to Autodesk in the case of AutoCAD.
If you are trying to compete with the large companies you are probably doing it wrong.
You wouldn’t try start a business for building a new office or desktop operating systems to compete with companies like Microsoft, right ?
Sure, why not ?
Here is an example:
Working at an hosting provider you probably rely on open source for pretty much all your business needs.
You might not sell software, but you develop software for automation or services.
You can also replace hosting provider with some company like: Amazon or Ebay or whatever.
Mozilla does produce some enterprise software (such as Bugzilla) but I think the majority of users are Firefox end users who don’t pay for support. Especially #3 and #5 can generate revenue from end users, and this is how Canonical hopes to profit from being preloaded on the next Dell lineup.
Besides, you asked:
and Red Hat exclusively sells to enterprise customers.
The more important question is, how is that relevant to goddamned anything, much less the previous two posts?
FOSS software projects don’t exist to make money; they exist to create software that their contributors want to use. That’s the motivation; if I make a program that I find useful, maybe if I make the source available, other people will find it useful too, and maybe improve it to be useful to them. And if I GPL my software, maybe I’ll get them to send me the changes they make.
The “broken toilet” problem half-exists: the problem, to the extent that it’s a problem, isn’t that people won’t do nasty and thankless work, it’s that developers tend to focus their efforts on the problems that impact them personally as they use the software.
And for-pay software has the same problem. Many commercial software developers spend at least as much effort making you have to use their software as they do making you want to use their software. Many are the small businesses that deeply despise their accounting system, but they can’t migrate because the shitty software won’t let them export their data.
Free software in a GNU sense ? I don’t know. But for open-source software, I’d suggest granting every licensee access to the software source code for private use, and keeping as many redistribution rights on derivatives as you need for yourself.
As far as I’m concerned, source code should always be available alongside software, but free redistribution of said source and its derivatives is a separate matter.
In fact, I’ve recently worked on a software license draft that attempts to separate both concerns better than current OSS licenses. I will soon submit it to the OSI in order to get lawyer review, and to discuss other potential issues with their licensing gurus. If all is good, and I get OSI approval, I’ll then submit something about it on OSnews.
There is more than one way to make money. If one sells a product or service, there are two main ways of making more money: (1) increase the price of the product or service whilst trying to maintain the volume of sales, or (2) reduce the costs of production of the product or service.
Freedom software is quality software made by its users. It is made by collaboration in a loose organisation which is effectively a consumer’s co-operative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_cooperative
“Consumer cooperatives are enterprises owned by consumers and managed democratically which aim at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of their members. They operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit.”
“The major difference between consumers’ cooperatives and other forms of business is that the purpose of a consumers’ cooperative association is to provide quality goods and services at the lowest cost to the consumer/owners rather than to sell goods and services at the highest price above cost that the consumer is willing to pay.”
So, in effect, freedom software (aka FOSS) makes money via method 2 above. It makes money by reducing production costs (in this case, the cost of software). This of course only works if the product being sold is itself not software. It only works to make more money for businesses where software is a cost of production, and not the product for sale.
Example:
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/72867.html
‘They Will Save a Fortune’
“Linux makes a fantastic embedded platform,” consultant and Slashdot blogger Gerhard Mack opined. “I bet even with the gold membership they will still save a fortune compared to going with closed source competitors.”
Indeed, “it’s completely expected,” agreed Chris Travers, a Slashdot blogger who works on the LedgerSMB project. “Embedded space is going more and more towards Linux.”
You do seem very confused about the economics of open source. Hope this helps.
Edited 2012-09-17 10:30 UTC
This is not the way it works, at all. To make money out of open source, one uses open source software to produce something, or provide a service, more cheaply than would be the case if one used closed source instead. One makes money by using the software to make or provide something else, other than software, at reduced costs.
Here is yet another example:
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/315490,study-urges-cios-to-choose-ope…
Study urges CIOs to choose open source first
“Norton cited studies from the London School of Economics which found that investments to deploy open source in-house drives longer-term savings of 20 percent over the alternatives.”
” Specific to the travel industry, the report’s financier Amadeus has gradually been shifting its sizeable airline transaction processing business (bookings, reservations, flight management) from proprietary platforms to Linux (SuSE, predominantly).
It also uses the Apache web server and Tomcat application server, among other common tools.
The company’s 4500 developers use the open source Eclipse development tool, and its sales and marketing team use SugarCRM.
Amadeus has also become a contributor to the open source effort. Late last month it donated its user interface framework, ARIA, to the open source community under an Apache license.
It is hoped that travel industry customers might save money at the front-end using these free UI templates for common travel industry functions, and invariably then see the value in outsourcing the remainder (back-end processing) to Amadeus.
“We commissioned this study to highlight to our customers and shareholders our use of open systems and contribution to open systems,—
The White House, for example, uses Linux and Drupal and it’s there working in spite of usual attacks.
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=whitehouse.gov
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/07/24/white_house_web_site_moves/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/developers
People can see by themselves how it doesn’t happen with good software. Don’t take my word for it, if people want to try it by themselves, there’s a “Virtual machine of Kubuntu 11.04 i386 Desktop, stable version” on
https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B2UJmdRmDlL1VmRWZ3dfaGdJTUU/edit
to conduct experiments on it. Just don’t update it to an upper version of Kubuntu and, before updating a GUI program, close that program.
I usually employ a copy of it as a virtual machine and it works stably, too.
