That's assuming the vendor doesn't take action to lock the platform down. Remember, this is the mobile space which is still extremely end-user hostile.

Different is scary, I know.

There is no such thing as "open" or "free" Windows. Open and Free software on Windows, yes, but that defeats the point.

Having a non-x86 architecture in the mobile world frees us from having to constantly be backwards compatible, and an open source (preferrably Free Software) OS and applications negates the need to be.

It would make little sense to lock down a hardware platform, limiting your user base.

There's no reason to blindly poke. Allow me to clear things up. First, there aren't many mechanics that used to be brain surgeons. After decades (yes, I'm moving to plural in a couple of years) of developing for a platform using a tool, you never get the same proficiency again, lest I screw up my health again. Careers don't grow on trees.

Also, I see little reason to go "different" as long as my native platform is an option. Heck, if it's so fun and easy to just switch, come on over.

Throwing it up there that getting me out of my hole is going to make me wet myself is little more than flamebait.

A thanked post nonetheless.

Hello.

Why not? Apple does it with their devices, every Android vendor does as well (to some extent.) Motorola goes the extra mile with every device but the Droid to the extent that unless you hack the bootloader you won't be able to load a 3rd party ROM.

Perhaps that was too snarky. I don't advocate switching, I advocate expanding ones understanding to platforms and ways of doing things outside the normal purview. It's how creativity thrives. Tying ones career to a single platform would make me nervous, personally.

That's not Windows. It's trying to be Windows compatible, but the fundamental nature of Windows itself neither open nor free, and cannot be so long as it is wholly under the control of MS.

I think the nokia + Intel partnership is great as it MIGHT be a step towards the days when we can just buy hardware and run whatever OS we want on it and connect to whatever wireless provider we want to.

I just bought a toshiba nb-305 with some new qualcomm chipset in it and it is an x86 atom processor and it has some qualcomm gobi chipset in it and I can connect to wifi or cdma or gsm networks. I think ti is f****ing brilliant. I mean, why not have something that can just connect to whatever?

a) Locking a platform people hack afterward isn't really locking

b) None of those are X86. It's easy to lock down a proprietary hardware with a proprietary OS. It's virtually impossible to do so with X86 lest you risk platform incompatibility. I very much doubt Intel cares who wins the OS wars, as long as they supply the ammo.


Fundamental shmundamental. It is compatible with Windows binaries. It is compatible with Windows UI. Save for the logo on the back, it's open Windows. It walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. It has the Windows Application base, and compiles and runs Windows IDEs. If I don't like Nokia's messaging app, I either switch or develop my own.

Also, it matters not if it's open Windows or Microsoft Windows. You should expand your understanding to platforms and ways of doing things outside the normal purview.

I hear that's how creativity thrives.

But should they have to? I would argue that they should not and vendors should strive to give people the options, like Nokia and Google (at least with the Nexus One, which is basically flipping a switch.)

Intel, or other SoC vendors if they start integrating Atom, will happily provide security modules like ARM does and list it as a bullet point on their spec sheets. There is nothing about x86 that makes it immune to lockdown and as you said, Intel does not care who wins the OS wars so long as it runs on their chip.

I think you miss the point, namely pointing out that no matter what you do, MS can throw tacks in your path at which point you fix the flat or you diverge from the MS path.

With respect to keeping Windows, as a platform, in my sights I will stick with the core as run by MS as they are the sole leading force. Not to say that what ReactOS is doing is wrong or bad, it is an admirable effort; it is not where Windows is going but where it has been.

This is completely bogus. Intel (like all major chipmakers) has a very serious investment in 'trusted/secure computing', has even worked with ARM on TrustZone in the XScale days, and is shipping with a lot of security enabled chipsets for years. The fact that this tech has not yet been widely used for lockdown is most certainly not the result of Intel fighting tooth and nail for your hack-rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted...ion_Technology

I read that to the letter. I also added what I know about trusted execution. I see nothing keeping me from running Linux on such a chip if Intel intended it for Windows. It is, therefore, not "completely bogus".

The chip allows for a secure key storage in a way that the key never needs to be decrypted in-memory, the age old weakness of everything. What it does is store the keys for you.

In later implementations, it allows for separation of memory and registers per-core so that a process can't access another process' memory.

