Linux Group Files Complaint With EU Over SecureBoot

[frign]

My reply to you will be this: the free market has no such thing called protection. Fundamental fact of economics.

You can other have a free market or a regulated market. Choose one.

America is not representative for the whole world. In Europe, there _are_ regulated markets and fortunately measures to stop Microsoft from expanding its monopoly on personal computing.

[Sonadow]

America is not representative for the whole world. In Europe, there _are_ regulated markets and fortunately measures to stop Microsoft from expanding its monopoly on personal computing.

As far as monopolies go I consider Microsoft to be relatively 'ok' (can't think of a better word). They brought computing to the masses, drove hardware improvement (anecdotal example: in my country, more and more people are asking for touchscreen enabled notebooks even though they plan to wipe Windows 8 and replace it with Windows 7) and have proven themselves to be capable of listening to their customers at times (with the exception of Windows 8, since the very thing people hated about it was the key ingredient to its business strategy). Also they have been relatively quiet with regards to suing people (of course, we won't know about the cases that were not reported on). And lastly they have tried (keyword being tried) to be a little nicer with standards: Metro is written mainly in Javascript and HTML5, and Office 2013 will finally use the OOXML Strict specification which they pushed to be recognized as a standard some time back.

I can think of much worse behavior from other kinds of monopolies and certain companies who aren't even monopolies.

[mjg59]

Forget the ethics for a moment.
Assume no contact with Microsoft or between Microsoft and Canonical.

Why assume that? There has been.

What are the steps?

Insert 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04.2 or 12.10 image. Boot the system.

[duby229]

1) enter BIOS setup
2) disable secure boot

then, either:

3) disable UEFI boot / enable legacy boot
4) boot a normal MBR-style Linux installation image

or:

4) boot an EFI-enabled Linux installation image

I do this for work on a weekly basis, professionally.

As I said it isnt that simple. You do it professionally, but most people are going to look at the acronyms you just used and scratch their heads wondering WTF you just said. It isnt qa problem for people who know what they are doing. It's just a problem for the vast majority.

You know its the typical Restriction Management crap.

[Sonadow]

Why assume that? There has been.



Insert 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04.2 or 12.10 image. Boot the system.

Matthew is back! ^^

To add on to your answer: or OpenSUSE 12.3. Or Fedora 18. Boot the system.

Or basically just use any distro that already incorporates your signed key. At this point i believe it's only Fedora, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu that have implemented it.

Disable Secure Boot only if the distro has not implemented the key to support it.

[duby229]

Why assume that? There has been.



Insert 64-bit Ubuntu 12.04.2 or 12.10 image. Boot the system.

And it uses a MS issued key. That is part of the problem that we have. Exactly who gave MS the right to determine what we can and cannot boot?

[Sonadow]

And it uses a MS issued key. That is part of the problem that we have. Exactly who gave MS the right to determine what we can and cannot boot?

That 'right' was determined when no neutral party wanted to become a signing authority. The Linux foundation had their chance but they decided it was not worth their resources. You will have a case if there were multiple key signing authorities which got brushed aside by Microsoft with Windows 8, but since nobody even wanted to take on that role, i don't think anyone even has any position to complain.

And really, what is wrong with Microsoft being the signing authority? Have they ever refused to sign a key just because it is designed to be used for Linux? If Matthew and the Linux Foundation can get their keys signed, what's the problem?

[duby229]

That 'right' was determined when no neutral party wanted to become a signing authority. The Linux foundation had their chance but they decided it was not worth their resources.

And really, what is wrong with Microsoft being the signing authority? Have they ever refused to sign a key just because it is designed to be used for Linux? If Matthew and the Linux Foundation can get their keys signed, what's the problem?

So in other words what you are saying is that MS has leveraged their market position to determine this?

If so then what you have is a perfect example of an anti-trust argument.

[frign]

As far as monopolies go I consider Microsoft to be relatively 'ok' (can't think of a better word). They brought computing to the masses, drove hardware improvement (anecdotal example: in my country, more and more people are asking for touchscreen enabled notebooks even though they plan to wipe Windows 8 and replace it with Windows 7) and have proven themselves to be capable of listening to their customers at times (with the exception of Windows 8, since the very thing people hated about it was the key ingredient to its business strategy). Also they have been relatively quiet with regards to suing people (of course, we won't know about the cases that were not reported on). And lastly they have tried (keyword being tried) to be a little nicer with standards: Metro is written mainly in Javascript and HTML5, and Office 2013 will finally use the OOXML Strict specification which they pushed to be recognized as a standard some time back.

I can think of much worse behavior from other kinds of monopolies and certain companies who aren't even monopolies.

Only that OOXML is almost impossible to implement.

[Sonadow]

So in other words what you are saying is that MS has leveraged their market position to determine this?

If so then what you have is a perfect example of an anti-trust argument.

Did i ever say that? No. All i said is that there was a good opportunity for a neutral party to become a signing authority for UEFI keys and nobody wanted to step up to it. All this could have been avoided if the Linux Foundation bothered to become one. But they didn't. So Microsoft took up that role. Simple.

This has nothing to do with anti-trust. Don't blame Microsoft when this result was caused by inaction on the competitors' part, because it seems that the general trend is to make Microsoft the enemy for everything even when the affected parties were guilty of negligence to begin with,