About it, there is a README.txt on the same web address.
If someone has any doubt, on this thread you can make questions.
The same argumenthave been repeated times an again in the last 20 years, every time OSS software is meant to be drployed in direct competition agains software of some corp.
In fact im niw working in a system that has both closed and open components (both mainyained by the same company) but thanks to Java closed libs are easy to decompile. Guess which one has better quality and which better handles corner cases ans has less bugs.
You are confused.
People being payed to write software does not mean closed software.
What you are talking about is business paying for developing software, that has nothing to do with closed software.
Of couse there are old bugs in Ubuntu, this is the first bug and it still hasn’t been fixed:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1
Because the same is not true for free software….
Please, name one thing that would disappear if all software was legally required to respect the FSF’s four freedoms. Malware? Nagware like mIRC? Ten thousand shitty 99 cent fart buttons? Software patents?
Also be careful what you call “free” software.
Linux the kernel is Free, and that’s the compatibility we’re talking about at the chipset level. But as for the broader OS, we’re probably not talking about Free GNU/Linux, but about proprietary Android (Linux kernel + open but stolen-from-Sun’s-proprietary toolchain + proprietary UI and Google client apps). Which, by the way, is well into Microsoft-in-the-’90s territory in its own monopolistic pursuits: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/13/us-acer-alibaba-google-idI…
The nineties never left. While the plethora of Apache / BSD style licenses have made life much better for developers, at the level of consumers you really need the GPL to improve the situation, and you need the demand to really come from the consumer. For various reasons, the GPL is not so popular, while BSD style licenses have gained and maintain traction — because developers demand that sort of thing but users don’t.
This basically means that it’s business as usual for companies, and despite the fact the Microsoft still run an all-proprietary stack, they have to work in this ecosystem. In the past this would’ve meant bewildered lashing out, but it is now far more calculated. Google have a far more open source stack, but they still use tricks to get hardware makers to dance to their tune (e.g. the Alibaba Android fork).
In any case, BSD-style software went from being something that blindsided companies to one that is now actively part of their “strategy”, whatever that may entail (even if it means precluding use). Linux might be GPLed, but it sits in an ecosystem of BSD-style licenses. The situation will not improve until “customers” demand freedom.
I guess, then, that this customer will provide no financial support to Clover Trail’s Windows 8 plateform sales.
This customer is designed to be free to choose his operating system. If ARM is a better choice, let’s be it. I’m of no branch church.
Edited 2012-09-14 23:13 UTC
This is absolutely not a regression what-so-ever. If Intel wants to produce a chip line specifically designed or intended for use with Windows 8, it has every right to do so. It has no affect on any of their other chips and there is zero evidence there’s anything to panic over. Rather than attempting to spread FUD, how about “we” look at this from a sensible standpoint. Or would that be asking too much?
Not always. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
Yes, lets look at this from a sensible standpoint. Intel has a monopoly on chips in the x86 market. Microsoft has a monopoly on OS’s in the x86 market. All anti trust problems I am aware of have specifically targeted the x86 marketplace. Now the main CPU maker is making a CPU that only works with the main OS. How could anyone possibly have any concerns around that fact?
So what.. This is one product out of many and it doesn’t render any of the other products incapable or incompatible. If Intel and Microsoft want to partner together to build a system, fine by me as long as other options exist, which they do. If you want people to panic, give them good reason accompanied with actual evidence in support of it.
How many times has peoples initial reaction been to crap their pants and cry foul, only to look foolish when the sky never fell and armageddon never ensued. Too many to count.. And how many times has it all come crashing down? ….never.
You’re right in a sense. I remember the big fiasco over the processor serial number in Pentium IIIs, that ended up being fixed with a simple BIOS patch for the ones shipped before Intel backpedaled. I can see something similar happening here, with the specs eventually released or perhaps reverse engineered and rolled into a future kernel update.
Also, if folks are going to call this out as an egregious offense, they better be ready to call out Sony because their proprietary media buttons on my laptop only work under Windows and in fact cause weird bugs under GNU/Linux and Haiku. When is someone going to stand up for my right to have fully working buttons, with FOSS drivers built by Sony programmers to my own personal satisfaction? (For the obtuse, this is sarcasm on my part. I don’t care about those buttons.)
But all that said, I do feel that this is some shady stuff being that it’s coming from Microsoft and Intel, the two heavy players in the desktop computing world. I think Intel is trying to secure a solid footing in the tablet market with this move, but they are going about it wrong and are going to piss off FOSS fans who have remained loyal to Intel for years. It may not be a particularly large group of people, but they have a loud voice and the power to sway others towards AMD on the desktop and even mobile devices when it comes to x86.
So my take? Intel sucks for this, but in the grand scheme of things it will only serve to tarnish their reputation and nothing more. The world will go on, zombies will remain in the grave and people who give a shit will avoid this particular run of processors, giving their money to Intel’s competitors.
/looks at CPU-Z, Authentic AMD/…LOL Wut?
In this case you have an easy and clear choice, AMD has opened up their specs, Intel has chosen to not support Linux on this chip. Unless you are building a supercomputer (which you certainly wouldn’t be using Atom chips for) then all you have to do is walk across the street, AMD has the Bobcat I and soon the Bobcat II quads, tada!
Intel has the right to choose who they want to support, remember that is what we are talking here, no software locks, simply not supporting an OS, and YOU have the right to shop somewhere else.
