I guess the judge would usually consent, in that case, to reveal the code to experts under condition of secrecy. That way, the experts would be able to check whether the copyright allegations have any base and the code, should it not be infringing, would still stay closed.
Even if the code was considered infringing, it would only need to be revealed to those customers that asked for it before three years (since the ruling in this case?) have passed. Unless one of those customer asks for it and decides to publish it, the code would still be unavailable.
Yes, ESA (created in 1975) has existed almost as long as NASA (created om 1958). 17 years are nothing at all. If you had at least talked about the EEC (1957)...
It didn't work, it's just a case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy (and no, I'm not sassing you in Eskimo talk). Just because it happened after you started the homeopathic (non-)treatment doesn't mean it happened because you started it. Especially when many large scale studies have found, once and again, that it doesn't work.
Then again, I agree with you on something. It is not magic. It is a scam.
Yes, it is. And quoting an aquired taste comedy troupe doesn't exactly add gravitas to your argument.
Then it's fortunate I wasn't going for gravitas and absolute assertions, as Mad Marlin was by stating
Writing proprietary software is perfectly okay.
Please excuse me for not getting on my high horse and rain hell and brimstone over Mad Marlin's statement. I will get to buying a horse some time in the future;)
I hate the break the news to you , but stallman and GNU do not have the last word on software ethics. Its their OPINION , not fact. And its not an opinion all of us share.
That doesn't have anything to do with my statement. I repeat:
your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless.
Let me explain: there is costless software without access to the code (usually called freeware), there is costly software without access to the code, there is costless software with access to the code (e.g., software in the public domain) and there is costly software with access to the code. Since it is possible to find all combinations of cost and source code access, stating
I don't have to give away my work for free, although sometimes I do.
is wrong. And the last part of your comment seems to be about
Even GPL states that clearly.
This is just an example. I could have talked about the BSD licenses, but the GPL is often considered to force you to give everything away: software, house, family, even the dog (getting back on this comment, do you have a free horse handy, while we are at it?). But it is nothing more than an example. You may substitute it with BSD, Artistic License or any other license that basically tells you to do what you want with the code and doesn't require you to do it for free (I guess the NC versions of the Creative Commons licenses wouldn't apply).
Substitute Linux for any other OS. Your grandmother won't be able to use _any_ of them without extensive support. Computer classes for the elderly exist for a reason (well, a reason besides earning money).
No, it isn't (to quote Monty Python). Remember: your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless. Even GPL states that clearly.
Yes, it may be a valid strategy. Unfortunately, I find it quite annoying when someone spends over a minute at the same place on a team deathmatch (the usual way I play for fun):
it doesn't make the team win the round by eliminating the other team (because TDM respawns continuously)
it doesn't add to the gameplay (oh, look, three snipers at the same place and too far away to lob a grenade on them, I'm sure I will be able to headshot all three of them before they manage to hit me -note: I sometimes managed to dodge them all, but that's unusual-)
and, worst of all, incites other players (on either team) to camp as well. And then a supposed team deathmatch turns into "Big Game Hunter". Sorry, if I wanted to play that game, I would buy it and I wouldn't have to deal with automatic fire. They can got shoot ducks at the fair if they wish not to move.
By the way, I could possibly deal with sniping campers. But usual campers won't even risk that: they will get an automatic scoped weapon if they can so they can shoot more times just in case. AFAIK there are enough servers that reject camping for me to think that it isn't a very well considered strategy:)
It seems our experiences differ. Most games I have played at consider camping bad for the game experience. Of course, I'm not talking about competition games, just playing for the fun of it. Having someone who stands there basically motionless shooting at whoever happens to show up (if you are lucky, only at members of the other team) is annoying for most people.
Actually, the real problem (IMO) isn't having just one camper. Only the least experienced players usually have problems with just one camper. But having one camper and not getting him punished usually has a call effect on other would-be campers. Really, having to dodge three or four sniping campers at the same time gets old quickly.
If you like campers, have fun with them. I don't, and I find them a nuisance that is better off the servers I play at.
