[OT'ish] The newest monopolist tactic from Microsoft (and Intel)

On Tuesday 27 September 2011 18:00 in alt.os.linux.mandriva, somebody
identifying as Aragorn wrote...

Someone in be.comp.os.linux posted the following URL - well, actually,
the long URL, and I have taken the liberty of shortening it via
TinyURL - and as I was already witness to the debate on the Gentoo
mailinglists [*], I took out the opportunity of giving you guys the
heads-up.

I forgot the footnote. What I meant to add was that the lists are
mirrored on Usenet - at least, via Eternal-September, and possibly
other news gateways as well. The groups are...

linux.gentoo.dev
linux.gentoo.user

It is important to realize that these are just archived mailinglists,
not newsgroups, and that they are moderated.

I'm setting the follow-up to both groups so as to prevent newsreaders
from inadvertently setting a follow-up first and then cutting off the
other group later.

... Which my KNode obviously doesn't seem to honor, as it had already
snipped alt.os.linux.ubuntu from the Followup-To as soon as I
hit "reply" on my own article.

Aragorn
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

On 27/09/2011 17:00, Aragorn wrote:

My apologies to those who will find this topic too advocacy-related, but
this issue has been the subject of hot debate these days on the Gentoo
developer mailing list.

Someone in be.comp.os.linux posted the following URL - well, actually,
the long URL, and I have taken the liberty of shortening it via
TinyURL - and as I was already witness to the debate on the Gentoo
mailinglists [*], I took out the opportunity of giving you guys the
heads-up.

I'm setting the follow-up to both groups so as to prevent newsreaders
from inadvertently setting a follow-up first and then cutting off the
other group later.

http://tinyurl.com/6c2stj7

The really scary thing is this:
"And Red Hat has already heard from some OEMs that no option to disable
will be available in their Windows 8 PCs"

Gordon wrote:

On 27/09/2011 17:00, Aragorn wrote:

My apologies to those who will find this topic too advocacy-related, but
this issue has been the subject of hot debate these days on the Gentoo
developer mailing list.

Someone in be.comp.os.linux posted the following URL - well, actually,
the long URL, and I have taken the liberty of shortening it via
TinyURL - and as I was already witness to the debate on the Gentoo
mailinglists [*], I took out the opportunity of giving you guys the
heads-up.

I'm setting the follow-up to both groups so as to prevent newsreaders
from inadvertently setting a follow-up first and then cutting off the
other group later.

http://tinyurl.com/6c2stj7

The really scary thing is this:
"And Red Hat has already heard from some OEMs that no option to disable
will be available in their Windows 8 PCs"

Microsoft won't /require/ that disabling secure boot not be allowed, but
that's not to say they won't encourage it. Even if Microsoft remains
totally neutral, you can count on the OEMs not allowing secure boot to
be disabled; hell, they cripple/lock down the BIOS already. They will
always do what they can to prevent the user from doing anything that
might cause support issues for them.

My guess is that this will be a Caveat Emptor situation for anyone that
wants to install another OS, be that Linux or even XP. If you don't
check for the ability to disable secure boot ahead of time, you're
probably going to be shit out of luck.

Of course, Linux will be blamed for not being "compatible".

Mark Warner
MEPIS Linux
Registered Linux User #415318
...lose .inhibitions when replying

On Tuesday 27 September 2011 23:56 in alt.os.linux.mandriva, somebody
identifying as Mark Warner wrote...

Gordon wrote:

On 27/09/2011 17:00, Aragorn wrote:

My apologies to those who will find this topic too advocacy-related,
but this issue has been the subject of hot debate these days on the
Gentoo developer mailing list.

Someone in be.comp.os.linux posted the following URL - well,
actually, the long URL, and I have taken the liberty of shortening
it via TinyURL - and as I was already witness to the debate on the
Gentoo mailinglists [*], I took out the opportunity of giving you
guys the heads-up.

I'm setting the follow-up to both groups so as to prevent
newsreaders from inadvertently setting a follow-up first and then
cutting off the other group later.

http://tinyurl.com/6c2stj7

The really scary thing is this:
"And Red Hat has already heard from some OEMs that no option to
disable will be available in their Windows 8 PCs"

Microsoft won't /require/ that disabling secure boot not be allowed,
but that's not to say they won't encourage it.

Of course they will encourage forbidding it, all under the guise of
digital rights management and copyrights. Allegedly so as to prevent
anyone from installing a pirated copy of Windows.

And as always, the fact that people might want to install something
other on it than Windows will be totally ignored by Microsoft, and
could potentially even lead to a voiding of warranty from the
motherboard/computer vendor. Some computer vendors already apply this
principle. They sell their computers with a Windows version
preinstalled and state that the warranty becomes void if you install
anything other on it. This was the case for my (second-hand) Toshiba
laptop, which came with Windows XP preinstalled.

Even if Microsoft remains totally neutral, you can count on the OEMs
not allowing secure boot to be disabled; hell, they cripple/lock down
the BIOS already. They will always do what they can to prevent the
user from doing anything that might cause support issues for them.

That's the OEM vendors' position, of course. And I think Microsoft is
well-aware of this.

My guess is that this will be a Caveat Emptor situation for anyone
that wants to install another OS, be that Linux or even XP. If you
don't check for the ability to disable secure boot ahead of time,
you're probably going to be shit out of luck.

Absolutely.

Of course, Linux will be blamed for not being "compatible".

Well, as people on the Gentoo developer mailinglist said, someone
somewhere will find a way to hack around that - think "Hackintosh" -
but this will of course be an excuse for the vendor to void the
warranty.

On the upside, Microsoft is never going to get away with this for high
end stuff - and this too was spoken of on the Gentoo list - because
truly high-end IT professionals won't have anything to do with
Microsoft or Windows. The server market - both prebuilt and
component - thrives on those machines running GNU/Linux or some other
UNIX. Think clusters, rendering farms, etc.

Aragorn
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

On 09/27/2011 02:56 PM, Mark Warner wrote:

Gordon wrote:

On 27/09/2011 17:00, Aragorn wrote:

My apologies to those who will find this topic too advocacy-related, but
this issue has been the subject of hot debate these days on the Gentoo
developer mailing list.

Someone in be.comp.os.linux posted the following URL - well, actually,
the long URL, and I have taken the liberty of shortening it via
TinyURL - and as I was already witness to the debate on the Gentoo
mailinglists [*], I took out the opportunity of giving you guys the
heads-up.

I'm setting the follow-up to both groups so as to prevent newsreaders
from inadvertently setting a follow-up first and then cutting off the
other group later.

http://tinyurl.com/6c2stj7

The really scary thing is this:
"And Red Hat has already heard from some OEMs that no option to
disable will be available in their Windows 8 PCs"

Microsoft won't /require/ that disabling secure boot not be allowed, but
that's not to say they won't encourage it. Even if Microsoft remains
totally neutral, you can count on the OEMs not allowing secure boot to
be disabled; hell, they cripple/lock down the BIOS already. They will
always do what they can to prevent the user from doing anything that
might cause support issues for them.

My guess is that this will be a Caveat Emptor situation for anyone that
wants to install another OS, be that Linux or even XP. If you don't
check for the ability to disable secure boot ahead of time, you're
probably going to be shit out of luck.

Of course, Linux will be blamed for not being "compatible".

Worse Linux will be said to be failing to support Windows 8
security standards, to be an un-signatured productions by rebels
against the benevolent MS Windows 8 (cr) information domination.

bliss