It’s called the free market and voting with your wallet. try it, you might like it. I know I’m quite happy with my AMD E350 netbook and my Thuban X6 desktop.
AMD doesn’t have products in this space (arm area of power effiviency) and they clearly stated they don’t intend to compete there. This leaves Intel as the sole x86 solution. This is really strange bc they have received great support from Google.
As it turns out, AMD does have a tablet product in its roadmap. You know what, they made it Windows 8 only too
OSX runs on x86, so how does Microsoft have a monopoly in the “x86” OS market? Note that in the DOJ/MS case, Macs still ran on PPCs, so the judge was able to rule out Macs from the “x86” market, but today Macs run on x86. The “monopoly” that the judge declared back then isn’t in effect today. Also note that the MS/DOJ settlment expired, so MS is no longer under any anti-trust monopoly regulations, not in the US anyway.
If someone is going to bring some “anti-trust” law suit, they are going to have to prove, all over again, that Windows is a monoply OS TODAY, not yesterday, but TODAY. That means that they’re going to have to deal with the fact that OSX runs on x86, and LOTS of people use it (on TV, all you see are Mac Books anymore). The idea that Microsoft has monopoly control on x86 OSes today is laughable.
I tried to mod you up, but OSNews claims I have already modded you o_o Someone seems to have modded you down just because they don’t like you or your message, behaviour that I do not condone of.
Anyways, you are indeed correct: the verdict about Microsoft’s monopoly status has expired and therefore going through antitrust lawsuits would require enormours amounts of effort. Microsoft would probably still fulfill the requirements for it to be re-declared a monopoly even with Apple around — after all, Apple only sells their OS for their OWN hardware, not for general consumption, and their market share is still barely a blip in the radar — and would possibly face some sanctions, but it doesn’t look like there is enough incentive for anyone to sue them on antitrust-grounds. Also, even in theory if Microsoft were re-declared a monopoly and faced some sanctions I doubt they would be sanctioned for what Intel did here: the CPU can and does run Linux just fine, Intel is only saying they do not provide official support for it nor do they plan to add support for the advanced features to the Linux-kernel, and as it is not against the law not to support every possible OS out there… well, you get the drift.
Dont worry. Being modded down makes you stand out of the crowd. Infact it prompts me to actually read the posts in question.
MollyC
Microsoft has over 80% of the desktop market. Microsoft recently forced OEMs to add secure boot to their motherboards to support what is currently only a Windows technology by threatening them with the loss of their advertising budgets. With 80% market share, Microsoft is still able to sway the industry to its benefit. Depending on market conditions, these current actions could be considered anti competitive. If this new Atom processor will only run Windows, it is effective locking Linux out of this portion of the market. Intel is also constantly under scrutiny by the DOJ due to its market share. So maybe it will be Intel that gets investigated, instead of Microsoft.
I wish I hadn’t already commented or I would have modded you up as well. As I posted above, this really isn’t a big deal. Those of us who actually care enough to get offended should just buy AMD or some ARM based tablet and get their Android/Linux jones that way. At some point Intel will get the message and will play ball again, or else they will continue to appease Microsoft and turn the FOSS world towards AMD. I don’t see a world-ending catastrophe either way.
The CPU will have advanced power-saving features that Windows 8 will support, but which Linux currently does not support. Until support for those features is implemented on Linux, Linux support for the CPU will not be very good to say the least.
(Frankly I have no problem with that… Yet. My opinion may change as further news comes in.)
Now if they have the chip hard-wired to choke on anything that looks like Linux kernel, that would be unfair. But it really doesn’t look to me like that’s what’s going on.
Edit: sorry, read the article but not Thom’s comments. My take right now is that this may be ignorance on part of the marketing guys. I won’t rule out the possibility that Intel deliberately broke Linux support, but it strikes me as unlikely.
Edit 2: Oh… Hurray irony.
Edited 2012-09-14 23:36 UTC
If they do intend to publish the CPU specs (as any self respecting x86 company has done for years) then no problem.
But the article tells about running at all and win8 exclusivity, bringing me to the conclusion no specs are going to hit the streets.
And in the space the clover tail work power management is about as important as running at all.
Is that because Windows 8 is more of a “resource hog” and needs the power-saving features because it’s more demanding on the tablet’s battery?
Or is it because x86 is just a battery guzzler, and no matter what it’s stupid to be using it in situations where power resources are highly limited?
But, well, lets morph this thing into something it was never designed to be, because oh no, we can’t let better architectures like ARM and MIPS do their thing and compete where they technically mop the floor with us. No, no, no–we need to start invading their territory, even if in the end the customers lose with shittier battery life due to the x86/Windows combination.
Edited 2012-09-16 01:21 UTC
Well, I for one wouldn’t mind seeing some serious competition to ARM in the embedded space. Among other things, that could perhaps make them consider making their architecture more developer-friendly, so that there is no need to work on one separate OS build per supported ARM device.
Competition is good, but only when it makes sense. Don’t send a freakin’ 18-wheeler on the track to compete against a Camaro SS. There are several architectures that would make worthy competitors to ARM in portable systems. x86 is just not one of them.
Blasphemy!
Intel uses a proprietary PowerVR GPU on this processor. Linux drivers for these GPUs are generally bad almost pathetic. The processor will work with linux, you might end up using a VESA driver for the GPU.
