*countable infinities only

[drago01]

On Sat, Jun 9, 2012 at 8:15 AM, Chris Smart <fedora at christophersmart.com> wrote:
> On 01/06/12 02:22, Peter Jones wrote:
>>
>> Next year if we don't implement some form of Secure Boot support, the
>> majority
>> of Fedora users will not be able to install Fedora on new machines.
>
> Is that actually true though?
>
> If Fedora does not implement some form of Secure Boot support, 100% of
> Fedora users will still be able to install Fedora on new machines, after
> they disable Secure Boot, if their computer even has it at all (and
> personally, I think the majority of Fedora users will simply buy
> hardware which does not have Secure Boot). I know I would.

No because some users in don't know what a firmware is and can't/don't
want to fiddle with it.
Making installation harder for the less experienced users does not
make sense to me.

As for the hardware no not true at all. If a user knows what secure
boot is he likely knows that it can be disabled and wouldn't limit
his hardware choice that way. Also people might buy hardware to run
another operating system and then decide to try and/or install fedora.

> Sure, maybe you can't install Fedora _as easily_ but it's certainly not
> an "inability to install Fedora, full stop."

See above.

> Now, if there was an inability to disable Secure Boot or manage keys
> then that would be a different kettle of fish (and in my mind a
> different argument).

That is a more controversial part but IMO but if you have the choice
of running fedora with some restrictions vs. not running fedora at all
...
I'd got for the former ...

> This issue seems to be simply about ease of installation out of the box
> (unless I'm missing something). Currently though, installation out of
> the box isn't completely straight forward anyway. Users have to download
> an ISO image, verify it, burn a CD/DVD or create a USB stick, set the
> boot order and partition their machine in order to install Fedora. Not
> to mention getting their MP3s to work.

Burning CDs is a tasks users are more likely to be familiar with then
messing with firmware options.

> Will requiring users to turn off secure boot really by such a big deal I
> wonder?

Yes see above.

> Bottom line - I'm not convinced that we actually need to support Secure
> Boot.

You are looking from the wrong POV i.e experienced users like you.
Believe me there are other kind of users out there ...

> That aside, as to the argument about loss of freedom if Fedora does
> support Secure Boot, this interests me given that I'm involved in
> creating a Fedora remix.

There is no loss of freedom, just some FUD.

> To me, it's something like this:
> If Fedora does _not_ support Secure Boot, then neither Fedora nor
> remixes boot on computers with Secure Boot enabled (that's obvious).
>
> If Fedora _does_ support Secure Boot however, then remixes still can't
> boot on computers with Secure Boot enabled (loosely speaking).
>
> So actually, there's not really any freedom lost downstream is there?

Exactly.

> You couldn't run on Secure Boot machines anyway, whether Fedora
> supported Secure Boot or not. The only advantage is that Fedora can (and
> you could too, if you get a key).

Yeah.