*countable infinities only

[Gerald Henriksen]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 01:09:52 -0400 (EDT), you wrote:

>On Mon, 18 Jun 2012, Matthew Garrett <mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org> wrote:
>
>> > On Sun, Jun 17, 2012 at 11:21:14PM -0400, Jay Sulzberger wrote:
>> 
>> > I think 50 million dollars toward buying, and properly arranging
>> > the UEFI, of several lots of x86 computers would indeed solve
>> > part of the problem you point out.
>> > 
>> > Why not?
>> 
>> Because said machines would cost more than identical hardware with 
>> different firmware. Sales of Linux-specific PC hardware haven't been 
>> massively successful so far.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org
>
>Why should they cost more?
>
>And suppose they cost $20 more.  Let Red Hat pay this, and/or run
>an ad campaign explaining that with this motherboard, you can
>actually know what is running on the machine.

So now your solution to the problem is to have Red Hat subsidize the
hardware (aka lose money).   That is a good way to go out of business
in a hurry.

>ad previous lack of success of sales of GNU/Linux machines: In
>every case I know, Microsoft just bribed/threatened the vendor to
>stop selling the machines.

Of course it could have nothing to do with the Linux community failing
to provide what the customers wanted, everything has to be a
conspiracy.

>If Red Hat accedes to Microsoft's demands here, there will be no,
>let me repeat, no hardware that Fedora can be easily installed
>on.  Here is why:
>
>By your own explanation, you think that without the special key,
>controlled by Microsoft, Fedora would be too hard for some people
>to install.  OK, so you agree that Fedora must get permission
>from Microsoft to allow easy installs of Fedora.
>
>The game is now just about over.  What if one day, Microsoft
>makes it even harder to install Fedora without a Microsoft
>controlled key?  What if, as has already happened with ARM,
>Microsoft refuses to grant Fedora a special key?
>
>No.  Let Red Hat tell the truth.  Let Red Hat design a better
>UEFI motherboard.

So now the target has moved from Red Hat buying some hardware with
secure boot disabled to Red Hat hiring a design team (at signficant
cost) and developing their own motherboard.

It is so nice that you are so willing to spend Red Hat's money, though
I suspect the shareholders would have other ideas about entering into
the world of spending lots of money to design a motherboard that you
then intend to sell at a loss.