One more thing I forgot. As another poster has already pointed out, Benjamin Franklin did not say what you think he did. He said "those who give up essential Liberty..." (emphasis mine). If you think that being able to easily run an unsigned bootloader on any random piece of hardware you come across is an essential liberty, that just shows that you already enjoy all of the essential liberties and are just plain spoiled.
None of that answers the question "what do you think Red Hat can do about it"? Red Hat not supporting SecureBoot is not going to make SecureBoot go away, it is going to make Red Hat go away. How is that good for anyone?
Much of your post seems to be plain old paranoia. There is no legal requirement for hardware to support SecureBoot, and it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be such a law. Red Hat's deal with Microsoft is simply a convenience. They are in no way 'dependent' on Microsoft, and neither is any other vendor. Canonical is NOT using Microsoft, they are running their own signing service, and so can any other vendor.
Implementing SecureBoot is not "like installing a mandated lock", most importantly because THERE IS NO MANDATE. There is, instead, ONE company that says 'if you want to get a discount on licenses for our software, or use our logo on your product, implement SecureBoot'. Now, certainly many hardware manufacturers will choose to do that (market forces and all), but not ALL of them will (or have to). In addition, you have a few other companies saying 'hmm, our customers would probably like to run our software on hardware that has our competitors logo - I guess we better enable that'. Do they have to do that? Of course not, but they are pretty stupid if they don't.
Right, all hardware (PCs, phones, tablets) manufacturers should be forced to go to the expense (passed on to the users of course) of finding space for and installing a switch that 99.99% of their customers will never touch just so YOU can have what YOU want. While we're at it, why don't we put legal and moral pressure on hardware manufacturers to stop using integrated circuits? I mean, the use of those things makes it SO much harder to hack the processor to change the pipelining like I want.
Grow up. No-one is required to produce a product to your liking, ever.
Why is a bootloader 'signed' by the Linux foundation any different than one signed by Red Hat? In either case, no-one (user or other distributor) can modify the code and still have it be recognized as signed.
What makes you think Red Hat (or any other Linux distributor) is against Secure Boot, or was not involved in the discussions? Red Hat is a 'contributor' to the Trusted Computing Group after all.
The only thing they are "scrambling" to work around is Microsoft's decision on what the conditions are for a hardware manufacturer to get a Windows certification. I don't know what you think Red Hat can do to influence how Microsoft licenses their own product.
Wait a second. I thought that the 'freedom's that are so important to FOSS are the freedoms of the USERS. Who care's about Red Hats freedom, other than Red Hat? They already gave up a bunch of their own freedom (to protect the freedom of their users) when they started distributing GPL code. This is no different - their action is not impacting the freedom of their users at all, it is just making it easier for them to use Red Hat's product.
Second, they don't have to go to Microsoft 'every time they do an OS upgrade', they need to go to Microsoft every time they update the bootloader.
Many, many, companies do business with competitors. Microsoft and IBM are competitors, yet IBM uses Windows internally and sells it to their customers, and Microsoft buys their xbox chips from IBM. Apple and IBM used to be competitors, yet Apple bought their processors from IBM. People figured out how to keep a competitor they are doing business with from having power over them a long time ago - it is called a contract. I highly doubt Red Hat was stupid enough to enter a deal with Microsoft that didn't specify that Microsoft can't 'just change their minds' or 'make it more difficult to get a new OS signed'.
How is anything Red Hat does supposed to keep Microsoft from changing their mind and requiring that Secure Boot can't be turned off?
Nope. They valued their customers over fighting some stupid pissing contest.
What exactly are their chioces?
1) Do nothing 2) Whine about how unfair it is 3) Label their product with: Not compatible with any PC with a Windows logo on it 4) Create their own signing infrastructure, sign their binaries, work with all motherboard and system provides to get their key installed 5) Sign their binaries using an already-trusted key 6) Tell their users to disable Secure Boot 7) Tell their users to create and install their own key, and sign the binaries with it
Options 1, 2, and 3 do nothing to advance Linux, the companies, or freedom. They pretty much just relegate Linux to the 'hobby' sector forever. Options 4 and 5 are the easiest for the end user, with option 4 costing quite a bit more for very little benefit Options 6 and 7 are inconvenient for the user, and provide no benefit to the user over options 4 and 5
Now, exactly what 'freedom' has been lost by the companies actions? Do you still get the ability to install the binaries wherever you want? Yes. Do you still get the source code? Yes. Can you still install and run your modifications? Yes.
The only thing that changes is that if you want to modify and run the bootloader you must do option 6 or 7. Making everyone use those options is OK, but making only people who want to modify the boot loader jump through those hoops is somehow a loss of freedom? Do explain.
You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. The post I was responding to said "This is why men often don't want to work with women." There are no qualifiers on there about women who behave in a certain manner. Just women. If you replace the word "women" with the phrase I used, there are still no qualifiers. If that statement (eg. "I don't want to work with people of a different race.") is true, then yes, you are an antisocial moron. However, based on the rest of your post, it seems like the correct statement would be "I don't want to work with people who act unprofessionally." That does not make you an antisocial moron, it makes you normal.
He didn't create a punch, he created a reader. Maybe someone does have a box of old cards laying around - it would be pretty cool to be able to read them, wouldn't it? Sure, most of the cards are probably worthless, but I bet there are still a few gems of early examples of programming on them.
Replace "women" with "people of a different race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc". People who don't want to work with people in those categories are not "men", they are anti-social morons who shouldn't be working with anybody.
What a stupid post. "Guys" will do all sorts of things if there are no rules against them. Walking off with equipment, claiming they worked hours that they didn't, lying about their contributions, padding expense accounts, etc. Judging by your post I'll bet there are lots of "guys" with an overwhelming urge to beat the crap out of you. In most cases, "guys" suppress these desires in order to get along in society.
The problem is not "guys" or the "legal system", the problem is idiots without any respect for fellow human beings.
The water and power companies don't need to throttle users because the users throttle their own usage. Why do they do that? Because they PAY by usage, not flat rate. Until it is common for power and water companies to provide flat-rate service you can't compare ISPs to them.
Also, it is wrong to think of things like water as 'max speed' all the time, because it just isn't true. If, for instance, you have an automatic lawn irrigation system you may find that some days your coverage is correct, other days you are way undercovered, and other days you have overcoverage, depending on whether or not your neighbors are also running their sprinklers at the same time.
Trademarks are supposed to prevent consumers from being confused as to the source of a product. There is no chance someone who is looking to buy a bottle of whiskey is going to be duped into buying a book instead. This supposedly 'classy' move is nothing more than an attempt to sweet-talk the guy into changing something that no court would order him to change.
It doesn't matter if the statistics are 'dubious' or not, they are accepted. Now, if you can convince the advertisers that they should pay more because you think that other services are retransmitting their ads, so obviously that is a benefit to them, go for it.
Out of date?? This isn't some Wikipedia article or something, it is Nielsen's own description of what they do, linked to directly from their home page. And they even reference getting data from people watching TV on mobile phones, so it can't be too far out of date.
It says right on that page that they use paper diaries - only during sweeps week when they want to get a whole lot more data.
Sure, but that model only works when there is a single sponsor for a show, and the sponsor is solely responsible for the content of the show. With the exception of infomercials, that model has not been used in TV for a very long time, and it seems very unlikely to me that there are very many advertisers who want to be in the TV program production business.
As soon as you move to a model where the advertiser is just 'buying time' during a show, the ratings of that show are the only thing that matter.
Of course it makes the advertisers happy, they are getting free ads. It is the people selling the ads that are not happy, because if anyone is free to retransmit their broadcast they have no way of knowing (and more importantly, 'proving') how many people are seeing the ads.
The woosh is all yours. Nobody cares if you, individually, saw an ad or not. They care about the average, as collected from a sample population known as 'Nielsen families'. And for that sample population, they DO know if you had the volume down or not, and if you were in the room or not, during a commercial.
What a brilliant idea! Just charge by time slot! Hey, we can have 'dead air' (except for ads) from 9-10PM and charge the same rate for ads as the channel that is running the number 1 show! And advertisers will willingly pay that rate!
I guess Neilsen is lying on this page then when they state:
How We Do It
Panels Electronic metering technology is at the heart of the Nielsen ratings process. Our tools capture not only what channel is being watched, but also who is watching and when, including “time-shifted” viewing.
Nielsen’s TV families represent a cross-section of representative homes throughout the U.S. Their viewing is measured by our TV meters and Local People Meters which capture information on what’s being viewed and when and, in the major U.S. markets, specifically who and how many are watching. Additionally, we collect more than two million paper diaries from across the country each year during “sweeps.”
Census Using data from set top boxes, Nielsen delivers a constant, real-time stream of information, revealing tuning behavior during programs and commercials. We can tell clients which commercials are being watched and which have the strongest engagement and impact. We even analyze which position in the program or commercial block is most effective for a specific brand.
Seeing how many computers are streaming something does not tell you how many people are watching that stream, what their ages are, what their income bracket is, etc. The current ratings system provides that information, which is way more important to advertisers then how many devices are receiving a broadcast.
Except that their ad rates are based on Neilsen ratings, which are obtained by using a special box to see what channel people are watching. If people are using this service, the ratings go down, not up, and ad rates fall with them. To counteract that you need a way to determine streaming viewership that is trusted by both the ad sellers and the advertisers, and their isn't one yet.
Slashdot Mirror
One more thing I forgot. As another poster has already pointed out, Benjamin Franklin did not say what you think he did. He said "those who give up essential Liberty..." (emphasis mine). If you think that being able to easily run an unsigned bootloader on any random piece of hardware you come across is an essential liberty, that just shows that you already enjoy all of the essential liberties and are just plain spoiled.
None of that answers the question "what do you think Red Hat can do about it"? Red Hat not supporting SecureBoot is not going to make SecureBoot go away, it is going to make Red Hat go away. How is that good for anyone?
Much of your post seems to be plain old paranoia. There is no legal requirement for hardware to support SecureBoot, and it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be such a law. Red Hat's deal with Microsoft is simply a convenience. They are in no way 'dependent' on Microsoft, and neither is any other vendor. Canonical is NOT using Microsoft, they are running their own signing service, and so can any other vendor.
Implementing SecureBoot is not "like installing a mandated lock", most importantly because THERE IS NO MANDATE. There is, instead, ONE company that says 'if you want to get a discount on licenses for our software, or use our logo on your product, implement SecureBoot'. Now, certainly many hardware manufacturers will choose to do that (market forces and all), but not ALL of them will (or have to). In addition, you have a few other companies saying 'hmm, our customers would probably like to run our software on hardware that has our competitors logo - I guess we better enable that'. Do they have to do that? Of course not, but they are pretty stupid if they don't.
Yikes. I don't think the company will be too pleased with you keeping THEIR data after you leave.
Right, all hardware (PCs, phones, tablets) manufacturers should be forced to go to the expense (passed on to the users of course) of finding space for and installing a switch that 99.99% of their customers will never touch just so YOU can have what YOU want. While we're at it, why don't we put legal and moral pressure on hardware manufacturers to stop using integrated circuits? I mean, the use of those things makes it SO much harder to hack the processor to change the pipelining like I want.
Grow up. No-one is required to produce a product to your liking, ever.
Why is a bootloader 'signed' by the Linux foundation any different than one signed by Red Hat? In either case, no-one (user or other distributor) can modify the code and still have it be recognized as signed.