Good point, but... will you talk to anyone through those means if the only interchange you have is at best "gj" or "gg" during the game? I don't think so.
A few anecdotes: the reason I chat with some players is that I asked the server admin to put in place some way to punish aimbotters, wallhackers and the like. Had that system already been in place I probably wouldn't be talking to them. And none of them are under 1000km from me, except a couple who joined some time after I did. In the same vein, I have added to my contact lists people I play L4D2 with because they are good PvE teammates and nice people to boot. I haven't done that with people I played against in the same game. Perhaps it is me being weird, I don't know.
Interestingly, I have managed to get almost no socialization from other online players unless I played some kind of PvE or team PvP game. Pure PvP and free for all games seem (IMO) to make interaction a bit more difficult. Those I usually reserve for playing with people I already have some previous interaction.
Snipers are snipers. Campers, though, should only be allowed with a knife (at least that requires someability). OTOH, I miss the pre-Source Counter Strike times when you could actually move sideways so quickly a sniper would usually miss (tested with, AFAIK, quite good players; it annoyed the hell out of them).
Not only that. Because of that equation, the space you need to brake or dodge the problem grows with the square of speed. So fatalities grow because accidents are more dangerous and because it gets harder to avoid them.
WRONG! You have to be able to disable secureboot, that is a critical element of windows certification
Mandatory, not critical, mind you. And it is mandatory now. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens with later versions of Windows.
They've had years of oversight by the DOJ, modifications to the OS internal APIs, removal of the browser in the european union version (the "N" versions) which are the exact things the antitrust suits were there to rectify.
And yet they had to be prosecuted on the "browser wars", had to be prosecuted again on the Windows Media Player affair, had to be prosecuted again on the browser selection option. Yes, that oversight worked really well to stop their infringing the law.
It's absolutely clear you have no understanding of how a free market works or the concept of a monopoly.
Yes, as it is clear that you don't run your tests on your main cash cow. You run them in a sideshow like Windows 8/ARM. Besides, if Microsoft was really considered a monopoly it would have been split like AT&T was. Why they didn't still escapes me.
but in fact you are wrong, people like it that way
The same way people like attaching the most common apps to the Start bar... because Microsoft decided to hide the old Quick Launch bar so there was another option. You have too high an opinion of the mean computer user. Most of them will use what comes with the computer and never notice something is missing until they crash against it.
Why do you so desperately want to believe that the market wont decide?
Perhaps because Microsoft currently has a monopoly on the OS market and people will usually buy what they see everywhere. And that's not Apple nor Linux.
There is nothing there that explains why they couldn't have done this sometime in the past 30 years, except for exactly what stops them doing it now.
Ok, let's tear this "30 years" meme down. In 1982, 30 years ago, Microsoft wasn't big enough to do anything about x86 architecture: the IBM PC had just started selling in August 1981. In 1993, when Windows NT showed up, Microsoft wasn't still big enough to press anybody to bend to their wishes: when they tried to force Adobe, Autodesk and other big software makers to adapt their code to Windows NT (sane things like having a correct account of the times the same file was opened or closed) they got no headway, which is partly responsible for the need to reboot a computer on many upgrades and software installations. You could go as far back as the middle '90s to find references about Microsoft forcing OEM's hands, about fifteen years in which the hardware market scattered far enough to make messing around with BIOS a nightmare even for Microsoft.
What app in iTunes?! Its about running your own software (not iOS) on an apple device, so you restore the device with a custom.img, like openiboot.
Excuse me, but this doesn't match with what you wrote before:
WRONG! You can install whatever you want on Apple devices, restore from backup with a specified.img file in iTunes, no jailbreaking required, that's how iPhone Linux works!
Just to keep things simple, OpeniBoot requires a compatible jailbreak to be applied. On the other hand, I guess you meant the iTunes application and not the appstore service. Sorry for that misunderstanding.
They were convicted because they broke the law you idiot.
I guess my attempt at sarcasm failed.
And all the OEMs that don't ship Windows? And all the manufacturers who don't ship systems at all? Ever built your own PC? No, didn't think so.
Numbers, please: having one of each ten (for example) OEM not shipping Windows doesn't break the monopoly. And
So they won't be windows 8 certified, they won't include the key and given that this would make them virtually unable to boot an OS they won't have secureboot enabled. Not having secureboot probably would be cheaper, so yes i agree, many manufacturers will go that route. Why are you complaining about that? Is that not exactly what you want?
They can just not include a "disable secure boot" option. They will then be Windows 8 certified since it needs secure boot enabled, but you won't be able to boot mostly anything else.
They can do that with locked bootloaders on any device. If they really didn't care about antitrust laws and really could coerce all OEMs and all hardware manufacturers to do exactly what Microsoft wants them to do then they could have done it any time in the past 30 years, the simple fact is they didn't.
As I have written in another subthread, Microsoft has paid little or no attention to its being convicted once and again for monopolistic practices. And now they get the lockdown option in a silver platter. If you really trust Microsoft not to abuse it... well, they already did on ARM and set the stage for doing it on x86. Those are facts, not your unfounded theory about Microsoft having changed its stripes now that it got fined a few times.
No, ARM locking is a different issue altogether, like many existing devices that have locked bootloaders but Microsoft just disabled "Custom Mode"
Of course, because now they only need to "just" disable Custom Mode. Easier device lockdown is still device lockdown, and wrong.
Do you really think if they could have done it they wouldn't have done it sometime in the past 30 years?
See above.
WRONG! You can install whatever you want on Apple devices, restore from backup with a specified.img file in iTunes, no jailbreaking required, that's how iPhone Linux works!
Would you be so kind to provide a reference to that statement? I certainly am unable to find such app in iTunes.
The reason is that they don't control the OEMs, they don't control all the manufacturers and they don't just ignore antitrust law.
No, they don't ignore the antitrust law, not at all. They were convicted because some evil judge had it in for them. And they don't control OEMs enough to force them to ship Windows in all their computers if they want to get the cheap licences. Do you really believe what you are writing? Besides, why would they worry about forcing manufacturers' hand when the UEFI's antecedents date back to the '90s?
why do you so desperately want a WindowsRT tablet?
I don't. I couldn't care less if, say, Apple, decided to lock their devices up to the neck. They don't really have a strong hand in the architecture I mainly work with (namely x86). On the other hand, though, Windows _does_ have that strong hand, and their getting Windows ready for lockdown points to a future in which I may have to jump through a lot of hoops just to, say, boot a USB Live linux system.
Well they can't lock it down first, unless you've been completely ignorant of the extensive high-profile anti-trust suits
High profile, perhaps, but effective? Not the US ones, certainly, and neither the EU ones: the former turned into a mere slap on the wrist and the latter... well, Microsoft has been fined in 2004, I meant 2006, or was it 2008 or finally in 2012. Now that's what I call effective.
Clearly you have no understanding of anti-trust law or the previous cases against microsoft in this area, it's well documented, they have been convicted of monopoly abuse multiple times.
Conviction doesn't matter if you get far more than what you are fined with. Otherwise speeding fines would make speeding disappear, which they don't.
Sure, you can't just get an ipad and run whatever software you want, you can't get a Windows RT device and run whatever software you want, so just get one of the myriad of Android tablets with unlocked bootloaders if you want to do that.
Well until Microsoft stops having a monopoly in the x86 desktop market.
Which is to happen before they decide to enable lockdown, thus keeping them as the main player in the Intel desktop market, right? Forgive me for thinking the lockdown will happen first.
No, you asked what the point of the original post was when you compared UEFI to OOXML, they are clearly different things where the elements of differentiation were clearly the point being made,
And once again you miss my point. Its being an standard doesn't make it automatically fine and dandy. Its being an "industry standard" means, as I have shown in the MPI case, actually nothing. And my criticizing Microsoft for abusing it is, of course, because they _are_ abusing it. If it was someone else doing it I would criticize it too.
...if you don't like it then don't use it.
