OSNews

twitterfire,

"...but they don't require secure boot to be enabled by default. Nobody stops hardware vendors to allow secure boot to be disabled."

I would like a citation for that because that seems to be a new piece of information. Will windows run normally without any restrictions if secure boot is disabled?

New information? Hardly - look at any of the previous posts on the subject, and you'll see them talking about the OEM branding issue. Because from day one, that's what it's been about - OEMs can't put that little Windows sticker on the case if the machine doesn't use secure-boot.

Actually, that's exactly what they do require if the vendor wants to have the "Designed for Windows 8" logo.
This anti-competitive practice isn't going to sit well in many parts of the world though.

It's not anti-competitive if you can turn it off. THe demo that they showed had an option to turn it off in the "BIOS", so what's the problem. It's no different than buying any other pc with Windows if it can be turned off.

Though it makes for some great FUD.

Maybe not yet. Perhaps when Windows 9 rolls around though, and all modern computers have the Secure Boot feature, we will see a dialog during the Windows install process that says something like "In order to continue installing, please *click here* to turn on Secure Boot." Since the vast majority of users, even power users, will simply click and not think about it, it's entirely possible that Microsoft will not only turn it on but insert code that prevents it being turned back off for other OSes.

Then again, it could end up like the Pentium III processor serial number debacle: One BIOS update to turn it off by default in the original boards and it's never heard of again.