What makes you think Red Hat (or any other Linux distributor) is against Secure Boot, or was not involved in the discussions? Red Hat is a 'contributor' to the Trusted Computing Group after all.
The only thing they are "scrambling" to work around is Microsoft's decision on what the conditions are for a hardware manufacturer to get a Windows certification. I don't know what you think Red Hat can do to influence how Microsoft licenses their own product.
Wait a second. I thought that the 'freedom's that are so important to FOSS are the freedoms of the USERS. Who care's about Red Hats freedom, other than Red Hat? They already gave up a bunch of their own freedom (to protect the freedom of their users) when they started distributing GPL code. This is no different - their action is not impacting the freedom of their users at all, it is just making it easier for them to use Red Hat's product.
Second, they don't have to go to Microsoft 'every time they do an OS upgrade', they need to go to Microsoft every time they update the bootloader.
Many, many, companies do business with competitors. Microsoft and IBM are competitors, yet IBM uses Windows internally and sells it to their customers, and Microsoft buys their xbox chips from IBM. Apple and IBM used to be competitors, yet Apple bought their processors from IBM. People figured out how to keep a competitor they are doing business with from having power over them a long time ago - it is called a contract. I highly doubt Red Hat was stupid enough to enter a deal with Microsoft that didn't specify that Microsoft can't 'just change their minds' or 'make it more difficult to get a new OS signed'.
How is anything Red Hat does supposed to keep Microsoft from changing their mind and requiring that Secure Boot can't be turned off?
Nope. They valued their customers over fighting some stupid pissing contest.
What exactly are their chioces?
1) Do nothing
2) Whine about how unfair it is
3) Label their product with: Not compatible with any PC with a Windows logo on it
4) Create their own signing infrastructure, sign their binaries, work with all motherboard and system provides to get their key installed
5) Sign their binaries using an already-trusted key
6) Tell their users to disable Secure Boot
7) Tell their users to create and install their own key, and sign the binaries with it
Options 1, 2, and 3 do nothing to advance Linux, the companies, or freedom. They pretty much just relegate Linux to the 'hobby' sector forever.
Options 4 and 5 are the easiest for the end user, with option 4 costing quite a bit more for very little benefit
Options 6 and 7 are inconvenient for the user, and provide no benefit to the user over options 4 and 5
Now, exactly what 'freedom' has been lost by the companies actions? Do you still get the ability to install the binaries wherever you want? Yes. Do you still get the source code? Yes. Can you still install and run your modifications? Yes.
The only thing that changes is that if you want to modify and run the bootloader you must do option 6 or 7. Making everyone use those options is OK, but making only people who want to modify the boot loader jump through those hoops is somehow a loss of freedom? Do explain.
You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. The post I was responding to said "This is why men often don't want to work with women." There are no qualifiers on there about women who behave in a certain manner. Just women. If you replace the word "women" with the phrase I used, there are still no qualifiers. If that statement (eg. "I don't want to work with people of a different race.") is true, then yes, you are an antisocial moron. However, based on the rest of your post, it seems like the correct statement would be "I don't want to work with people who act unprofessionally." That does not make you an antisocial moron, it makes you normal.
He didn't create a punch, he created a reader. Maybe someone does have a box of old cards laying around - it would be pretty cool to be able to read them, wouldn't it? Sure, most of the cards are probably worthless, but I bet there are still a few gems of early examples of programming on them.
Replace "women" with "people of a different race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, etc". People who don't want to work with people in those categories are not "men", they are anti-social morons who shouldn't be working with anybody.
What a stupid post. "Guys" will do all sorts of things if there are no rules against them. Walking off with equipment, claiming they worked hours that they didn't, lying about their contributions, padding expense accounts, etc. Judging by your post I'll bet there are lots of "guys" with an overwhelming urge to beat the crap out of you. In most cases, "guys" suppress these desires in order to get along in society.
