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Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

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Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#91

Post by SkyMarshal »

mhurron wrote: post #68
cooldeal wrote: post #44

Linus posted a NSFW rant about it a few days ago. The story mysteriously went off the HN front page and subsequent submissions of the story went [dead]. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279531 Rankings graph showing a deep dive. http://hnrankings.info/5279531/ Part of Linus' email: >Guys, this is not a dick-sucking contest. If you want to parse PE binaries, go right ahead. >If Red Hat wants to deep-throat Microso…

HN dislikes anything that shows that real people have real emotions. Humour, anger and whatnot have no place here.

>Humour, anger and whatnot have no place here.

For certain, information-sparse, emotionally invested and biased definitions of 'humour, anger, and whatnot'.

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#92

Post by nolok »

phowat wrote: post #58
cooldeal wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What is illegal is not selling a computer without an operating system Does that apply to Macs, Chromebooks, iPads too?

IANAL, but I think the key difference is that these operating systems are not sold as a standalone component you can buy and install on any pc you like. That's why it applies to a Windows license and not to a Mac OS license for example.

If it's like France; it's technically illegal too, apple just never has been in front of a judge about it (and when they do, I guess they will argue that they sell the disk and not the license to use the OS).

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#93

Post by nolok »

rplnt wrote: post #13
speeder wrote: post #7

I always thought that the secure boot is a very, very, very bad idea. In fact the whole UEFI in general I think it is a clusterfuck of mishmashed random ideas, some good, many bad. What I intend to do personally, is attempt to don't use secure boot. And this all might explain the e-mail I got from Lenovo 10 minutes ago... I asked them for a non-Windows machine. They replied saying that they from now on only manufactu…

What exactly is illegal? Selling a machine with OS or not selling it without one? And as for the "this explains then why ThinkPads must come with Windows" - no. It doesn't explain it. Secure boot has to be present on Windows certified machine, not the other way around. Lenovo can sell whatever they want (but apparently it's beneficial for them economically to only sell Windows machines). Also, certified machine has t…

Responding from a French point of view, so that might not match Brazil (but does match Germany): you can not tie a material product with an immaterial one, if you do not also sell the material product as a stand alone.

You cannot sell a car with an insurance if you don't sell the car alone.

You cannot sell a phone with a plan if you don't sell the phone alone (see: iPhone 1 release in Europe).

You cannot sell a computer with an OS license if you don't sell the computer alone (you're not buying the disk, but the license to use the software on it).

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#94

Post by Locke1689 »

easytiger wrote: post #54
recoiledsnake wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what is already does? In fact it is so fast handing control to the OS that in Windows 8 Microsoft had to add an option to restart into UEFI settings mode. Which features are unneeded in your opinion?

Secure Boot.

Well, duh. You aren't responsible for users getting rootkits installed on their computer. Obviously you would find it useless.

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#95

Post by SkyMarshal »

cooldeal wrote: post #52
muyuu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having firmware locked to only work under a given OS. It's pretty much a textbook definition of anticompetitive practice.

Google ships Chromebooks with secure boot enabled too. Does it get a free pass because it's not a monopoly?

>Does it get a free pass because it's not a monopoly?

That would not be unprecedented. Part of the US anti-trust code says you cannot tie one product to a monopoly product. It's one of the reasons MS lost their anti-trust case vs the US DOJ back in the 90s, illegally tying secondary products to their Windows monopoly.

That might not directly apply in this case, not sure, but to answer your question, yes being a monopoly or not does effect how anti-trust laws are applied to you.

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#96

Post by a_p »

kirubakaran wrote: post #82
mhurron wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN dislikes anything that shows that real people have real emotions. Humour, anger and whatnot have no place here.

I think it is just a vocal minority of people who take offense to words like fuck. Most people don't care.

According to Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, aversion to profanity is a middle class thing. The upper class[1] do not use euphemisms for profanity or obscenity. Fussell wrote that Jilly Cooper reported "I once overheard my son regaling his friends: 'Mummy says pardon is a much worse word than fuck.'"

I doubt that many members of the upper class (see Fussell's book for a definition of upper class, it is roughly the tastes of "old money" but not dependent upon actual wealth) read Hacker News. It is likely that those who do not object to obscenities such as the word "fuck" are more socially liberal freethinkers who dislike formality. Those who do object are likely to be members of the middle class who believe (foolishly) that in censoring profanities and vulgarities, they are emulating the upper class.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/d...

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#97

Post by phowat »

nolok wrote: post #93
rplnt wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is illegal? Selling a machine with OS or not selling it without one? And as for the "this explains then why ThinkPads must come with Windows" - no. It doesn't explain it. Secure boot has to be present on Windows certified machine, not the other way around. Lenovo can sell whatever they want (but apparently it's beneficial for them economically to only sell Windows machines). Also, certified machine has t…

Responding from a French point of view, so that might not match Brazil (but does match Germany): you can not tie a material product with an immaterial one, if you do not also sell the material product as a stand alone. You cannot sell a car with an insurance if you don't sell the car alone. You cannot sell a phone with a plan if you don't sell the phone alone (see: iPhone 1 release in Europe). You cannot sell a compu…

Interesting, I know that in Brazil the same law applies even if both products are immaterial. For example, it was common for nightclubs here to give you an option of charging less (or nothing at all) for the entrance into the nightclub if you spent a certain amount of money in drinks or whatever else they sold inside. This was also prohibited by the same law since it was tying two separate "products". Wikipedia article (in portuguese) on this law cites that even ( http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venda_casada ).

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#98

Post by takluyver »

tomjen3 wrote: post #78
recoiledsnake wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the problem is when I want to generate my own key and use that as the only authority. the system doesn't support that model. It does. You can add your own key and even remove Microsoft's if so wish. The facts are getting lost in this FUDstorm.

Well it wouldn't have been a fud storm if Microsoft hadn't insistet on it being turned on by default. But if I were to remove a MS key, am I right in assuming that that would prevent anybody from running windows on that machine (at least without installing the key or turning it of)?

Security features that are off by default don't provide much security.

Yes, as I understand it, if you remove the Microsoft key but leave secure boot on, it will refuse to boot Windows. So long as it's on, it will only boot an OS signed with a key it trusts. If you turn it off, it will try to boot whatever's on the disk.

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#99

Post by phowat »

nolok wrote: post #92
phowat wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but I think the key difference is that these operating systems are not sold as a standalone component you can buy and install on any pc you like. That's why it applies to a Windows license and not to a Mac OS license for example.

If it's like France; it's technically illegal too, apple just never has been in front of a judge about it (and when they do, I guess they will argue that they sell the disk and not the license to use the OS).

I didn't think of that, I agree this is more likely the explanation.

Re: Torvalds clarifies Linux's Windows 8 Secure Boot position

#100

Post by SkyMarshal »

mhurron wrote: post #83
kirubakaran wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is just a vocal minority of people who take offense to words like fuck. Most people don't care.

Profanity is hardly the only thing. HN, or a subset of it's users, basically expect everyone to act like humourless, passionless robots.

It's b/c 99% of that stuff is noise not signal, and degrades the information quality here. There are plenty of places on the net to get your fix of humour and endelessly repeated memes, we don't need it here too.
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