*countable infinities only

drago01 drago01 at gmail.com
Sat Jun 2 18:15:50 UTC 2012


On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 5:38 PM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 2, 2012 at 5:32 AM, drago01 <drago01 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Or you don't do the later and just disable secureboot. Your freedom is
>> in *no way* limited by having secureboot support.
>> Let me repeat it again supporting secureboot on x86 does *NOT* limit
>> your freedom.
>
> After all this discussion you'll still make that claim?  I feel insulted.

Yes and I explained that (the intend was never to insult anyone you included).

> When I create a fork, respin, or remix of Fedora and distribute it to
> people it will not run for them like Fedora does without a level of
> fiddling  which the people advocating this have made clear is entirely
> unacceptable.  This is because Fedora will be cryptographically
> signing the distribution with keys these systems require and not
> sharing the keys with me.  Fedora be doing this even with software
> that I wrote, enhancing it with a signing key only they have access
> too, making it much more useful on hardware where it is not otherwise,
> and not allowing me and or downstream recipients to enjoy the same
> improvements for their modified versions.
>
> What is unclear about this?

That it isn't entirely correct.
1) Fedora still ships the source you can do whatever its license allows with it.
2) You are free to sign your respin with MS key for $99,  your own key
or no key at all.

=> Your freedom is in now way limited.

OK the later two options will "screw" your users that don't understand
/ want to fiddle with firmware.
You decide to just "screw" everyone instead.
How is that better?
Does Fedora have a competitive advantage over your respin (in case you
decide not to sign with the MS key)? Yes but it always had by the
trademarks and having way more money for marketing and infrastructure
then you probably have. Free software never guaranteed that all
redistributers have the same stand in the market. That's not the point
of free software.

What is unclear about this?

> Let me offer this in the form of a question:   "Why don't Fedora
> developers just disable SecureBoot on their own systems and not bother
> implementing anything with it in the distribution?"

Because it is unacceptable from a user's pov. For someone for whom
changing firmware options is simple like you or me it does not matter.
But think about other types of user that you limit from access to free
operating systems. Unless you only deal with developers that point
shouldn't be that hard to get really.


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