4 ms·

MS is not pressuring OEMs in any anti-competitive way. The requirement is simple: secure boot must be the default for any Win8 machine. That doesn't by any me

by daeken 15y ago

MS is not pressuring OEMs in any anti-competitive way. The requirement is simple: secure boot must be the default for any Win8 machine. That doesn't by any means prevent OEMs from shipping with a switch for this feature. The only information against this is FUD from a Redhat developer who says that he has information that one or more OEMs may ship without this switch, without giving anything more.

sliverstorm 15y ago
Not to mention, secure boot is a good goal. Booting two different operating systems is just fundamentally at odds with secure boot, in the same way that leaving open the window next to your locked front door is fundamentally at odds with physical security.
- bennysaurus 15y ago
  > Booting two different operating systems is just fundamentally at odds with secure boot... Agreed with your first sentence but not really with the second. The idea is simply securing the boot process of an operating system from POST right through to the OS being ready for use. Having 2 operating systems is perfectly fine from that point of view as long as the integrity of the boot process can be maintained. Having a boot loader and 2 or more OS's available complicates things, but doesn't make it at-odds with secure booting. Edit: Manually correcting autocorrect and adding a couple of words
rbanffy 15y ago
To say MS puts no pressure is ludicrous. If an OEM wants to have the sticker, they have to enable secure boot, end of story. There is probably a financial incentive there too, as OEM license prices are usually lower for PC manufacturers who enter programs such as this. Ever wondered why so many of them displayed "so and so recommends Windows x" in their pages? There was a license discount for those who did. Also, there is some incentive for the PC makers to remove the possibility to disable it: people won't be able to reuse their machines a couple releases of Windows down the road. The shorter the useful life, the more boxes they move and higher the profit they make. Obviously, they won't think through the consequences of tying their future to Microsoft. That would require thinking beyond the next bonus window, something most managers can't.
- daeken 15y ago
  > To say MS puts no pressure is ludicrous. If an OEM wants to have the sticker, they have to enable secure boot, end of story. Your wording is ridiculously deceptive. To get the sticker, they have to enable secure boot, sure. Secure boot is not an issue, as long as you can turn it off, which MS is not requiring. So no, MS is not putting pressure on OEMs to do anything remotely anti-competitive. As for any incentive that PC makers may have for preventing secure boot's disabling, that's complete conjecture (even if it may be right in the future), so let's stick to the facts rather than FUD, ok?
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    > Secure boot is not an issue, as long as you can turn it off, which MS is not requiring. True enough. They don't require manufacturers to make their computers competition-proof. > So no, MS is not putting pressure on OEMs to do anything remotely anti-competitive. Except that, in order to get the sticker (and to qualify to whatever incentive program Microsoft devises to go with it) manufacturers are required to make it at least very inconvenient to install anything other than the Windows that came built in. How can this be anything other than anti-competitive? A layperson can pop in a Ubuntu DVD and boot up a current PC and experiment with it. Two years from now, they won't. PC manufacturer margins are so low any incentive will sway them. That's why every computer you buy with Windows comes with a ton of crapware - because crapware makers pay the manufacturers to do so and their low margins don't allow them to pass this offer up.

by daeken 15y ago

sliverstorm 15y ago

Not to mention, secure boot is a good goal. Booting two different operating systems is just fundamentally at odds with secure boot, in the same way that leaving open the window next to your locked front door is fundamentally at odds with physical security.

bennysaurus 15y ago
> Booting two different operating systems is just fundamentally at odds with secure boot... Agreed with your first sentence but not really with the second. The idea is simply securing the boot process of an operating system from POST right through to the OS being ready for use. Having 2 operating systems is perfectly fine from that point of view as long as the integrity of the boot process can be maintained. Having a boot loader and 2 or more OS's available complicates things, but doesn't make it at-odds with secure booting. Edit: Manually correcting autocorrect and adding a couple of words

rbanffy 15y ago

To say MS puts no pressure is ludicrous. If an OEM wants to have the sticker, they have to enable secure boot, end of story. There is probably a financial incentive there too, as OEM license prices are usually lower for PC manufacturers who enter programs such as this. Ever wondered why so many of them displayed "so and so recommends Windows x" in their pages? There was a license discount for those who did. Also, there is some incentive for the PC makers to remove the possibility to disable it: people won't be able to reuse their machines a couple releases of Windows down the road. The shorter the useful life, the more boxes they move and higher the profit they make. Obviously, they won't think through the consequences of tying their future to Microsoft. That would require thinking beyond the next bonus window, something most managers can't.

daeken 15y ago
> To say MS puts no pressure is ludicrous. If an OEM wants to have the sticker, they have to enable secure boot, end of story. Your wording is ridiculously deceptive. To get the sticker, they have to enable secure boot, sure. Secure boot is not an issue, as long as you can turn it off, which MS is not requiring. So no, MS is not putting pressure on OEMs to do anything remotely anti-competitive. As for any incentive that PC makers may have for preventing secure boot's disabling, that's complete conjecture (even if it may be right in the future), so let's stick to the facts rather than FUD, ok?
- rbanffy 15y ago
  > Secure boot is not an issue, as long as you can turn it off, which MS is not requiring. True enough. They don't require manufacturers to make their computers competition-proof. > So no, MS is not putting pressure on OEMs to do anything remotely anti-competitive. Except that, in order to get the sticker (and to qualify to whatever incentive program Microsoft devises to go with it) manufacturers are required to make it at least very inconvenient to install anything other than the Windows that came built in. How can this be anything other than anti-competitive? A layperson can pop in a Ubuntu DVD and boot up a current PC and experiment with it. Two years from now, they won't. PC manufacturer margins are so low any incentive will sway them. That's why every computer you buy with Windows comes with a ton of crapware - because crapware makers pay the manufacturers to do so and their low margins don't allow them to pass this offer up.