Foxconn deliberately sabotaging Linux and FreeBSD support?

[Dan]

I read about this story on reddit today and as totaly shocked:

http://ubuntu-virginia.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=869249

It would seem that motherboard manufacturer foxconn is deliberately adding code to there BIOS's to check for and cripple support for Linux and other nix based operating systems including FreeBSD.

And not only in one place in the code but in several, almost trying to make sure no one could fix it or at least slow them down.

To make things even worse they claim to fully support ACPI standards becues Microsoft certified them, witch brings up questions of if Microsoft could be paying or offering incentives to hardware manufacturers to sabotage linux.

Many thanks to TheAlmightyCthulhu of http://ubuntu-virginia.ubuntuforums.org for bring this information to light.

[DemonWasp]

...I was under the impression that this sort of @$%# was eleven different kinds of illegal. Isn't this "false advertising" or something similar?

Either way, let's hope that they collapse under the mighty weight of the Internets. Coding something specifically so it WON'T work when a default implementation would have worked isn't just bad practice, it's a good reason for your company to die a horrible death.

One of my friends has an older Foxconn motherboard, and I can only watch in pain. He's lost several hard drives by now (requiring a painful reinstall process and hundreds of dollars of repairs each time), as well as an X800 graphics card (back when those were pretty awesome-powerful). His box is about as stable as me in a head-stand, which is to say not at all.

AVOID FOXCONN.

[Tony]

DemonWasp @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:46 am wrote:

Coding something specifically so it WON'T work when a default implementation would have worked isn't just bad practice, it's a good reason for your company to die a horrible death.

Though that is an all-too-common practice in the industry. A lot of consumer level printers, digital cameras, etc, are the premium model versions of themselves, but with certain features disabled. For example, a digital camera might have the hardware available for a certain feature, but the firmware would disable it.

Some of the Solo CPU chips are simply Dual-core chips, with one of the cores disabled.

Though for this example to be entirely applicable, FOXCONN would have to be offering the "non-crippled" hardware at a premium for Linux support.

I think the entire "you don't own your computer" mentality we are trending towards is starting to get out of hand.

[Vermette]

Tony @ July 25th 2008, 13:05 wrote:

DemonWasp @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:46 am wrote:

Coding something specifically so it WON'T work when a default implementation would have worked isn't just bad practice, it's a good reason for your company to die a horrible death.

Though that is an all-too-common practice in the industry. A lot of consumer level printers, digital cameras, etc, are the premium model versions of themselves, but with certain features disabled. For example, a digital camera might have the hardware available for a certain feature, but the firmware would disable it.

Some of the Solo CPU chips are simply Dual-core chips, with one of the cores disabled.

Though for this example to be entirely applicable, FOXCONN would have to be offering the "non-crippled" hardware at a premium for Linux support.

Though sometimes this is done with a legitimate purpose in mind: A lot of those CPU's are Duos where one core failed QA. The same thing is happening with the new nVidia GFX line: the 260 line are 280's with processors turned off that failed QA. Merch rebranding allows manufacturers to resell hardware that would otherwise be resellable while tapping a different market. Besides, it's cheaper to crank out Duos with a core disabled as cheaper Solos than to retool a factory line to build single cores when there's still a market for them.

To give Foxconn the benefit of the doubt (I don't have time to read too much into this right now) maybe they just wrote really crappy firmware

[DemonWasp]

Tony @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:05 pm wrote:

A lot of consumer level printers, digital cameras, etc, are the premium model versions of themselves, but with certain features disabled. For example, a digital camera might have the hardware available for a certain feature, but the firmware would disable it.

As far as I can tell, this is done because it's cheaper for them to just make all of the hardware the same, and sell some with everything enabled for slightly more money. That still rankles, but it's not illegal, and probably actually a decent solution. Plus, if you're good with computers, you can buy the cheaper stuff and either upgrade firmware or solder some things to make it the better version. Nobody's really losing here, and there's no special effort made to screw people over - just some effort to offer a cheaper product alongside their flagship one.

Tony @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:05 pm wrote:

Some of the Solo CPU chips are simply Dual-core chips, with one of the cores disabled.

This one is actually even better: if one of the cores comes out of the manufacturing process borked, but the other isn't, then they can just disable the broken one, and sell it as single-core. Saves cost, waste, and production-time.

Tony @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:05 pm wrote:

I think the entire "you don't own your computer" mentality we are trending towards is starting to get out of hand.

Yeah, I'm not liking that trend. Between DRM, "Trusted Computing", rootkits and all the personal information Windows undoubtedly returns to Microsoft, computers are becoming increasingly under corporate control, rather than the control of their supposed owners. This...this is one HUGE reason to run Linux as soon as you can, since it's susceptible to exactly zero of the above...excepting hardware-level crap like Foxconn is apparently foisting off on their consumers.

[Tony]

DemonWasp @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:39 pm wrote:

all the personal information Windows undoubtedly returns to Microsoft, computers are becoming increasingly under corporate control, rather than the control of their supposed owners.

If only.

Windows comes with backdoors for "security" purposes (supposedly).
Windows enforces DRM.
It feels like we are heading towards heavy corporate involvement in what users can and can't do with their machine.

Now this might not be necessary Microsoft's fault. It's the pressure from the government agencies, RIAA/MPAA, etc., who all would love to get themselves into everybody's computer. They can't do the same with Linux. I bet the growing popularity of a system that's in a complete control of the users makes a some people worried.

[btiffin]

Don't use Windows. And if your programs only target Windows, you are adding fuel to the fire.

Code POSIX and bundle your programs with Cygwin install instructions, if need be.

Add a hyperlink to your favourite distro to all your programs.

Add great big warnings that using Windows is for weenies and baby eaters. Make sure, that as they install a Windows version, that you make them feel super stupid. Super stupid and evil. Super stupid, evil and small genitalled.



Cheers
Excuse the rant ... one o' dem days.

[rdrake]

So if a company is stupid enough to do this, they'll go out of business. They're doing the world a favour by removing themselves from the world within a few years. Free market seems to work, so just don't buy their watered down garbage.

Dan @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:50 am wrote:

witch brings up questions of if Microsoft could be paying or offering incentives to hardware manufacturers to sabotage linux.

Absolute non-sense.

[btiffin]

rdrake @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:24 pm wrote:

So if a company is stupid enough to do this, they'll go out of business. They're doing the world a favour by removing themselves from the world within a few years. Free market seems to work, so just don't buy their watered down garbage.

Dan @ Fri Jul 25, 2008 7:50 am wrote:

witch brings up questions of if Microsoft could be paying or offering incentives to hardware manufacturers to sabotage linux.

Absolute non-sense.

Non-sense? Have you read the Halloween memos? http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/halloween1.html or followed the money trail of the SCO vs IBM case?

Possible non-sense yes, but not absolute imho.

Cheers

[Dan]

rdrake @ 25th July 2008, 8:24 pm wrote:

Absolute non-sense.

Yes, bill and firends would never think of somthing like that:

Bill Gates wrote:

One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn?t try to make the ?ACPI? extensions somehow Windows specific.

It seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without having to do the work.

Maybe there is no way to avoid this problem but it does bother me.

Maybe we could define the API?s so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.

Or maybe we could patent something related to this.

Source: http://iowa.gotthefacts.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf