*countable infinities only

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 10:22 AM, Peter Jones <pjones at redhat.com> wrote:
> This seems like a pretty unlikely scenario. You have to disable secure boot
> to perform most kernel-level debugging operations in Windows 8. It'd
> alienate
> pretty much the entire OEM community for Windows add-on card drivers, pretty
> much all major enterprise customers, and all computer science departments
> that
> use windows for any OS program, just as some examples. Microsoft knows it
> needs these people.

One way to tell if the characteristics you know about something are meaningful
is to replace the thing you're talking about and see if the comments make any
less sense.

You could replace disable-secure-boot with access to source code here and
it makes absolutely as much sense except for the fact that they don't generally
give access to their source code.

Certainly as a developer it's even more important to be able to read the
implementations of the stuff you're calling than it is to be able to run
modified versions of them.  Presumably if Microsoft manages to get
by with giving drivers authors highly confined access to implementation
details they could get by just as well requiring people to sign up to buy
developer cryptographic keys in order to do kernel debugging.

Alternatively you could make the same arguments about various mobile
platforms which are normally shipped to users in a totally locked down
state: the hardware peripheral makers need low level access. The vendors
manage to find ways to accommodate these people without compromising
their control over the normal installed base.