Microsoft wants to integrate Windows with Bios (Bastards!)

Hardware and technical stuff
1

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,39116902,00.htm

A deal with BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies would allow the operating system to directly control hardware. It also raises concerns over who controls the software in PCs

Microsoft has expanded its relationship with BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies in a deal designed to more closely integrate the basic building blocks of the PC with the Windows operating system.

The relationship, announced this week, is designed to make PCs simpler and more reliable, the companies said. The move is likely to put consumer rights advocates on their guard, however, since both Microsoft and Phoenix are involved in plans to integrate digital rights management (DRM) technology at the operating system and hardware level. DRM is designed to give copyright owners more control over how users make use of software and content, but has been criticised as eroding consumer rights.

All your PC will be are belong to us!

This is something that must be fought against, comrades! Man the barricades! (Hope you don’t plan to use Linux in the future.)

2

I’m confident that someone will make Linux-compatible motherboards, and if they don’t, there’s always Apple.

I guess I should enjoy my next PC because the way things are going, it might be my last. I’m not interested in being owned by Microsoft.

3

Ugh. I can just see the “tight integration” now.

Not to be paranoid, but… “Well, were we to support something like and open-source operating system, our DRM would be compromised. We’d be unable to implement these security features for the benefit of our users. Thus, the BIOS is tightly integrated with – and supports only – the Windows operating system.”

Nah, never happen. Really.

4

It will happen unless the market refuses to go along.

5

I don’t think it’ll happen because of one little 4 letter word.

Dell.

They write their own BIOSes (they started with a Phoenix license from a billiion years ago), and I haven’t seen them making moves to put anything magic in the BIOS at all. Most all the “big” vendors have their own BIOSes also, and don’t spend time adding new whizbang features to their BIOSes.

What we’ve got here is a company (Phoenix) doing anything it can to make money. Phoenix did try to do the “BIOS connects to the Internet!” thing a few years back, and can anyone really say that they’ve ever seen that feature used by anything? (Because it went belly up – http://www.cexx.org/phoenix.htm ).

The other big player in the OEM BIOS land is Award, and I haven’t seen them do anything “scary” lately.

6

Monopoly DRM issues aside, now when you get a virus you just have to reflash the bios! :twisted:

7

I’m sure there will be hacked bios’s available for download regardless. Does this really affect anyone who knows how to type “bios hack” into google?

8

Yes, it will affect the 95% of computer user sheep as they are tied ever more closely to the Microsoft tit.

9

Or buy all new parts when some virus frys your system settings/voltages etc.

10

I’m confident that someone will make Linux-compatible motherboards, and if they don’t, there’s always Apple.

Yeah, cause Apple’s never tried to block people from running non Apple OSes on their hardware before… cough

11

You haven’t seen Award do anything crazy because, unlike Phoenix, their BIOS’s don’t suck and need MS to help support their business.

12

Um, didn’t Phoenix buy out Award a ways back?

13

Whoops, I’m confusing Award with AMI. Good call.

14

News to me if they did :/