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Microsoft Responds To Linux Concerns Over Windows 8 and UEFI Secure Boot

Posted by Soulskill on from the putting-out-fires dept.

CSHARP123 writes "A few days ago, Red Hat employee Matthew Garrett speculated that OEM machines shipping with copies of Windows 8 may lock out support for Linux installations. Garrett highlighted Microsoft's new Secure Build OEM requirements for Windows 8 systems. Microsoft chose to directly respond to confusion surrounding Windows 8's use of the UEFI Secure Boot feature on Thursday. Tony Mangefeste of Microsoft's Ecosystem team said, 'Microsoft supports OEMs having the flexibility to decide who manages security certificates and how to allow customers to import and manage those certificates, and manage secured boot. We believe it is important to support this flexibility to the OEMs and to allow our customers to decide how they want to manage their systems.'"

5 of 389 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If you can't be bothered to RTF... by samjam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    yes. Well put.

    And I want secure TPM booting for my linux/GNU machines too.

    I want a way to install my key, enabled by a physical key & mechanic switch to electrically enable to update operation to write my signing key.

    --
    blog.sam.liddicott.com
  2. Re:Translation by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NIH syndrome

    NIH is the reason why UEFI exists at all. OpenFirmware already existed, had several independent implementation (including some open source ones), and was a free standard that anyone could implement. So Intel made a new 'standard' that is a crappy copy of OpenFirmware.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  3. Re:Pass the FUD, I'm starving. by Svartalf · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Building your own machines will be a bit of a problem if all the new motherboards do the same thing. Do you honestly think the DIY vendors will not march to that drum unless they're gunning for the Linux user crowd in the first place?

    --
    I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
  4. Yes, just like BEOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Meanwhile under the table: Psst...Hitachi... want to sell another Windows box ever again? No BEOS in our BIOS, please.

  5. Re:didn't Stallman... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Stallman is possibly the most prescient (not best by a long shot, but most prescient) sci-fi writer ever. Everyone calls him a nut and then a couple decades later...he was totally, 100% right. Yeah it's not rocket science and he only writes near-future stuff, but still, he has a nearly flawless record.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel