Fedora 18 and UEFI

[suvayu ali]

Hi Rahul,


On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Rahul Sundaram <metherid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Certificate authority is Verisign and this is purely between Red Hat and
> the vendor. There is no money charged for users.  Users will never be
> asked to pay money to install or use Fedora.

I am more worried about "free" as in freedom. I don't quite grasp the
implications as an end user. For example consider the following
scenarios.

Can I freely choose to use proprietary (or for that matter alternative
free) drivers for my hardware from whatever source I prefer?

A few years back I was in a situation where my USB Wi-Fi dongle was not
yet supported by Fedora and I had to get the binary blob firmware from
the linux kernel wireless page and manually install and load it by hand
to use my hardware. Will I be able to do that with ease in the future?

Similarly, can I choose to install proprietary drivers or kernel modules
not distributed with Fedora from what ever source I wish (RPMFusion,
Vendor etc.)?

I realise I can turn Secure Boot off, but hardware manufacturers have
often dropped the ball on complying with standards. What if the next
generation of motherboards/laptops make it harder to turn off secure
boot? Just to make it clear, the questions above are not rhetorical. I
just want to understand better the implications as an end-user.

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.