The problem is not "guys" or the "legal system", the problem is idiots without any respect for fellow human beings.
The water and power companies don't need to throttle users because the users throttle their own usage. Why do they do that? Because they PAY by usage, not flat rate. Until it is common for power and water companies to provide flat-rate service you can't compare ISPs to them.
Also, it is wrong to think of things like water as 'max speed' all the time, because it just isn't true. If, for instance, you have an automatic lawn irrigation system you may find that some days your coverage is correct, other days you are way undercovered, and other days you have overcoverage, depending on whether or not your neighbors are also running their sprinklers at the same time.
Trademarks are supposed to prevent consumers from being confused as to the source of a product. There is no chance someone who is looking to buy a bottle of whiskey is going to be duped into buying a book instead. This supposedly 'classy' move is nothing more than an attempt to sweet-talk the guy into changing something that no court would order him to change.
It doesn't matter if the statistics are 'dubious' or not, they are accepted. Now, if you can convince the advertisers that they should pay more because you think that other services are retransmitting their ads, so obviously that is a benefit to them, go for it.
Out of date?? This isn't some Wikipedia article or something, it is Nielsen's own description of what they do, linked to directly from their home page. And they even reference getting data from people watching TV on mobile phones, so it can't be too far out of date.
It says right on that page that they use paper diaries - only during sweeps week when they want to get a whole lot more data.
Sure, but that model only works when there is a single sponsor for a show, and the sponsor is solely responsible for the content of the show. With the exception of infomercials, that model has not been used in TV for a very long time, and it seems very unlikely to me that there are very many advertisers who want to be in the TV program production business.
As soon as you move to a model where the advertiser is just 'buying time' during a show, the ratings of that show are the only thing that matter.
Of course it makes the advertisers happy, they are getting free ads. It is the people selling the ads that are not happy, because if anyone is free to retransmit their broadcast they have no way of knowing (and more importantly, 'proving') how many people are seeing the ads.
The woosh is all yours. Nobody cares if you, individually, saw an ad or not. They care about the average, as collected from a sample population known as 'Nielsen families'. And for that sample population, they DO know if you had the volume down or not, and if you were in the room or not, during a commercial.
What a brilliant idea! Just charge by time slot! Hey, we can have 'dead air' (except for ads) from 9-10PM and charge the same rate for ads as the channel that is running the number 1 show! And advertisers will willingly pay that rate!
I guess Neilsen is lying on this page then when they state:
How We Do It
Panels
Electronic metering technology is at the heart of the Nielsen ratings process. Our tools capture not only what channel is being watched, but also who is watching and when, including “time-shifted” viewing.
Nielsen’s TV families represent a cross-section of representative homes throughout the U.S. Their viewing is measured by our TV meters and Local People Meters which capture information on what’s being viewed and when and, in the major U.S. markets, specifically who and how many are watching. Additionally, we collect more than two million paper diaries from across the country each year during “sweeps.”
Census
Using data from set top boxes, Nielsen delivers a constant, real-time stream of information, revealing tuning behavior during programs and commercials. We can tell clients which commercials are being watched and which have the strongest engagement and impact. We even analyze which position in the program or commercial block is most effective for a specific brand.
'You' are not a Neilsen family, so 'your' privacy is not being invaded. Neilsen families do consent to be monitored in that way.
Seeing how many computers are streaming something does not tell you how many people are watching that stream, what their ages are, what their income bracket is, etc. The current ratings system provides that information, which is way more important to advertisers then how many devices are receiving a broadcast.
Except that their ad rates are based on Neilsen ratings, which are obtained by using a special box to see what channel people are watching. If people are using this service, the ratings go down, not up, and ad rates fall with them. To counteract that you need a way to determine streaming viewership that is trusted by both the ad sellers and the advertisers, and their isn't one yet.
The cable companies do not get OTA 'for free', that would be copyright infringement.