Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2012/jan/12/microsoft-confirms-UEFI-fears-locks-down-ARM/

by zoowar • 15 years ago

254 131 15 years ago

iPad has or had a monopoly in the tablet market, but where are/were the cries for an open bootloader? Where were the complaints to governments?

Motorola and HTC phones/tablets ship with locked bootloaders while leveraging the hard work of F/OSS developers for free. Not to mention the Nook tablet/Kindle Fire which ship with a locked bootloader who get a free pass.

Note that this will be the same set of people who will slag Microsoft for malware getting into the system and will recommend switching away from Windows because it is insecure.

How about forcing Apple to allow users to load alternate OSes like Windows 8 or Android on the iPad?

Jach• 15 years ago

I'm not sure what you've been reading that I haven't, but I've seen plenty anti-Apple and anti-Amazon and anti-X cries precisely because of their lock-in attempts. From what I've read, the fact that Microsoft keeps doing it just means they won't learn their lesson, and Apple et al. doing it just means they're more evil than Microsoft in this respect. It's also a warning flag that as much as MS tries to win over the OSS crowd they still have some issues to work out.

The law getting involved and being applied arbitrarily or just to MS though is very silly.

JoshTriplett• 15 years ago

> I've seen plenty anti-Apple and anti-Amazon and anti-X cries precisely because of their lock-in attempts.

As an X Window System developer, I often get confused when people use "X" as a placeholder. I thought, "but X doesn't lock people in...".

X-Istence3• 15 years ago

iPad was developed by a single company. Apple built the hardware and software. Apple didn't force a manufacturer through licensing terms to lock down the bootloader to stop the manufacturers customers from loading an alternate OS.

The thing that people don't like is the fact that Microsoft is saying through their licensing agreements with a manufacturer that they have to lock the boot loader down so that the manufacturers customers (Asus, HTC, Samsung customers) are not allowed to load an alternate OS.

vena5• 15 years ago

Apple produces their own hardware, and the various locked Android devices are not being locked down by Google.

recoiledsnake10• 15 years ago

>Apple produces their own hardware

Samsung and Foxconn and a lot of other suppliers make the hardware. Apple does not own the factories.

fluidcruft2• 15 years ago

Let's revisit this in a year and see. My prediction is at that point Google will be producing the most locked down Android devices. Motorola's we-will-prevent-you-from-needing-support practices shoehorn perfectly with Google's we-don't-do-support practices. It's a marriage made in heaven.

sjs2• 15 years ago

People have hacked iPads and iPhones to run Android. And nobody actually uses it because there is no hardware back button, etc.

When hardware and software are a cohesive unit it's hard to run something generic on the hardware, or run the software on some other hardware. That is not the case for Windows, Linux, and Android, which is why people feel differently about that ecosystem.

cooldeal11• 15 years ago

Windows 8 ARM tablets won't have back, home or menu buttons either.

gcp2• 15 years ago

People have hacked iPads and iPhones to run Android. And nobody actually uses it because there is no hardware back button, etc.

That must explain the lack of penetration of Android tablets! (They have no back button either)

daeken• 15 years ago

I've been a Microsoft fanboy for a long time, and I've been speaking out about the Secure Boot brouhaha because there was effectively no evidence that they were actually attempting to lock anyone out, but this is simply inexcusable. Sad.

melling3• 15 years ago

You can't seriously be surprised by this. Microsoft can't be trusted until their desktop monopoly is destroyed. I guess the US vs Microsoft is 14 years old this year. Maybe we've all forgotten how Microsoft destroyed all other PC OS'es and how Windows wouldn't run without Internet Explorer; Microsoft claimed it was part of the OS and there was no way to remove it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"Microsoft's true anticompetitive clout was in the rebates it offered to OEMs preventing other operating systems from getting a foothold in the market"

It shouldn't be a PC vs Mac world today. It should be PC, Mac, BeOS, OS/2, Linux, etc.

ekianjo2• 15 years ago

> It shouldn't be a PC vs Mac world today. It should be PC, Mac, BeOS, OS/2, Linux, etc.

There are a number of small, niche systems around the world that few people know about. When something gets broad popularity it is natural to see only a few systems get the cake, the cream of the cake and the cherry on it while the others get the crumbs. "He who has more, gets more" if you know the saying.

In the 80s you had a free market situation with personal computers and litterally hundred of brands to choose from. All incompatible. And only a few brands made it through the years, with the IBM PC standard getting the first place.

Fast Market growth favors big players.

cooldeal11• 15 years ago

>It shouldn't be a PC vs Mac world today.

