*countable infinities only

[Jay Sulzberger]

On Thu, 14 Jun 2012, Peter Jones <pjones at redhat.com> wrote:

< stuff removed />

> >                             It's completely their decision as to how they
> > ship this, and nothing we can do will ever change that.

Peter, this is ridiculous.  Of course Fedora might be able to get
matters better arranged.

Of course.

There would be no GNU, had Richard Stallman said to himself "Ah,
there is nothing that can be done.  There is nothing I can do, so
why try?".  There would be no Linux kernel had Linus Torvalds
said to himself "Ah, writing a kernel is a big job.  I am just a
beginner.  I will not attempt it.".  And there would be no Red
Hat if the founders had said "Ah, we will never get people to pay
for servicing a free operating system.  Let us not try.".

Now, perhaps I misread, or misremember, but in this thread, I
think it was said that a home computer vendor has offered to
allow a key, authorized by what you distinguish as the "PK", to
be loaded into the UEFI, so that Fedora would stand equal to
Microsoft, though both, you now claim, would be equally junior to
the vendor (which claim is not right).  And you refused.  This is
ridiculous.  If one more key can be loaded at point of sale, then
so can several more.  And this is not the final step in the
remedy, but only an early step.  We can do more.  But, if Fedora
agrees that Microsoft gets to dictate what is loaded at point of
sale, well, that is an un-necessary loss.  As your statement
shows, your team was not negotiating with Microsoft, nor with the
vendors of hardware, but with a non-existent being of irresistible
power.  Of course that negotiation with an imaginary being is
much harder to win than the real negotiation.

RMS had no Red Hat backing him when he started Project GNU.  Nor
did Linus when he started the Linux kernel.  Nor did the founders
of Red Hat.  But you have Red Hat, with a large income, and much
money.  You also have many people who will help you, and help
ourselves, in this fight.

Suggestion 2: Have Red Hat buy a large quantity of standard home
machines, on condition that the UEFI not be locked at point of
delivery to Red Hat.

Suggestion 3: Do a better command and control screen for the
UEFI.  There is enough room in the UEFI for a big, but very
simple, screen.  There is even room for a proper manual.  You
have written that there is nothing you can do about the bad
interface of the UEFI.  But you can.

oo--JS.


>
> The contents of PK are not and have not ever been the question in this 
> thread.
>
> P.S. - It looks really strange when you namedrop yourself in your own email.
> It's like referring to yourself in the third person, squared.
> --
>        Peter

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