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HARDWARE - PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE COLLUSION

Brian Grainger

brian@grainger1.freeserve.co.uk

A little while ago I wrote an article on how the use of independently controlled standards was vital if we are to have competition in the computer application software marketplace. I want to turn my attention this time to another problem which hinders competition, hardware linked to proprietary software, and what could be done to ease the situation.

In the early days of computing, when the Commodore PET, Atari and the TRS-80 ruled the roost, hardware and software were inextricably linked. The software was in-built to the hardware in the form of ROMs. However, we could still buy printers and disk drives from independent manufacturers that would compete with the computer manufacturer equivalents.

When the IBM PC appeared the only piece of software that was linked to the machine was the BIOS chip. The machine could run a choice of operating systems and application software. More importantly, the PC came with standard serial and parallel ports to which hardware devices could be connected that would work with whatever addressed these ports. As time went on printers were connected to the parallel port and modems were connected to the serial port. One other piece of hardware, the hard disk drive, was linked via an internal IDE connection.

As the PC architecture has progressed it has gone through a number of changes, so that today many peripherals, including printers, connect to the USB port. Disk drives may attach via SCSI or more recently SATA connections. Finally, the old style dial-up modem went internal to the PC on the PCI bus and also externally on the USB port. During this metamorphosis there have been other subtle changes that mean the hardware becomes linked to the Windows operating system, (OS), in some way. What this does is to make it very difficult to use with anything else and therefore reduce competition in the OS market. Let me explain how this has happened with three devices in particular; the printer, the dial-up modem and the disk drive.

We all know that a printer comes with a driver to make it print. The big two manufacturers in the field, Hewlett Packard and Epson, have developed their own printing 'languages' so that as long as the operating system sends the right 'code' it will print. These languages are well known to developers so the printers can be made to work pretty much with anything. If the printer supports the postscript standard then even the language is independent of the printer.

This was nice and simple, but then along came the clever tricks. Printer manufacturers decided that communication with the PC would become 2-way. As well as taking the computer instructions to do the printing, the printer would send back information, especially when there was an error or perhaps to say that the ink is running out! I must admit this is quite useful in a networked environment because the computer and the printer might be a long way apart. It is handy to know whether your job has printed or not before you leave your desk to collect it. Unfortunately, it never works out as helpful as this in real life, but that is another story! The point here is that printers are sending the OS information and for this the manufacturers assume the OS is Windows. Once you are hooked into another OS this information is lost. What could be done about this? Well, perhaps the manufacturers could define the protocol and format for the information, so that other developers using other OS may be able to write an interface to cope with it.

The second piece of hardware I want to address is the dial-up modem. You may think, in this age of broadband modems, that the dial-up modem is redundant. The PC manufacturers seem to think so because, as I suddenly found out recently, they do not seem to be including dial-up modems in PCs anymore. Well, if you happen to live in a developing country or the remoter parts of developed ones, you may think differently. Even when you have broadband it would be nice to have a dial-up modem backup, so you can at least get your e-mail when the broadband system goes pear-shaped.

Dial-up modems, when they first came out for the PC, connected to the serial port and contained all the bits necessary to receive the information from the port, convert it to the appropriate tones for the telephone line and send it down the telephone line. There came a point, and I am fascinated to know when and who instigated it, when modems were suddenly taken inside the PC. This was nice and convenient in some ways. The modem was hidden and there were less trailing wires. On the other hand you now had no lights to check to see if your modem was working. At the same time, modems were suddenly being made without all the bits necessary to make them work. The operating system took over some, (actually a lot), of the functionality of the modem. This meant the modem did not contain as many bits and so became cheaper. On the other hand, the modem was now inextricably linked to the operating system, which of course was Windows. This was the so-called winmodem. Your average man in the street did not even know things had changed. I did know about it and when I bought my desktop PC in 1998 I specifically asked my supplier if my internal modem, a Diamond SupraExpress 56i, was a winmodem. I was told it was not and I had to take their word for it, because I did not know what the difference was myself. It has worked quite happily with Windows but I have never got it working with Linux. I though this was due to the fact the I could not select the appropriate serial port, Windows seemed to think it was on port 3, but I think I may have found the real answer, just last week. It is not a full winmodem - but it is not a proper modem either! A winmodem does not have a digital signal processor in the hardware but my modem does. On the other hand my modem is controller less, which means the controlling function is within the OS - so I am stuffed without the appropriate driver for Linux.

The tale of woe with my modem highlights just how competition in the OS market can be stifled by hardware suppliers. With connection to the internet being an essential these days, what does someone do when they try out Linux and suddenly find they cannot access the internet? Run straight back to Windows, unless they are very determined. For these winmodems to work the OS has to be modified to perform some modem functionality. How nice of Mr. Gates to do that free of charge. Who was really behind the change to winmodems - modem manufacturers or Bill Gates? What can be done about this? Well, nothing can be done about winmodems now. I am at a loss to know what can be done in the future. It is a case of buyer beware and simply demand equipment that will work properly before it disappears from the market place. Have you tried to get a proper modem that connects to a serial port recently? You will not find one in a shop - even that specialist shop that sells second hand PCs.

