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Microsoft Booting Tricks and EULAs



Summary: Licensing used as an anti-competitive and law-annulling tool; UEFI hardware demands a primary new example

THE controversy surrounding UEFI has been getting a lot of attention. GNU and Linux distributions that require access to Windows partitions have in some sense helped Windows and one of them adds UEFI support (SystemRescueCd). To quote Softpedia: "François Dupoux proudly announced a few hours ago, September 3rd, the immediate availability for download of the SystemRescueCd 3.0.0 Linux-based operating system for rescue and recovery tasks."



"It is worth noting that Microsoft once tried several other ways to prevent or discourage Linux from booting, using a EULA."UEFI in the case of this distribution is different; it is not just a case of being able to run on new hardware. Different distributions adopt different approaches to tackle this problem.

It is worth noting that Microsoft once tried several other ways to prevent or discourage Linux from booting, using a EULA. It's not a novel concept [1, 2].

Last month two Microsoft boosters reported that "Microsoft forbids class actions in new Windows licence" and "Windows 8 EULA Prohibits Class Action Lawsuits Against Microsoft", to quote the headlines. Legal tricks are nothing new when it comes to serving as a waiver of rights.

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