Microsoft Responds to Secure Boot Story, Doesn't Address Issue
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 23rd Sep 2011 22:22 UTC, submitted by kragil
Windows The story about how secure boot for Windows 8, part of UEFI, will hinder the use of non-signed binaries and operating systems, like Linux, has registered at Redmond as well. The company posted about it on the Building Windows 8 blog - but didn't take any of the worries away. In fact, Red Hat's Matthew Garrett, who originally broke this story, has some more information - worst of which is that Red Hat has received confirmation from hardware vendors that some of them will not allow you to disable secure boot.
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RE[4]: Pressure Microsoft
by MysterMask on Tue 27th Sep 2011 06:24 UTC in reply to "RE[3]: Pressure Microsoft"
MysterMask
Member since:
2005-07-12

That would essentially make Apple's EFI yet another proprietary firmware

What are you taking about? Apple never used proprietary firmware (before EFI, they used OpenFirmware which is an IEEE Standard). And they were the first big vendor to support EFI.

Furthermore they have no interest in looking out other OSes (E.g. Mklinux was sponsered by Apple). Why should they?

Blinded by Apple hate?

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[5]: Pressure Microsoft
by Neolander on Tue 27th Sep 2011 16:09 in reply to "RE[4]: Pressure Microsoft"
Neolander Member since:
2010-03-08

Again, if I remember correctly, the implementation of EFI which you find on Macs does not follow the spec well, and standard-compliant EFI OSs must be heavily patched and riddled with specific workarounds to work well on Macs. For me, this qualifies as a proprietary firmware.

If I created a dvd drive which only works with square DVDs, and my company was the only one selling these drives, would you call that a standard DVD drive, or a proprietary drive ?

I don't believe that Apple would have a strong interest in preventing installation of other OSs on Macs right now, they don't have a strong interest in helping it either for that matter. However I do believe that the company has a strong interest in making installation of Mac OS X impossible on cheap standards-compliant PCs. And that nonstandard firmwares are a way to achieve that goal. So when I read on Linux development mailing lists that the implementation of EFI which you find on Macs is requires patching to deal with, I have a hard time believing that this is accidental.

Edited 2011-09-27 16:19 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 1

RE[6]: Pressure Microsoft
by MysterMask on Wed 28th Sep 2011 08:26 in reply to "RE[5]: Pressure Microsoft"
MysterMask Member since:
2005-07-12

Pure speculation driven by blind Apple hate.

(you shouldn't mix up the firm grip that Apple tries to get in the media / phone / tablet area with their politics in the Mac business - the same goes for MS: they behave completely different in markets where they have to fight uphill e. g. look at their HW business practices vs. their server software business behavior)

Reply Parent Score: 2

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