That only happens when everyone implements the standard correctly. Guess what? If it is cheaper to enable it and not to allow disabling it many motherboard manufacturers will do it. And if disabling it is forbidden by a big OS manufacturer... well, you get the picture.
The problem is that you don't want to see that Microsoft is already taking steps for this to happen: ARM locking is one. Do you really think they won't "dare" requiring locked UEFI Secure Boot on Intel at some given point? Like they wouldn't dare to use their market power to drive competitors out of other markets?
By the way, Apple already tries to lock their OS to their devices (with some success, mind you). It would be just the next step to require Secure Boot.
You call it bizarre conspiracy, I call it learning from what they have already tried before by different means.
I remember reading about russian experiments with vibrators attached directly to the skull that allowed people to hear frequencies up to 100kHz. Unfortunately, I think it was a printed magazine I read it in and I haven't been able to find it on the web.
My excuses about the mistype: of course it is OOXML and not OOXMLz.
I am afraid you missed my point: its being an standard, either "just" an industry standard like UEFI or an ISO standard like OOXML is irrelevant. The problem is it allows lock-in, as shown on Windows 8/ARM, and that is bad.
They could have tried that in the '90s but, guess what? There was no standard, so forcing OEMs to secure their BIOS would have been a much bigger effort (and Microsoft was far from the size it has now). Now it is very easy: it is included in the standard.
Secure Boot uses code-signing to defeat boot-time malware. This is the optimal solution and should be full-proof provided (1) the machine is physically secured, and (2) the private keys are secure.
I guess you meant fool-proof. And it is. It is fool-proof against all those fools who want to decide to run their own code on the computer without having to ask permission beforehand.
Secure Boot is not a DRM scheme, nor it is explicitly a tool for Microsoft lock-in.
True, and yet... it can be used as such. Excuse me, I meant it is already being used as such (see Windows 8 on ARM).
Just because the technology can be mis-used is no reason to completely boycott it. For my part, I intend to use Secure Boot when it becomes generally available, but only buy parts that allow me to edit the key database.
You are free to decide what to use. Just tell me: what will you do when the parts that allow you to edit the key database stop being manufactured? What will you do when, say, the graphics cards you want to use require UEFI to protect their HDMI hardware? It will happen, and rather sooner than later.
Remember: it's not paranoia when they are out to get you. And they are, oh how they are.
Theory is closer to practice in theory than in practice. The facts are clear: UEFI lets someone else decide what you can or can not run in your computer.
Think you can disable it? Think again: who is going to care about your being able to disable it when, eventually, Microsoft requires it to be always on on Intel versions of Windows just like they have done on ARM?
Slashdot Mirror
Even if the code was considered infringing, it would only need to be revealed to those customers that asked for it before three years (since the ruling in this case?) have passed. Unless one of those customer asks for it and decides to publish it, the code would still be unavailable.
Yes, ESA (created in 1975) has existed almost as long as NASA (created om 1958). 17 years are nothing at all. If you had at least talked about the EEC (1957)...
Then again, I agree with you on something. It is not magic. It is a scam.
Yes, it is. And quoting an aquired taste comedy troupe doesn't exactly add gravitas to your argument.
Then it's fortunate I wasn't going for gravitas and absolute assertions, as Mad Marlin was by stating
Writing proprietary software is perfectly okay.
Please excuse me for not getting on my high horse and rain hell and brimstone over Mad Marlin's statement. I will get to buying a horse some time in the future ;)
I hate the break the news to you , but stallman and GNU do not have the last word on software ethics. Its their OPINION , not fact. And its not an opinion all of us share.
That doesn't have anything to do with my statement. I repeat:
your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless.
Let me explain: there is costless software without access to the code (usually called freeware), there is costly software without access to the code, there is costless software with access to the code (e.g., software in the public domain) and there is costly software with access to the code. Since it is possible to find all combinations of cost and source code access, stating
I don't have to give away my work for free, although sometimes I do.
is wrong. And the last part of your comment seems to be about
Even GPL states that clearly.
