Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft's Dirty ACPI Secrets: It's Back! (Updated)

Watch this new page, which is already reaching huge levels of circulation.

Complained to the Federal Trade Commission

http://www.ftc.gov

Foxconn 458 E. Lambert Road Fullerton Fullerton, CA 92835

FOXCONN PHONE NUMBER: 714-871-9968

Company sold me a computer motherboard, model G33M-S, claiming that it was compliant with ACPI versions 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0.

Linux and FreeBSD do not work with this motherboard due to it's ACPI configuration, using a disassembler program, I have found that it detects Linux specifically and points it to bad DSDT tables, thereby corrupting it's hardware support, changing this and setting the system to override the BIOS ACPI DSDT tables with a customized version that passes the Windows versions to Linux gives Linux ACPI support stated on the box, I am complaining because I feel this violates an anti-trust provision in the Microsoft settlement, I further believe that Microsoft is giving Foxconn incentives to cripple their motherboards if you try to boot to a non-Windows OS.

We have received your complaint.

Thank you for contacting the FTC. Your complaint has been entered into Consumer Sentinel, a secure online database available to thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies worldwide. Your reference number is: 19642372

[...]

They detect Linux, give it a bad DSDT table, one that looks ok at a glance, but broken in subtle ways so that some of it works, but not correctly.

You call them to ask why their board won't run Linux.

They tell you to buy Vista.

They're basically rubbing Microsoft's back.


Regular readers may have already seen that Microsoft had been exposed for playing dirty tricks with ACPI.

There's this blast from the past [PDF], courtesy of Comes vs. Microsoft:

From: Bill Gates Sent: Sunday, January 24, 1999 8:41 AM To: Jeff Westorinen; Ben Fathi Cc: Carl Stork (Exchange); Nathan Myhrvold; Eric Rudder Subject: ACPI extensions

One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn't try and 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 results 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 APIs 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.


The next few days will be interesting because reactions to the Foxconn story will be everywhere.

Update: There appear to be some skeptics and apologists trying to defend Foxconn. They ought to see this from the high-reliable and always-credible Phoronix.

Foxconn Does Hate Linux Support



[...] The DSDT for Windows is correct, but Foxconn isn't interested in issuing a (simple) update to fix the Linux support. However, this isn't surprising to us. We've known that Foxconn does not wish to support Linux at all. Going back to 2006, Foxconn has told us at Phoronix that they aren't interested in Linux on their motherboards and they have no desire to support it.


This response from Foxconn is ironic too:

You are incorrect in that the motherboard is not ACPI complaint. If it were not, then it would not have received Microsoft Certification for WHQL.


What does the Microsoft Certification say? "The BIOS ain't done until Linux won't run"?

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