Apple, for instance, does not provide low level device documentation sufficient for creating open source drivers - for instance - publishing documentation on the Apple GPU and coprocessor would have reduced the development effort of the Asahi GPU driver by 90%.
If Apple was compelled to release low level documentation for their Apple Silicon hardware (audio, usb, gpu, power management, etc) - Linux would have been running on Apple hardware long ago.
So your personal computer was not tied to a specific OS and you were easily about to get a refund for the license cost of the OS that shipped in box. So what’s the issue? Do you want hardware to ship without any software?
Ideally. Normaly if you build a computer, there will not be any OS on a random SSD you buy for it. And it's fine. Do I have to build my own laptop to get this nice experience on a laptop?
> Normaly if you build a computer, there will not be any OS on a random SSD you buy for it.
That's why so many people go with pre-built and don't even care about wiping and reinstalling the OS to get rid of the bloat. They want a fully functioning product from the moment they power it on so having the OS is a big deal.
Even without Microsoft's interference, it would still complicate logistics. Two OS options means double the number of SKUs. Some manufacturers offer this option but I wouldn't hold my breath that retailers want to bother.
That sounds like excuses. They could even make it pre-installed but require to enter a code on first boot to unlock the encrypted HDD if they really wanted a single hardware SKU but I doubt that it would be a real problem in the first place.
Yes, Amazon and other retailers will have one laptop with OS, one laptop without. They need to track two different SKUs even if the conversion is easy. When upgradeable, SSD or RAM are also easily "convertible" but the SKU still needs to uniquely identify that "thing" that you have in stock or in the manufacturing pipeline.
Windows strengths: IRPs and fantastic async I/O, ETW events, tooling- windbg xperf driver verifier time travel debugging, RDP, doesn’t claim everything acts like a file
Linux strengths: file system, open source ecosystem, ssh, lockless algorithm support
No, although this was true until around 2019 when Linux introduced io_uring and finally had a genuine innovation. io_uring wound up giving us a unified asynchronous I/O layer that handles just tons of things. (And it is genuinely a step up from the overlapped I/O APIs of Windows, as it avoids eating syscall transition overhead in many cases.)
Of course, Microsoft then went on to introduce IORing in 2022, continuing their legacy of never being afraid to adopt good ideas. But still - it would be wrong to suggest Linux is currently behind on async I/O. It hasn't been for years.
I just can’t understand why the Linux kernel has avoided tracking completions for so long and has such hard time with async I/O. Windows has had IRPs and overlapped I/O for decades, asyc is the default and there just isn’t much reason to ever use synchronous I/O.
It may be a problem with EU regulations. It’s hard to see how Apple could be certain they had complied with the EU DMA law, given its based on vague outcomes rather than clear requirements with extremely large penalties. The fact the EU was only willing to require the DMA regulations be met by large foreign companies doesn’t inspire confidence.
And it’s not like there is a thriving tech ecosystem of successful EU tech companies showing how it’s done. So there is a lot of ambiguity on how companies can reasonably comply without huge risk of 10% global revenue.
Apple might not want to risk 10% of their global revenue on whether EU regulators like the outcome of their compliance efforts. And there isn’t any real risk of an EU based startup competing in this space like there would be in China.
DMA is about competition not privacy. Apple has privacy concerns with complying related to 3rd party access to customer data.
Another aspect here is that even if Apple tries theirto best to comply, the EU could decide they didn’t do a good enough job and fine them 10% of global revenue. Honestly Apple just might not want to take that risk.
> DMA is about competition not privacy. Apple has privacy concerns with complying related to 3rd party access to customer data.
DMA is reasonable. It‘s not their job to be concerned so much as to block that access completely. Alternative approaches do exist. For example, they may require independent audit of submitted apps if they do not trust regulators and collect small fees to cover operational costs of dealing with audit ecosystem.
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