I thought we were living in a post-PC world? Restricting Microsoft here would unfairly advantage Apple's continuing monopoly of tablets.

adgar• 15 years ago

> I've been speaking out about the Secure Boot brouhaha because there was effectively no evidence that they were actually attempting to lock anyone out

No evidence, just history. Lots and lots of history.

dangrossman4• 15 years ago

Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly in the tablet or phone markets. Heck, it's barely a market participant. If Apple doesn't have to let people install Windows on an iPad, then the same should apply to Microsoft. This time, there's no "but there's a monopoly and the rules are different for monopolies" excuse.

kennywinker2• 15 years ago

But we're not talking about just phones and tablets...

"[...] yesterday, Qualcomm announced plans to produce Windows 8 tablets and ultrabook-style laptops built around its ARM-based Snapdragon processors"

Those will be locked out as well.

This is exactly what Cory Doctorow was talking about in his article the other day about "the war on general purpose computing" - (http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html)

cooldeal11• 15 years ago

Sorry, that war was fought and lost won with the iPhone and iPad.

If anything, Microsoft is better in the sense that it offers more share of the app cost to the developers and also doesn't charge tithes like Apple does on content.

molmalo• 15 years ago

But it's still not a monopoly. If you want your ultrabook to run Linux, buy an x86 where you can disable secure mode. If you want an ARM, then Microsoft deserves the same treatment as the others. If Apple can lock its iPad, the same applies to Microsoft.

sounds5• 15 years ago

I think the point here is that Microsoft is requiring additional restrictions that Android does not - when they both use the same handset hardware.

Why should we give Microsoft a pass? Because they're the underdog? No. Android is not 100% open (e.g. binary-only kernel modules for proprietary hardware, Google not releasing honeycomb, ...) But that's no excuse for Microsoft to use cryptography against the customer.

Microsoft must face the ill-will it generated this way, including the ill-will toward its attempts to mandate UEFI Secure Boot on the PC. This move on the ARM platform will be used (by me and others) to demonstrate that the UEFI Secure Boot requirement on the PC cannot be accepted.

throwaway642• 15 years ago

Plenty of android devices have a bootloader that is just as locked down as the windows 8 ARM requirements.

X-Istence3• 15 years ago

Apple manufacturers both the hardware and the software and then sell it, there is no 3rd party involved in this transaction.

Microsoft builds the OS and licenses it to a manufacture, they build the device and sell it. At least 3 parties involved.

Microsoft's requirements need to be met to be able to license Windows 8 for tablets. Microsoft is forcing manufacturers to lock down their devices or else they aren't allowed to use Windows 8.

Google licenses the Android source code/platform/name whatever, and a manufacturer builds the devices. The manufacturer chooses to lock down the boot loader.

Google doesn't make any requirements on the manufacturers to lock their devices down.

That is where the difference lies. Microsoft is being bad here because they are forcing something on its manufacturers that its manufacturers may not have wanted to implement.

I don't see why Apple should have to let people install Windows on an iPad, or for that matter even make it easy for people to do so if they pleased. I don't see why manufacturers should have to let people flash whatever firmware they want to their device. But I do see why Microsoft shouldn't be telling manufacturers that the manufacturers customers can't flash their device if they so pleased.

dangrossman4• 15 years ago

> Google doesn't make any requirements on the manufacturers to lock their devices down.

But they do. Google has many requirements and if you don't meet them, you won't be licensed the Google apps. That's the same thing Microsoft is doing here. You can choose to make a tablet that doesn't meet their requirements, you just can't sell it with Windows if you do so.

Microsoft isn't preventing anyone from making products or selling tablets running other operating systems... just that the ones they sell with Windows can't be re-flashed.

wmf2• 15 years ago

Instead carriers require that all phones be locked. Different causes, but the same result.

icebraining• 15 years ago

So it's bad for Microsoft to force rules onto the manufacturers, but not for the manufacturers to force rules onto the consumers? How come?

In my opinion, both are bad. No, the manufacturers shouldn't have to make it easy (or make any effort at all) to help consumers install other OSs, but locking up the devices on purpose is no better than what MS is doing.

burgerbrain8• 15 years ago

Your argument seems to assume that I think it is okay for Apple to do what they do... Let me put it this way:

1) Two wrongs do not make a right.

2) Both are worthy of criticism.

3) What Apple does is off topic anyway. This discussion is about Microsoft.

recoiledsnake10• 15 years ago

The argument is about how it is illegal, and the SFLC complaining to governments to fix this. If they force MS to license their software to any OEM, they should similarly force Apple to license Mac OS X to Psystar and also unlock the iPhone and iPad's bootloaders.

salem• 15 years ago

The moral of the story is, don't buy a windows phone if you want to reflash it.

kennywinker2• 15 years ago

Or an arm-based ultrabook.

sounds5• 15 years ago

Or an x86-based laptop with UEFI Secure Boot*

* Windows 8 logo compliance still requires UEFI Secure Boot. This won't affect desktops as quickly but laptops come with minimal BIOS options. Managing keys to install another OS will be omitted by many laptop manufacturers.

astrodust• 15 years ago

Related: Don't sign an expensive OEM deal with Microsoft if they're going to lock you in to what could be a Windows Phone 7 type disaster.