This is just an example. I could have talked about the BSD licenses, but the GPL is often considered to force you to give everything away: software, house, family, even the dog (getting back on this comment, do you have a free horse handy, while we are at it?). But it is nothing more than an example. You may substitute it with BSD, Artistic License or any other license that basically tells you to do what you want with the code and doesn't require you to do it for free (I guess the NC versions of the Creative Commons licenses wouldn't apply).
Substitute Linux for any other OS. Your grandmother won't be able to use _any_ of them without extensive support. Computer classes for the elderly exist for a reason (well, a reason besides earning money).
No, it isn't (to quote Monty Python). Remember: your software being free as in freedom has little to do with it being costless. Even GPL states that clearly.
By the way, I could possibly deal with sniping campers. But usual campers won't even risk that: they will get an automatic scoped weapon if they can so they can shoot more times just in case. AFAIK there are enough servers that reject camping for me to think that it isn't a very well considered strategy :)
Actually, the real problem (IMO) isn't having just one camper. Only the least experienced players usually have problems with just one camper. But having one camper and not getting him punished usually has a call effect on other would-be campers. Really, having to dodge three or four sniping campers at the same time gets old quickly.
If you like campers, have fun with them. I don't, and I find them a nuisance that is better off the servers I play at.
A few anecdotes: the reason I chat with some players is that I asked the server admin to put in place some way to punish aimbotters, wallhackers and the like. Had that system already been in place I probably wouldn't be talking to them. And none of them are under 1000km from me, except a couple who joined some time after I did. In the same vein, I have added to my contact lists people I play L4D2 with because they are good PvE teammates and nice people to boot. I haven't done that with people I played against in the same game. Perhaps it is me being weird, I don't know.
Interestingly, I have managed to get almost no socialization from other online players unless I played some kind of PvE or team PvP game. Pure PvP and free for all games seem (IMO) to make interaction a bit more difficult. Those I usually reserve for playing with people I already have some previous interaction.
Snipers are snipers. Campers, though, should only be allowed with a knife (at least that requires someability). OTOH, I miss the pre-Source Counter Strike times when you could actually move sideways so quickly a sniper would usually miss (tested with, AFAIK, quite good players; it annoyed the hell out of them).
Not only that. Because of that equation, the space you need to brake or dodge the problem grows with the square of speed. So fatalities grow because accidents are more dangerous and because it gets harder to avoid them.
WRONG! You have to be able to disable secureboot, that is a critical element of windows certification
Mandatory, not critical, mind you. And it is mandatory now. I guess we will have to wait and see what happens with later versions of Windows.
They've had years of oversight by the DOJ, modifications to the OS internal APIs, removal of the browser in the european union version (the "N" versions) which are the exact things the antitrust suits were there to rectify.
And yet they had to be prosecuted on the "browser wars", had to be prosecuted again on the Windows Media Player affair, had to be prosecuted again on the browser selection option. Yes, that oversight worked really well to stop their infringing the law.
It's absolutely clear you have no understanding of how a free market works or the concept of a monopoly.
Yes, as it is clear that you don't run your tests on your main cash cow. You run them in a sideshow like Windows 8/ARM. Besides, if Microsoft was really considered a monopoly it would have been split like AT&T was. Why they didn't still escapes me.
but in fact you are wrong, people like it that way
The same way people like attaching the most common apps to the Start bar... because Microsoft decided to hide the old Quick Launch bar so there was another option. You have too high an opinion of the mean computer user. Most of them will use what comes with the computer and never notice something is missing until they crash against it.
Why do you so desperately want to believe that the market wont decide?
Perhaps because Microsoft currently has a monopoly on the OS market and people will usually buy what they see everywhere. And that's not Apple nor Linux.
There is nothing there that explains why they couldn't have done this sometime in the past 30 years, except for exactly what stops them doing it now.