The next generation ATOM processor uses Intel’s own GPU and it is fully supported in Linux. Hopefully, Intel will never use this GPU ever again.
Hopefully you’re right. But even if you are, why the hell would anyone in their right mind want to use an x86 processor in a cell phone or tablet computer? Or *any* battery-operated portable device, for that matter. It’s just downright retarded.
The PowerVR is also used in the ARM Pandaboard, and is fully accelerated on Linux. Both hardware mpeg4 encoding and decoding are available via GStreamer plugins and it has full X support with hardware acceleration. The drivers are not open-source, but that’s a totally different issue.
This could be a really good thing for Android. If the tablets are essentially useless outside of Windows 8, then the enthusiast market won’t help drive sales because the hardware is pretty constrained. All those enthusiasts will instead focus on the Android (Nexus, Kindle, etc) devices. Basically, Microsoft will be competitive only with the entrenched iPad while Android tablets expand the way Android smartphones have.
So a Windows 8 constrained tablet is bad, but a constrained Android tablet is good, I see.
Doesn’t seem like this is a rational decision by Intel. Maybe I need to unload my stock.
How is this any different than the current hardware or software market? There’s almost nobody who actually develops anything specifically with support for Linux. Hardware support within the linux kernel (and it’s drivers) is the result of years of reverse engineering and hacking. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s okay for companies to turn away from Linux, I’m just saying it’s nothing to be surprised about.
When will geeks finally get that the corporations are only nice to open source when they can find ways to extract money from it?
On my years at big handset company, I’ve witness this every day, while some divisions were adepts of open source, others were as proprietary as they could.
Open source only got this far, because on the server side there are lots of ways to make money out of it, no so on the desktop side.
When they get that for-profit companies conduct business in a for-profit manner and aren’t obligated to give charity and free hand-outs to people who beg.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTE4NTY
“However unlike Intel, AMD said there is nothing stopping people from running Linux on its Hondo processor.”
Regardless of what Intel says, no one will point a gun to anyone trying to run Linux on their processors, so I fail to see how this is any different.
I too fail to see how it is different… yet.
If Intel builds in a hardware check that cannot be overridden by software – I would say that then it would be quite different. Good or bad may be debatable, but would you agree that at that point it would be different?
AMD is not doing the same, there are working open source drivers for the Brazos chipsets, with 2D, 3D and VDPAU video decode acceleration through Gallium3D (currently MPEG2 only). AMD won’t market Hondo for Linux, that is all.
Intel on the other hand refuses to provide any Linux source code or programming documentation regarding acceleration on their PowerVR based Atoms. Now with Clover Trail it seems they won’t even produce proprietary drivers. Not that their psb and emgd drivers generated much enthusiasm anyway.
Edited 2012-09-15 20:12 UTC
You know what? I’m going to design and build a processor that won’t run Linux, BSD, Haiku or OSX because f*ck all of you, I just want it to run my precioussss Windows 8. I won’t provide any Linux or other source, documentation or even spoilers for next week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries.
Guess what will happen? NO ONE will give a shit. Who does this guy think he is anyway, right?
Okay, now replace me with Intel. You end up with the same result: It’s really not that big a deal, because in the tablet space Intel already has zero presence. So what if one chip maker is being retarded, there are half a dozen other chip makers between AMD and VIA on the x86 side, and the various others on the ARM side.
To put it another way, why aren’t we up in arms because Broadcom is refusing to release specs and open source drivers for the chip on the Raspberry Pi? Granted, that’s a much smaller market, but come on! We’re geeks, we should be all over that shit. Broadcom should have issued an apology and posted full source code along with directions to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow by now, due to our incessant cries of foul play!
Really folks, this is only an issue because some of us have a need to be butt-hurt on a daily basis so we can blame it on “the man”. Yeah, Intel are a bunch of dicks for this, but in the end it will only hurt them.
Should we remind them who currently sell the more ?
Google has released something like a 1.3 million Android activation… per DAY ! I bet Windows 8 RTM have a long road to catch this alike. So Intel decided to skip the Android market because Microsoft asked them to ? OK, fair to them, and good for ARM licensees, because at this rate x86 is neither going to catch on the mobile market.
Clever move Intel, clever move.
Kochise
Clearly, this is something that Microsoft dictated, both in the Hondo case as in the Clover Trail one. AMD saying they want to give “exclusive launch rights” to MS confirms this. I am sure Linux will fully support Hondo. Not so sure about Clover Trail because of the PowerVR stuff…
I suspect that the reason for this is that Clover Trail makes away with a bunch of old PC conventions. One of the reasons why PCs have been unsuccessful at beating ARM in power usage is due to a lot of old hardware decisions.
This includes things like the PCI bus signalling being on a fast timer that can’t be adjusted, the timer similarly, some aspects of the interrupt system, etc. These can be modified without end-user software having to care much, but the issue is that it breaks a lot of assumptions the operating system could otherwise make. As such I suspect that Microsoft and Intel have cooked up these modifications together, but Intel may not be intending to standardize them in this form, and will rather work on new fundamental PC platform specs that will replace both a lot of the current stuff and Clover Trail.
All speculation of course, but I highly doubt that this is a conspiracy where Intel secretly only gives the “good stuff” to Microsoft, that’s just not in their interests.
I think that Linux adapted on more various platforms, CPU, computer architectures than Windows ever done. So this is BS. <- PERIOD
Kochise
I doubt Intel is saying that Linux can’t be ported to Clover Trail, I think they are saying that they wont do the work or write the documentation necessary. With the motivation that it is not the way they intend the PC to head in the longer run.
