Red Hat Will Pay Microsoft To Get Past UEFI Restrictions

[Joe Wulf]

I find it gauling that I could buy standard hardware, either directly from an OEM or resale, and Micro$loth (a software vendor, NOT a hardware vendor) has to be paid blood money, so that free and open source software can be 'approved' for installation.

This is wholly inappropriate regardless of whether "I" have to pay Micro$loth, or FOSS developers do.




>________________________________
> From: Javier Perez <pepebuho at gmail.com>
>To: Community support for Fedora users <users at lists.fedoraproject.org> 
>Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 4:15 PM
>Subject: Red Hat Will Pay Microsoft To Get Past UEFI Restrictions
> 
>
>I hope Slashdot has it wrong, although the presented documents seem to agree
>
>http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/05/31/190217/red-hat-will-pay-microsoft-to-get-past-uefi-restrictions
>
>Looking up the article: "Implementing UEFI Secure Boot in Fedora" at  http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/12368.html
>
>
>"The last option wasn't hugely attractive, but is probably the least 
worst. Microsoft will be offering signing services through their sysdev portal. It's not entirely free (there's a one-off $99 fee to gain access), but 
it's cheaper than any realistic alternative would have been. It ensures 
compatibility with as wide a range of hardware as possible and it avoids Fedora having any special privileges over other Linux distributions. If there are better options then we haven't found them. So, in all 
probability, this is the approach we'll take. Our first stage bootloader will be signed with a Microsoft key."
>
>
>
>If I have to pay $99 to Microsoft in order to install my Free/Open Operating System, then I am making Microsoft $99 richer off the effort of multiple volunteers that made Linux and Fedora possible and my "Free" Operating System now effectively costs $99. And if this catches up, then breaking the Secure Boot will eventually be a DMCA violation and we'd have to be asking the Copyright office every three years for the "right" to jailbreak/root our own computers again. 
>
>I'd rather go back to the times of Compatibility lists of motherboards than enable the above state of affairs. I say NO to Danegeld for Microsoft.
>-- 
>------------------------------
> /\_/\   
> |O O|  pepebuho at gmail.com
> ~~~~     Javier Perez
> ~~~~          While the night runs
> ~~~~          toward the day...
>  m m       Pepebuho watches 
>                from his high perch. 
>
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