Thibault Nélis writes:
On 06/02/2012 12:47 AM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> Who exactly is outraged right now? A bunch of geeks on a mailing list?
> So what? Who cares?
Again, people have won cases to get their money back over the license of
preinstalled Windows copies because they use alternative OSes. Secure boot
Yes, all five of them.
[0] Yes, I found it, it was there all along, I guess I didn't
look hard
enough (or didn't listen properly):
http://download.microsoft.com/download/A/D/F/ADF5BEDE-C0FB-4CC0-A3E1-
B38093F50BA1/windows8-hardware-cert-requirements-system.pdf [search for
secureboot, you'll find it easy enough]
I never said that Microsoft would openly prohibit OEMs from offering an
option to install user-provided keys.
They key word here is "openly".
>> I agree it's not ideal, so we must still demand for
alternatives to
>> Microsoft, preferably unbiased, now.
>
> We can start by not playing their games.
Exactly, by ignoring them and using the services of other organizations.
Well, that's one unique way to ignore them: it costs $99 to do that.
Not wanting such services would be equivalent to not wanting secure
boot.
Everybody can disable it if they don't want it already, but personally I
think the technology is nice to have if done right, so it's worth showing
the need for alternatives to Microsoft.
Oh, sure, it's nice to have. But, as I stated elsewhere, it's incompatible
with Microsoft's goals.
> Not the Fedora key. My bet was on a key that can boot an open
Fedora,
> which can do everything that Fedora can do today, on the same hardware.
>
> They might get a key signed to boot a locked-down RHEL. Might. Not a
> guarantee. There will not, I repeat, NOT, going to be a signed key that
> boots Fedora, where "Fedora" refers to Fedora as we know it today.
>
> The most you're going to get, is a key that will boot Fedora that's been
> built and signed on Fedora build servers, using this key, that will
> refuse to load unsigned modules, and with certain Linux kernel features
> disabled. And nobody, but those build servers, will have the key.
I don't think I follow you, what would be the point of using a key that
would boot a version of Fedora that hasn't been built by Fedora build
servers?
There are plenty of people who use non-Fedora kernels with the rest of the
Fedora distribution. Now, I have no reasons to do so myself; and I can't
think of a typical reason why I'd want to do that; but they surely have
their own valid reason for doing that.
And, if their hardware required a Microsoft-blessed key to boot a host OS,
then the whole point of getting one would be to be able to boot their
machine.
Imagine the gall – wanting to be able to boot a custom kernel.