How Microsoft is supposed to code RTM without spec and datasheet ? If Microsoft can put their hands on them, understand them and code something from them, Linux coder would undoubtly also.
Intel is going nVidia-like and while they headed in the Linux area for some times with true openess, they are turning 180°. It’s only one CPU, but one of how many ?
Kochise
Please stand up.
Now i can imagine the newest popular bloggers tune: Linux is free, has a bigger software library and such but look at its power efficiency. It just lacks the magic powers of Windows 8.
From the other pov I’m affraid this move signifies beggining of the end of Intel Linux based investments in an idependent software stack and its general open approach.
My usual equation goes as follows:
“Intel will not support Linux on its Clover Trail processors = I will not support Intel”
It’s THAT simple.
One of those discussions that ignites the rage of millions, there is the fact that GNU/Linux has been is and will be a HACK, so basically GNU/Linux has to adapt itself to any hardware condition out there whether the hardware companies document it’s hardware features or not, so there is nothing new here.
Windows is moving towards ARM also OSX so Intel is playing nice with it’s mayor clients (Microsoft and Apple) and right now Android is a threat to both of them not because is Free-Open-Libre but because is Google’s weapon for domination.
Google domination from my point of view is really really bad for consumers like me who hate advertising and is really bad for software developers like me because users are beginning to ask why do developers charge money for software when a big company like Google has so many free products and services (real life case)
Edited 2012-09-15 16:39 UTC
And do you think Windows or OSX doesn’t have to? That the code to support the features manifests itself from the thin air?
There has always been advertising, there always will be. If Google suddenly just dropped dead some other entity would replace it and you’d still be seeing ads. As such Google’s domination is totally irrelevant on this point, you are just deluding yourself if you believe otherwise.
If users questioning you is bad then the problem is on your end. A good developer knows how to answer that question.
May I add this : Microsoft bought Skype. Now MSN and Skype are ads riden. And I don’t think Google have anything to do about that.
Just awaiting Apple’s move to cripple iTunes with ads. After all they prevented any other ads operator on iPhone to have the monopoly of it.
Kochise
Dude you just contradicted one post later:
Yes I deviated a bit from the main subject but that is no reason to do personal attacks. Yes I have managed to convince consumers, yet the fact that they are asking for price-free or price-free-supported software shows my point that Google is making software looks like a cereal box price.
Osnews I think there is troll in the forum.
No, I didn’t: the code still has to be written by someone, no matter the OS. You were portraying the situation as if Windows and OSX do not need such, only Linux, something that is obviously not true.
Saying the problem is on your end is a personal attack?
Yes you did when you putted Windows and Mac OS X relationship with hardware manufacturers to the same level as Linux (which is asymmetric) regarding hardware use and then you said that hardware manufacturers write the code when they want their chips are adopted.
Of course you are pointing the obvious (software is written by people) when a developer talks about support is talking about two things one the hardware features are openly or closely documented by the manufacturer and if the manufacturer itself provides some kind of software implementation (driver). Yes every OS development must accommodate to the underlying hardware but when I say adapt I’m talking about an asymmetric relationship with the manufacturer almost as an species adaptation to nature conditions.
GNU/Linux has always had an asymmetric relationship with Intel at least since Intel and Microsoft has been virtually always strategic partners and now with Apple too. To Intel Linux usage is not that important since it doesn’t move that much hardware as Windows. Same thing goes to Nvidia and ATI. For Microsoft of course Linux is not a joke at all, it is a potential enemy( as Apple but they have some kind of arrangement).
Intel and Microsoft interest in some kind of hardware “protection” or vendor lock dates from like 10 years ago or more with the TCP A.K.A Palladium architecture and then with Intel’s tryout with UEFI. The intention has been there for quite some time but they haven’t been able to do so.
My point is that GNUL has always have a harsh relationship with some hardware vendors while Microsoft and Apple have a symmetric relationship with them, they get hardware ahead of everybody else, they even demand features and get specially optimized compilers while GNUL (developers) has to HACK the hardware and do reverse engineer to find out things that big vendors like Apple and Microsoft already know.
And for those who think that a HACK is bad thing, that is a wrong way of seeing things.
Yes Microsoft Windows was for quite some time a piece of crap but in order to keep that mess working the developers must be real bad asses, but that doesn’t make Windows a HACK because all of their features were developed with formal methods and intervention of hardware vendors.
And as a final note, implying that only a good developer can give a satisfying answer to a consumer regarding why software cost money is a bold statement because people some people refuse to pay for software and that doesn’t make developers bad.
Edited 2012-09-16 03:01 UTC
In actual fact, there is less and less hardware these days which Linux kernel programmers have to reverse engineer.
Some companies, such as Intel, write open source drivers for Linux for their hardware.
http://www.intel.com/cd/corporate/icsc/apac/eng/teams/331393.htm
http://intellinuxgraphics.org/
http://software.intel.com/sites/oss/
http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/09/broadcom-releasing-fully-open-so…
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/broadcom-yes-broadcom-joins-t…
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/behind-the-open-source-turnar…
Some companies, such as AMD/ATI, provide programming specifications so that open source developers can write drivers for Linux:
http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/
http://www.x.org/wiki/RadeonFeature
http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page#Abo…
“We are a group of Linux kernel developers (over 400 strong) that develop and maintain Linux kernel drivers. We work with the manufacturers of the specific device to specify, develop, submit to the main kernel, and maintain the kernel drivers. We are willing and able to sign NDAs with companies if they wish to keep their specifications closed, as long as we are able to create a proper GPLv2 compliant Linux kernel driver as an end result.”