Thus far, I note the following:

a) It's an optional feature, allowing for better security

b) It prevents nobody from running nothing. It helps people run sensitive code without interference.

c) While it has its uses in DRM, such as allowing a player to decrypt data without someone stealing the keys or modifying the runtime, replacing a JNZ with a JZ, it does not disallow decrypting off-chip because the CPU knows not what you run.

d) I'll not even discuss DRM. It has been tried before a million times and it failed a million times. Intel is simply collecting on Hollywood and their wet dreams in the process of improving a platform.

e) The number of people running Linux, "modified" Windows, live systems, etc is huge. Even people with bought licenses need to run a live now and then. Microsoft patches stolen OSs. They know they're stolen and the leave it at that, because of several resons. You can't lock them out lest you enrage the whole lot of them. Or do you expect Joe Average to still buy your laptop knowing he can't run "THAT"? AMD would love to hear that. The maker offering an open system will be the preferred vendor.

I don't expect this technology to hinder anything major. And it definitely has no bearing on my OS of choice.

Also, I point out at this moment that a whole shovel of OS runners and precisely those who DO buy OSs are corporate users. And corporate users will NOT allow complex procedures on thousands of units. That's why a corporate disk has no serial number.

You don't lock these people out.

Overall, not worried in the slightest. I don't even expect to see a laptop or a laptop-smartphone hybrid that disallows an OS (save for lack of drivers). And if it does lock one out, by whatever reason, it won't be anything MS put out.

You would, if there were any takers. I'm not one of them. x86 was open this far and will be open IMO from now on. That's what pushed Intel forward, nice docs and heavy developer support. It's also what pushed ATI forward.

Remember SLI being the top dog? People bought nwhatitsname chipsets like nuts, even though they made the worse chips ever. You needed 2 nVIDIAs, a nSomething board, some drivers and (initially) a dongle of sorts. Specs were closed and only nVIDIA made the boards. Profitville!

ATI devised Crossfire (X) and opened the specs to the planet. Any Joe could build a board that supported it, moreover, the extended configuration doesn't even care what the chipset is. ATI, a division of AMD, opened specs to Intel. Now Intel makes the boards, we buy. Guess who's swimming in cash. (If you said Intel you get credit too).

Right now, PC/x86 architecture is the major platform because it's extensible and anyone can make any hardware for anything they want. I don't think anyone is that nuts as to strangle it.

I've been an Intel faithful client for many, many years, after Cyrix died. But if the idiots restrict my OS I'm jumping to AMD in 48 hours. I hear they overclock really well.

Intel doesn't care who wins as long as someone does.

They may make locked an unlocked chips and charge for the premium. In the end, you'd have N900 and N900 unlocked, for a little more, as is the case with provider lock on phones now. No more.

If they are all locked, they limit purchases, because I might just not buy an N900 if I can't have Windows on it, and maybe you might just not buy it if it has no Linux. So, really, it's more profitable to make a flexible device than to lock it.

I have no doubt there's going to be nutcases like the fruit people. I doubt they'll ever win. If Nokia locks it, I'm switching the next day at 8 AM.

They always throw tacks behind them as a matter of course. But the point that ReactOS makes is that they can't throw tacks in the past. Once it's out there, it's out there. It takes time and effort to build an OS by clean room and specs, but MS can't really do much in a legal sense, and they can't back-revoke the documentation.

The only way for them to tack it is to keep pushing the envelope and make the next OS so much better that the old one will seem old. That will keep ROS back for a long time.

What I first started using ROS, it was an NT4 project. Then they moved to 2000, and now they have an XP/2003 target.

XP is 2002-2003 technology. ROS is behind, but XP is still popular, flexible, stable (with proper care) and widely used. It has the biggest ever driver base, and, as a platform, can be extended by 3rd party just as well as the original.

It will be a long time before ROS will be Windows 7. I know that. Do I think 300E for W7 is worth the luxury? Well, I do, because I bought one for my baby. I can't have water pipes and crossfire and go around with a stolen OS. But for other applications, heck yeah.

Indeed. And cheap old technology is always going to be a contender on the market. All really cool corporations still have a few 300 MHz PCs somewhere. They all have some Linux somewhere for a PC that does nothing but act as a router, or an internal HTTP, or a SMB, and simply doesn't justify price. Joking aside, no matter what you do, there's always going to be a terminal just barely worth the hardware, the occasional daemon, etc. These could go well with a simpler, older OS that just works.

And as soon as ROS is going to be close to XP, it's going to be a viable alternative.

NT4 still runs on a ton of machines, servers nobody dares touch, workstations, ATMs, etc. And if the darned thing still had a decent driver base it'd still be used.

I have no problem with a cheap router that is now designated a Linux machine actually running an OS I can administrate with zero effort. Plus, less gadgetry and less eye candy makes for a slimmer, faster OS. It's the best of both worlds.

x86 brings with it the ability to use wine. I don't see how you can downplay the usefulness of being able to access win32 programs.

What i find worrisome is AMD's reluctance to get into the SoC market.