A smart OEM would avoid certification, instead focusing on making a product that could run Linux, or Android, or whatever WebOS becomes, instead of getting locked to a sinking ship.

The reason people are drawn to Windows is because their x86 software from the 1990s still works. How many apps are going to work on ARM out of the box?

motoford• 15 years ago

And here I was starting to believe that other article about a calmer gentler Ballmer.

drivebyacct24• 15 years ago

And that's how Microsoft killed ARM based netbooks, ultrabooks, tablets, etc that could potentially run Linux because most OEMs will want to have them licensed for use with Windows 8.

Can we rehash all the dozen posts about this from months ago when people swore up on down that Microsoft wasn't going to do... well, what the rest of us expect at this point?

burgerbrain8• 15 years ago

"Can we rehash all the dozen posts about this from months ago when people swore up on down that Microsoft wasn't going to do... well, what the rest of us expect at this point?"

This is almost the worst part of it for me. Those people get to play "the voice of reason" at the time, but they don't receive any of the deserved ridicule when their fantasy world doesn't pan out.

cooldeal11• 15 years ago

The people that "deserved ridicule when their fantasy world doesn't pan out" are the paranoid folks that claimed that MS is banning booting Linux on PCs. Microsoft updated the requirements so that OEMs are REQUIRED to provide an option to disable secure boot on PCs. Here we are talking about Post-PC devices that won't even run the legacy x86 code that Windows has a dominance in.

mattgreenrocks• 15 years ago

It's almost as if being Right On The Internet doesn't mean anything in the real world!

wmf2• 15 years ago

I thought most of the discussion last time was about x86; I've never heard of UEFI for ARM and I suspect most haven't either.

drivebyacct24• 15 years ago

Now I'm curious to find the old revision of this document, but the linked article seems (to me) to imply that the new no-uefi-secure-exemptions provision was added to an existing discussion of UEFI/ARM. I could be wrong, and I'm not sure the distinction matters significantly, the discussion here on HN was pretty clearly in regard to Microsoft's intentions with UEFI and whether it was about being anti-competitive or truly for security.

recoiledsnake10• 15 years ago

>And that's how Microsoft killed ARM based netbooks, ultrabooks, tablets, etc that could potentially run Linux because most OEMs will want to have them licensed for use with Windows 8.

Why is it Microsoft's responsibility to make Linux run on the hardware that runs their software? What is your stance on Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire etc.? Why shouldn't they be able to secure their OS against jailbreaking and malware just like Apple does?

If they're forced to not have restriction by the government, I propose that the government force Apple and other vendors to open up their hardware, so that Windows 8 and Linux can run on them.

>Can we rehash all the dozen posts about this from months ago when people swore up on down that Microsoft wasn't going to do... well, what the rest of us expect at this point?

I believe they were referring to x86 machines, not ARM.

drivebyacct24• 15 years ago

>Why is it Microsoft's responsibility to make Linux run on the hardware that runs their software? What is your stance on Nook Tablet, Kindle Fire etc.?

I disapprove of Android vendors locking their bootloaders as well. However, this is an entirely different landscape. Microsoft's penetration on laptops and netbooks means that they have the ability to block out competing operating systems unless OEMs (that have to negotiate contracts with Microsoft) go out of their way to provide a different model with a differently implemented UEFI. Considering the number of manufacturers selling Linux computers now, that seems unlikely.

Regardless, I even granted that there isn't a business reason for them to be friendly to competing operation systems, it's just disappointing to see them resorting to this. I have to wonder if it's in part because of how far behind they are in terms of phones/tablets.

>I believe they were referring to x86 machines, not ARM.

Does it matter? The conversations that were playing out were discussing Microsoft's intentions wrt to UEFI.

burgerbrain8• 15 years ago

"make Linux run" You mean: "not prevent Linux from running"

But hey, to address what seems to be your point... Lets have a reality check. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. So quick to forget...

tzs• 15 years ago

The discussion months ago was about x86, I believe. According to the article, "For non-ARM systems, Microsoft requires that Custom Mode be enabled".

