Alternative (dirty) business models on the rise

Summary: The Wintel press, which is bribed by companies that it covers, is challenged by prominent developers and Microsoft continues to plant its patent propaganda in the Wintel-centric (and paid) press

Things are changing for the better as GNU/Linux, usually on non-x86 platforms, continues to gain. The Wintel monoculture is trying to use patents, lockdown ('secure' boot), bribes and other forms of abuse to maintain revenue.

"With some exceptions, especially desktops (not necessarily laptops), x86 can now be abandoned."The many crimes of Intel have not, until very recently, bothered the UEFI apologists, notably Garrett, who now hates Intel (see "Actions have consequences (or: why I'm not fixing Intel's bugs any more)". UEFI is bad for several reasons that we mentioned here before and FreeBSD accepts it nonetheless. It is becoming part of an operating system that does not even need x86 because:

A new Beta version has been made available for the FreeBSD 10.1 branch, an operating system for x86, ARM, IA-64, PowerPC, PC-98, and UltraSPARC architectures. Users can now download and test it.

Who needs x86 anyway? With some exceptions, especially desktops (not necessarily laptops), x86 can now be abandoned. Samsung makes its own processors now and it has a thriving business based on Linux (Android and Tizen). When Samsung tried messing about with UEFI it ended up making a machine that was remotely brickable (a real problem that the NSA may exploit). Bricking is only one among numerous problems with UEFI. Our main concern about UEFI is that it's designed to secure the monoculture known as Wintel.

"Microsoft does not receive a billion dollars per year from Samsung for Android; the deal works in two directions and the PR stunt is attempting to portray Android as very expensive."Speaking of Samsung, the company is finally fighting Microsoft over patents (rather than sign secret patent deals) and The Mukt explained the insignificance of the latest news spin. As we noted at the time, not only Microsoft boosters relayed the deception but even some FOSS blogs repeated it (probably because of the former group, based on their links), including GNU/Linux advocates such as Robert Pogson and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. Microsoft does not receive a billion dollars per year from Samsung for Android; the deal works in two directions and the PR stunt is attempting to portray Android as very expensive. This is propaganda that mostly (originally) comes from pro-Microsoft circles such as CBS and IDG. ⬆