Some companies only go half-way to true GPL-copyleft open source, but developers can still write drivers for Linux:
http://www.malideveloper.com/developer-resources/drivers/open-sourc…
Linux drivers where the developers have to reverse-engineer hardware do still exist:
http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/FeatureMatrix
… but such drivers are most decidedly in the minority these days. It is a relatively simple matter to avoid hardware, such as nvidia graphics, which still require reverse-engineered drivers.
Edited 2012-09-16 07:55 UTC
Using Nvidia graphics cards in linux does NOT require reverse-engineered drivers. Nvidia provides 32 & 64 bit linux drivers, and communicates well with users to resolve bugs and add features/support.
If one uses the binary blob driver provided by nvidia, one cannot upgrade to Wayland in the near future.
Nvidia’s binary blob driver is NOT shipped with Linux distributions, one has to download it separately and actually compile a piece of wrapper code. Any issues the driver causes cannot be addressed by the Linux kernel developers. This is most decidedly NOT recommended for non-expert users.
Every time one updates the kernel, one has to recompile the open source wrapper which sits between the binary blob and the kernel. This requires that one has Linux kernel source code installed. It is an utter pain.
For this and other reasons, it is not recommended to use the nvidia binary blob driver. Since the open source nouveau driver is limited due to the need to reverse engineer, that driver although better does not deliver anywhere near the capabilities of the card.
Since it is a is a relatively simple matter to avoid nvidia graphics and use instead a graphics card which does have a functional, well-performed open source driver which ships as part of the Linux kernel itself, (i.e. Intel or AMD/ATI graphics), then using such hardware for desktop Linux systems is overwhelmingly to be recommended.
Edited 2012-09-17 07:48 UTC
Though I agree with your sentiment, this
is not true at all of most distributions. Pretty much any distro that has a dependency-tracking package manager has the user covered on kernel updates with binary drivers. They may not be the bleeding edge, but it’s a simple matter of running the package manager’s update feature. Hell, even Arch Linux works that way, and its developers enjoy making newbies feel like total shit as a daily pastime.
Even on the distros that do require manual installation of binary drivers, such as Slackware, it’s not that difficult. For Nvidia, the driver you download from them does it all for you in a script. Just re-run the script on any kernel updates and you’re gold.
Well, the major distros have this worked out ok probably because they’re able to pressure the vendors for compatible binary blobs. On these distros installing proprietary drivers is usually automatic and painless for end users. I’m with you here.
However to be perfectly honest though I have an nVidia card (GeForce 9500 GT) and the proprietary drivers have broken my display the last two or three times I’ve installed ubuntu on this system. At least I had the skill to login to the console and fix it manually, but for an ordinary user it would have been a no-go.
A slightly different scenario: I had a cyberpower UPS which the manufacturer provided a binary for controlling the UPS and reading the battery status over USB. They claimed linux support, but I was naive and though it would run on my NAS box. It did not because their binary wasn’t compatible with my kernel. They only bothered to support the major distros. End result = failure because I deviated from popular distros and manufacturer would not provide source or support.
Of course everyone’s mileage will vary, but I find the combination of no ABI and no source code will always spell trouble for unsupported systems. It just sucks that less mainstream alternative distros have to suffer because of it.
Yes you are right hardware relationship with opensource has change but not thanks to hardware manufacturers, is mostly thanks to user pressure.
Wow. Just, wow.
“We Linux devs have finally managed to go far enough in market share that hardware vendors will care about us. Now that we are here, we don’t care for the younger OSs that are struggling just like we did before anymore, and will gladly sign NDAs on specs so as to keep an edge on them”
Edited 2012-09-17 09:37 UTC
The Linux driver project is over five years old. Why didn’t you make this complaint back in April 2007?
http://lwn.net/Articles/276973/
“So the LDP was born. It started out as a single place for hardware manufacturers to contact in order to get drivers written for their devices for free. We allowed the ability for companies to sign an NDA if needed to help get over the hurdle that some companies have in releasing their specifications. The NDA process was put into place through the Linux Foundation, and is a 3-way NDA with all of the proper legal documents needed.”
The Linux Driver Project would rather not sign an NDA, they would much prefer that companies published programming specifications. However, if a given company insists that an NDA is necessary or there will be no co-operation, then having to sign an NDA over the programming specifications is a small price to pay.
After all, the end product is source code under the GPL. Everyone is free to study that code and determine how it works. Anyone is able even to re-distribute that code, as long as they agree to re-distribute it to others under the same license as they received it. Where is there a problem?
If there is some problem with keeping the GPL driver code open, other parties may still study that GPL code, determine how it works, write a new driver of their own from the knowledge thereby gained, and redistribute their own code under whatever license they please.
” Intel’s claim that Clover Trail won’t run Linux is not quite true ”
A quote from the article agrees. Does Intel actually offer support for linux on any processor? No, not really that much.
I have to really agree with this – the very language of the article is back-assward… Oh noes, the chip maker doesn’t support the OS… and?!?
Since when has it even worked that direction? Operating systems support chips, not the other way around!