I suspect that it will turn out that Microsoft knows that Apple and Android have built a possibly insurmountable lead on ARM and so will be subsidizing the hardware that ships with Windows 8 in order to lower the price to the consumer to try to buy market share. For obvious reasons they would not want people who want an Android tablet to see an Android tablet for, say, $400, and a Windows 8 tablet from the same manufacturer with identical hardware specs for $300 (because of Microsoft's subsidy) that they could buy and then put Android on.

silon3• 15 years ago

So, no running Windows under Linux VM ->no Windows for me.

nxn• 15 years ago

Well, this piece of news certainly just killed my "Windows 8 App" project. Even though I really do like Microsoft's tech, I just cannot support this type of behavior in any way. Maybe with mono I'll at least be able to salvage the server side parts and target Android based devices instead.

kenjackson• 15 years ago

First, tihs document is about HW Certification. You can ship an ARM-based system that doesn't follow these rules, just won't be certified by MS -- much like many Android devices aren't Google certified.

Furthermore, MS actually bent over backwards on x86 and required for certification that the option to disable secure boot be provided (they could have been silent on this issue):

"Enable/Disable Secure Boot. On non-ARM systems, it is required to implement the ability to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup. A physically present user must be allowed to disable Secure Boot via firmware setup without possession of PKpriv."

I'd wait for MS's response on ARM. They've taken some interesting architectural approaches with their current ARM implementation (striped and actually secure SD cards). There may be architectural reasons for this. Or it could be that there are security issues with it, given that UEFI on ARM is pretty new.

But in any case, if this is important to an OEM they can simply not get HW certification. This doesn't block anyone from actually installing Windows 8 on ARM on machines w/o this capability.

recoiledsnake10• 15 years ago

Agreed on rest of the points, but Windows 8 on ARM is more like Windows Phone in the sense that you can't ship an ARM based system like you can with x86. You need a special license, there will be no OEM or user installable versions of Windows 8 ARM.

tankenmate2• 15 years ago

Based on this you could make a case about this being an antitrust violation as they are tying one product (which is a monopoly in one arena) to another product in an arena which isn't a monopoly.

pdubs• 15 years ago

What about MSDN? I suspect it will be on there as likely the only legal way for a user to install it.

brudgers3• 15 years ago

It appears that ARM devices can fallover to legacy BIOS mode to support non UEFI OS's.

From page 109 of windows8-hardware-cert-requirements-system.pdf:

  System.Fundamentals.Firmware.UEFIDefaultBoot 

  Target Feature: System.Fundamentals.Firmware 

  Title:  All client systems must be able to boot into UEFI
   boot mode and attempt to boot into this 
   mode by default 

  Applicable OS Versions: 
    Windows 8 Client x86 
    Windows 8 Client x64 
    Windows 8 Client ARM 
    Windows 8 Server x64 
    Windows Server 2008 Release 2 x64 

  Description: 
  The System firmware must be able to achieve UEFI mode
  boot by default. Such a system may also 
  support fallback to legacy BIOS mode boot for deploying 
  OS images which do not support UEFI, if the 
  user explicitly selects that option in the pre-boot UEFI BIOS menu. 
  This requirement is If Implemented for Server systems and applies
   only if a Server system is UEFI capable.

cooldeal11• 15 years ago

I seriously doubt that legacy BIOS will support ARM.

lgeek• 15 years ago

There's no BIOS on ARM. BIOS is x86-only.

daemin• 15 years ago

From my reading of the restrictions it appears that the restriction is only on adding new keys to the boot ROM. So makers could ship arm computers with appropriate linux keys in the ROM already, and still be compatible with the WIndows 8 requirements.

justincormack• 15 years ago

That would have to be a public key then. Which is just like allowing no key.

InclinedPlane• 15 years ago

Oh no, 0.0001% of all tablets sold this year may end up boot locked due to this. Assuming there's nothing more to the story. Let's panic.

brudgers3• 15 years ago

The article is a blog post about a blog post about a blog post.

The Windows 8 hardware certification requirements comprise three documents and more than 1000 pages. They are available here [warning license agreement required]:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/windows/hardware/hh748188

trotsky• 15 years ago

I may be missing something, but it doesn't sound like an OEM is prevented from including additional keys, from say cannonical and redhat, or even simply an OEM key that is used to sign a generic boot loader like grub.

hetman• 15 years ago

Meaning this is still much more open than the iPad.

scottdw2• 15 years ago

Vendor lockout is not the worst part.

I'd worry much more about the executive branch.

http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/139791 http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/4957

Derbasti• 15 years ago

Damn it, I was so sure that 2012 would be The Year of Linux on the Desktop. And now this!

Kidding aside, there will always be IPhones/Playstations, which need to be jail broken and there will be proper computers. If anything, this UEFI lockdown will make it easier to find appropriate hardware for your Linux box/server, since all that Windows-centric gaming stuff will be sold locked down only.

Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

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