Ok, let's tear this "30 years" meme down. In 1982, 30 years ago, Microsoft wasn't big enough to do anything about x86 architecture: the IBM PC had just started selling in August 1981. In 1993, when Windows NT showed up, Microsoft wasn't still big enough to press anybody to bend to their wishes: when they tried to force Adobe, Autodesk and other big software makers to adapt their code to Windows NT (sane things like having a correct account of the times the same file was opened or closed) they got no headway, which is partly responsible for the need to reboot a computer on many upgrades and software installations. You could go as far back as the middle '90s to find references about Microsoft forcing OEM's hands, about fifteen years in which the hardware market scattered far enough to make messing around with BIOS a nightmare even for Microsoft.
What app in iTunes?! Its about running your own software (not iOS) on an apple device, so you restore the device with a custom .img, like openiboot.
Excuse me, but this doesn't match with what you wrote before:
WRONG! You can install whatever you want on Apple devices, restore from backup with a specified .img file in iTunes, no jailbreaking required, that's how iPhone Linux works!
Just to keep things simple, OpeniBoot requires a compatible jailbreak to be applied. On the other hand, I guess you meant the iTunes application and not the appstore service. Sorry for that misunderstanding.
They were convicted because they broke the law you idiot.
I guess my attempt at sarcasm failed.
And all the OEMs that don't ship Windows? And all the manufacturers who don't ship systems at all? Ever built your own PC? No, didn't think so.
Numbers, please: having one of each ten (for example) OEM not shipping Windows doesn't break the monopoly. And
So they won't be windows 8 certified, they won't include the key and given that this would make them virtually unable to boot an OS they won't have secureboot enabled. Not having secureboot probably would be cheaper, so yes i agree, many manufacturers will go that route. Why are you complaining about that? Is that not exactly what you want?
They can just not include a "disable secure boot" option. They will then be Windows 8 certified since it needs secure boot enabled, but you won't be able to boot mostly anything else.
They can do that with locked bootloaders on any device. If they really didn't care about antitrust laws and really could coerce all OEMs and all hardware manufacturers to do exactly what Microsoft wants them to do then they could have done it any time in the past 30 years, the simple fact is they didn't.
As I have written in another subthread, Microsoft has paid little or no attention to its being convicted once and again for monopolistic practices. And now they get the lockdown option in a silver platter. If you really trust Microsoft not to abuse it... well, they already did on ARM and set the stage for doing it on x86. Those are facts, not your unfounded theory about Microsoft having changed its stripes now that it got fined a few times.
No, ARM locking is a different issue altogether, like many existing devices that have locked bootloaders but Microsoft just disabled "Custom Mode"
Of course, because now they only need to "just" disable Custom Mode. Easier device lockdown is still device lockdown, and wrong.
Do you really think if they could have done it they wouldn't have done it sometime in the past 30 years?
See above.
WRONG! You can install whatever you want on Apple devices, restore from backup with a specified .img file in iTunes, no jailbreaking required, that's how iPhone Linux works!
Would you be so kind to provide a reference to that statement? I certainly am unable to find such app in iTunes.
The reason is that they don't control the OEMs, they don't control all the manufacturers and they don't just ignore antitrust law.
No, they don't ignore the antitrust law, not at all. They were convicted because some evil judge had it in for them. And they don't control OEMs enough to force them to ship Windows in all their computers if they want to get the cheap licences. Do you really believe what you are writing? Besides, why would they worry about forcing manufacturers' hand when the UEFI's antecedents date back to the '90s?
why do you so desperately want a WindowsRT tablet?
I don't. I couldn't care less if, say, Apple, decided to lock their devices up to the neck. They don't really have a strong hand in the architecture I mainly work with (namely x86). On the other hand, though, Windows _does_ have that strong hand, and their getting Windows ready for lockdown points to a future in which I may have to jump through a lot of hoops just to, say, boot a USB Live linux system.
Well they can't lock it down first, unless you've been completely ignorant of the extensive high-profile anti-trust suits
High profile, perhaps, but effective? Not the US ones, certainly, and neither the EU ones: the former turned into a mere slap on the wrist and the latter... well, Microsoft has been fined in 2004, I meant 2006, or was it 2008 or finally in 2012. Now that's what I call effective.