Since forever. When a manufacturer wants to ensure their chips will be adopted quickly they often write the code needed and to also ensure there are as few bugs in the supporting code as possible.
Basically bootloader, some drivers, etc… Imagine some graphic specific features like Optimus that are not documented and/or not driver provided, no ways to support them into one or another OS. That could lead to some OS having better support while nothing, technically, prevent them from.
And an OS like Linux being a hack, how can a company be comfortable and confident to an OS that is just a hack ? Do you believe a server could suffer stability issues and just answer “It’s just a hack” ?
Kochise
I don’t know why people offend themselves when I call GNUL a Hack when GNUL developers consider themselves hackers.
If you look into GNUL history it has been a hack. Although it was not considered “Unix” they made it unix like and POSIX compliant, although it was not supported in some platforms they managed to make it work over them. There is no driver support no problem just change some lines in the kernel and compile. Although there was no kernel they managed to get a temporary kernel called Linux which it is still ticking despite being temporal.
That sounds like a hack to me. If you think a hack is bad then theres is nothing to discuss.
Linux, a hack? Well if Linux is a hack, then Windows is one massive pile kludges, fixing one bad design decision after another–going all the way back to MS-DOS in some cases.
Edited 2012-09-16 01:32 UTC
You seriously must be living under a rock if you’re this clueless.
This is so apple it can’t get more close.
They are sending us to the acorn.
Being ARM Holdings such a small financial prey
this issue looks very bad.
IBM, whom are you with?
Intel makes lots of different processors. Linux is supported on almost all of them, except this one. They are not going to stop selling all these other chips, so what is the big deal?
Now if this was an architectural change over their entire line, sure freak out, I certainly would, but it is not, it’s just one processor out of the dozens that they manufacture. When Linux gets the proper support, and it will, Intel will change it’s tune.
really? Because I dont see Intel announcing a new atom based proc for Linux. If this is “the” processor line to compete against ARM, don’t you think it should be able to run Linux too?
ValleyView. Code to support it, especially it’s GPU, has been going into the kernel and other components (like the X driver) for months now already.
You could, I don’t know, run Linux on ARM? If the multitude of chips Intel makes don’t fit your needs, buy an ARM, use a normal Atom, or wait until Linux catches up, then buy one of these new chips.
With Linux, it’s only a matter of time.
The vendors are better off switching to ARM. Normal Atom isn’t an option for these use cases. Intel has dropped the ball way too many times for their X86 SoCs.
This will just push more vendors to switch to ARM if they were even considering X86 in the first place. Intel’s poor track record for X86 SoCs has already pushed enough vendors back to ARM because of the poor support from Intel
Lets consider what we know:
Windows 8 RT will run on ARM processors. But Microsoft has made a deal so that no other OS will ever run on that hardware.
Intel is now releasing a low power Atom processor to run Windows 8 x86 in the same market space, mobile and low power device. Intel says this proc will not support Linux. That may mean again, a hardware lock out.
Most computers made in the world comes with Windows pre-installed. By the above two actions, Microsoft can effectively lock Linux out of not only a major portion of the market, but the newest and fastest growing portion of the market.
Make no mistake about it, Microsoft is targeting Linux/Android with these decisions.
Downright crooked. But it does seem like what’s happening. I never thought to piece those two bits of lock-out behavior together… good point. I would have modded you up if I didn’t already post in this topic.
Edited 2012-09-16 00:58 UTC
Don’t worry: it will all pass. Both Microsoft and Intel are digging there own graves here. The last few spasms of two slowly dying former heavy weights.
Currently, it is ARM where it’s at. And as far as Operating Systems are concerned: shifting inevitably towards iOS and Android.
Thank you for playing, but your time on top of the hill is over.
Intel is dying? Wow, can you pass me some of what you’re smoking?
Slowly, yes, because it is in a dwindling sector: PCs.
Even Intel themselves say so:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2012/09/07/intel-slashes-…
ARM on the other hand, is leading in PostPC world.
Intel is heading the same way as Sparc, Power, Alpha, IA64 etc…
Might lead in performance, but is catering to a dwindling market, meanwhile a cheaper competitor is attacking from below…
The hardware should have been released this year, if I’m correct?
That’s an SoC intended for higher end hardware like workstations and servers. Tegra 2 was a little weak without NEON support but Tegra 3 is more than good enough for anything considering Intel’s X86 SoCs.
Great chance for AMD to take the lead, that is “if” they can get it together and fix their horrible video drivers for Linux
Not gonna happen, Linux on the desktop is not a moneymaker. The Linux desktop market is simply too small to justify the effort involved; in fact it kind of surprises me that anyone supports gaming GPUs on Linux, period.
(Yes, I use Linux. It Works For Me. But it probably wouldn’t if I were into 3D games.)
“Gullible Jones: Not gonna happen, Linux on the desktop is not a moneymaker. The Linux desktop market is simply too small to justify the effort involved; in fact it kind of surprises me that anyone supports gaming GPUs on Linux, period.”
Well darn! Quick, somebody go tell Gabe Newell he is wrong and this guy is right!.
Edited 2012-09-16 06:19 UTC
Valve is looking for a way out of Mac OS X and Windows stores, which may diminish sales via Steam.
Well, actually…
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2205758/amds-hondo-will-on…
Monopolies always do this.
If Microsoft or Intel do the same, the open source communities response will probably be one of a defensive nature.
(i.e. SCO…etc.)