The warnings the buyer needs when selecting hardware are not exactly trumpeted. For example, should you choose a USB broadband modem? The answer to this question may be vital when you decide to sign up to a broadband supplier. Some suppliers will give you a free USB modem. Some will give you a free router, or perhaps will make a charge for a router. Is there a preferred option? I must confess I am not really a hardware person. However, USB modems are being talked of in the same way as winmodems and there does seem to be more problems associated with getting USB modems to work with Linux, special drivers being needed. On the other hand, if your computer has an Ethernet connection, (many new ones do), and the broadband router has an Ethernet connection, (they usually do), all you will need to get broadband to work on Linux is an Ethernet cable. So, if you are looking for broadband and need to keep your OS options open then choose a supplier who provides a router.

The final piece of hardware I want to talk about is the hard disk drive. I have left this till last because I am so angry with the way the market has progressed. It is so easy to avoid the problems we now have, if the appropriate powers would do something. Why on earth should a hard drive be tied to an OS? It is just a storage device and should be capable of providing storage to any system - out of the box. Surely, it is not fit for purpose if it does not?

Let me first explain that my anger does not relate to the change in standards of hard drives from IDE to SATA. While SATA sometimes causes a problem with Linux at present, I believe this is something the Linux community has to solve for itself. The SATA standard has not come about to make Windows the only choice. It has come about to improve hard disk performance.

My anger is concerned with hard disk drives that are installed in PCs being deliberately configured to exclude OSes other than Windows. When hard disk sizes were smaller there was, maybe, some argument. Now there is not.

I can understand hard drives being preconfigured to run Windows. When the consumer buys a PC they want it to work and usually they want it to work with Windows - because they have been told that is what they need! If one accepts this premise then it is so much simpler to switch on and follow a set of instructions to get going, rather than supply a pack of CDs and tell them to install Windows! However, I still think they should get a set of Windows disks supplied, rather than have to create their own backups that are a cut down version of the full product, without the tools needed to help in an emergency. However, that is another story.

OK - I accept Windows comes on my brand new PC hard drive. My beef is that the 100GB+ disk that contains Windows is formatted into one big NTFS partition, a Windows specific storage format. If you are lucky(?) it MAY be split into separate partitions, but then they will still be formatted as NTFS and you do not decide how many and what size the partitions are. My laptop follows yet another approach. Its 60GB hard drive is split into 2 fairly large NTFS partitions and one small FAT partition. The latter is used to store recovery data, should you have an emergency and need to reinstall Windows. You are warned that the recovery procedure expects it that way and you should not alter it. Not quite sure how true that is, but the disincentive is there. Those in the worst position are those with one big NTFS partition. Windows has a habit of storing system data in the middle of a partition - so if you are brave enough to resize and make new partitions you may find obstacles to the process.

If you are going to install a different operating system from Windows you are going to need partitions that are not formatted to NTFS. Also, there are no tools in Windows to resize existing partitions. Thus, by pre-formatting hard disks this way the user is discouraged in installing a different operating system. They have to trust that any tools to do the necessary resizing and reformatting of the disk partitions do not lose any existing data or the Windows operating system.

By pre-formatting hard disks in this manner, hardware vendors are colluding to maintain the Windows monopoly.

My anger is due to the fact that it is not necessary to format hard disks this way. With such large disks available now, one could create an NTFS partition for Windows and day-to-day data in say, 20GB. The rest could be left blank. Tools exist in Windows to create new partitions. If the user wanted further NTFS partitions they could create them. If, on the other hand, they wanted to install a different operating system then they could create the new partitions in the number and format the new OS needs, with absolutely no worry that data or Windows will get corrupted.

What can be done about this problem? The solution is simple. Instead of pursuing Microsoft in costly and meaningless court cases in the US and Europe, attention should switch to prosecuting the hard disk manufacturers. If they don't change their process such that hard drives comes with a minimum amount of disk that is not partitioned - say at least 50% in disks of 100GB or more - they should be charged with encouraging monopoly practices and acting in collusion with a supplier to the detriment of the consumer. I am not a lawyer. I do not know if such laws exist, but you get my drift. If the laws do not exist they should be introduced. Then the prosecutions should be swift. When users have a choice what can be stored on their hard drives then Microsoft will no longer have a monopoly on that hard drive.

I have outlined the problems with linking hardware to software in three specific cases. This is not to say there are not other cases. We need to be wary that future hardware developments are not deliberately colluding with other vendors. The age of the BIOS is passing. The Apple Macintosh on an Intel platform already uses the technology that replaces the BIOS. Information about such changes in technology must be available for any operating system to make use of and not give unfair advantage to one particular software supplier. Only then will we have a truly competitive environment.

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