Clearly you have no understanding of anti-trust law or the previous cases against microsoft in this area, it's well documented, they have been convicted of monopoly abuse multiple times.
Conviction doesn't matter if you get far more than what you are fined with. Otherwise speeding fines would make speeding disappear, which they don't.
Sure, you can't just get an ipad and run whatever software you want, you can't get a Windows RT device and run whatever software you want, so just get one of the myriad of Android tablets with unlocked bootloaders if you want to do that.
First they came for the communists...
Well until Microsoft stops having a monopoly in the x86 desktop market.
Which is to happen before they decide to enable lockdown, thus keeping them as the main player in the Intel desktop market, right? Forgive me for thinking the lockdown will happen first.
No, you asked what the point of the original post was when you compared UEFI to OOXML, they are clearly different things where the elements of differentiation were clearly the point being made,
And once again you miss my point. Its being an standard doesn't make it automatically fine and dandy. Its being an "industry standard" means, as I have shown in the MPI case, actually nothing. And my criticizing Microsoft for abusing it is, of course, because they _are_ abusing it. If it was someone else doing it I would criticize it too.
...if you don't like it then don't use it.
That only happens when everyone implements the standard correctly. Guess what? If it is cheaper to enable it and not to allow disabling it many motherboard manufacturers will do it. And if disabling it is forbidden by a big OS manufacturer... well, you get the picture.
The problem is that you don't want to see that Microsoft is already taking steps for this to happen: ARM locking is one. Do you really think they won't "dare" requiring locked UEFI Secure Boot on Intel at some given point? Like they wouldn't dare to use their market power to drive competitors out of other markets?
By the way, Apple already tries to lock their OS to their devices (with some success, mind you). It would be just the next step to require Secure Boot.
You call it bizarre conspiracy, I call it learning from what they have already tried before by different means.
I remember reading about russian experiments with vibrators attached directly to the skull that allowed people to hear frequencies up to 100kHz. Unfortunately, I think it was a printed magazine I read it in and I haven't been able to find it on the web.
...and it kicks every IDE I've tried in the nuts.
Perhaps you should have tried those IDEs in a computer.
On amd64 at least you'll be able to disable it if you want
For now. Microsoft has already declared the preferred configuration by requiring it on ARM.
I am afraid you missed my point: its being an standard, either "just" an industry standard like UEFI or an ISO standard like OOXML is irrelevant. The problem is it allows lock-in, as shown on Windows 8/ARM, and that is bad.
They could have tried that in the '90s but, guess what? There was no standard, so forcing OEMs to secure their BIOS would have been a much bigger effort (and Microsoft was far from the size it has now). Now it is very easy: it is included in the standard.
UEFI is not a Microsoft technology. It is an industry standard intended intended to replace the archaic x86 BIOS.
OOXMLz is a standard as well. Your point being?
Secure Boot uses code-signing to defeat boot-time malware. This is the optimal solution and should be full-proof provided (1) the machine is physically secured, and (2) the private keys are secure.
I guess you meant fool-proof. And it is. It is fool-proof against all those fools who want to decide to run their own code on the computer without having to ask permission beforehand.
Secure Boot is not a DRM scheme, nor it is explicitly a tool for Microsoft lock-in.
True, and yet... it can be used as such. Excuse me, I meant it is already being used as such (see Windows 8 on ARM).
Just because the technology can be mis-used is no reason to completely boycott it. For my part, I intend to use Secure Boot when it becomes generally available, but only buy parts that allow me to edit the key database.
You are free to decide what to use. Just tell me: what will you do when the parts that allow you to edit the key database stop being manufactured? What will you do when, say, the graphics cards you want to use require UEFI to protect their HDMI hardware? It will happen, and rather sooner than later.
Remember: it's not paranoia when they are out to get you. And they are, oh how they are.
Think you can disable it? Think again: who is going to care about your being able to disable it when, eventually, Microsoft requires it to be always on on Intel versions of Windows just like they have done on ARM?
Now it's a 403 Forbidden access error :)