If Intel or Microsoft wants to destroy the Open Source community.
I say let them try.
It will be their last business decision they ever make.
-Hack
Microsoft’s latest copyrighted bits of ones and zeros known as Windows 8 needs a real, physical processor to process the operating system, far more than any single processor needs Windows. Microsoft’s “virtual” environment doesn’t mean shit without real computers in the world to actually make it work. The claim that the processor was literally designed for the operating system is a joke; Windows, and DOS before it, were designed for x86-based computers.
My first actual thought was, “well, if Intel will only support Windows with this Clover Trail processor, then the obvious logical response is that I won’t support this processor by buying a system based on it or recommending it to other people.” Simple enough. I’ve never heard of this specific processor in question, though. So I read to find out what it actually is: an Atom-based x86 system-on-a-chip meant to be used for portable battery-operated devices such as cell phones and tablets.
Then everything became clear as day: why the fuck would I even want to use x86 in portable devices? Seriously? Give me ARM, MIPS or some other simple RISC processor any day–a processor that was designed from the start for power efficiency that will conserve battery power by design, with no need to tweak the living shit out of it just to get minimal power savings. Just the thought of using an x86 processor on such a portable battery-operated device seems like a joke and makes me cringe. Really, Microsoft can keep their x86 battery guzzlers all to themselves for all I care.
The x86 architecture has its places… but inside battery-operated devices is not one of them. I don’t care how much they morph and distort that architecture; it was never designed for such use in the first place. It made some sense with laptops, because they are just fully-integrated desktop systems in a portable package running the same OS, so the ability to run all the programs you’re used to at home or work is a nice feature–even somewhat making up for the shitty battery life. But seriously–cell phones? Tablet computers? WTF?!?
Even more ironic is that with Windows 8, Microsoft is moving the operating system down a path that will eventually completely eliminate backwards compatibility with older Windows “desktop” programs as they try to (and probably eventually will) force Metro onto everyone. So, with the traditional desktop being purposely rendered obsolete and eventually a thing of the past, why the hell would anyone even have a need for x86? Especially on these systems it was never designed for to begin with?
The insanity of this whole situation is disturbing.
in the foot, if it’s true Microsoft pressured Intel into keeping Linux out.
Now, it all depends on the success, or otherwise, of Windows 8 on mobile devices. If Windows 8 performs poorly, adoption-wise, so goes Intel’s chip.
Intel knows it’s a gamble and they have decided to place their bets on Windows 8 taking into consideration the weight of MS in the computing market place.
It may also be MS’s plans to go the Apple way – lock in the users using both software and hardware.
This will be interesting. Time will tell.
Windows 8 sucks.
That’s not merely my subjective opinion, polls have consistently shown that most people don’t like it.
Microsoft is about to blow its leg off and you guys are arguing over how much it will kick Linux in the ass.
You should instead be thanking your lucky stars that Microsoft is being ran by two incompetent idiots. Apple is the competition in this space, not the dumbass duo. Watch this video if you are really that worried.
Sinofsky shows off Surface
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1zxDa3t0fg
Umm, LOL?
Even if Windows 8 objectively sucks, vendors are still going to be selling Windows 7 machines for quite a while. Joe User will just fall back to Windows 7. And by the time Windows 7 support ends, Windows NT will probably be well obsolete in favor of Barrelfish or Midori or something.
It’s possible that large numbers of people may downgrade or skip over Windows 8, but MS is hardly shooting itself in the foot.
What does it really matter? ARM’s mobile offering is so much better than Intel’s. There’s a reason why Microsoft is porting Windows 8 to ARM.
This is BS. The only way that you wouldn’t be able to load just any OS is because the OS is in the CPU.
If I understand it is that Intel isn’t going to program the OS, except maybe Windows for this hardware. Other people who wants Linux on this CPU would need to construct a bootloader for this CPU and then see which way you need to go, that if you don’t like Windows.
If somebody can jailbreak IOS then this shouldn’t be that hard to do, a lot of work but it can be done to put Linux or any OS on this. The big thing it needs it people who will willy work toward programming it and not complain it can’t be done.
Android 4.0 0.48%
Android 2.3 1.02%
Android 2.2 0.21%
Android 3.2 0.09%
– Am I the only one who this these numbers are flawed? According to the Google mobility blog “With a year-on-year growth rate of more than 250%, 850,000 new Android devices are activated each day, jetting the total number of Android devices around the world past 300 million”
According to Microsoft “Since October 2009, when the product launched, more than 630 million Windows 7 licenses have been sold.”
So according to Google and Microsoft those numbers are flawed, Android is doing about half of what Windows 7 is doing and this is considering Microsoft’s long history with OS’s, Google is relatively new in this arena however we aren’t comparing apples with apples as the OS’s play in different fields. Still those numbers are flawed.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/2011/nov11/11-03Micros…
http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2012/02/androidmobile-world-congre…
But I thought Wintel was dead?
I’m all for if x86 processors get locked to only running W*ndows. That way maybe they can finally die in peace. The 70’s called and wanted their instruction set back…
Not only Intel produce arm processors, all those who want to built a linux/android based device will choose different chips. With this Intel is cutting the three under itself.
Those wanting to build Android devices will select a different chip anyway, since Clover Trail is x86, nor ARM. 😉
It’s funny how people feel persecuted by Intel. Just look at their market share on tablets, maybe it will help you get a little less angry at them.