Bonum Certa Men Certa

Canonical and Red Hat Receive Negative Publicity Over Submissive UEFI Choices

Fishy business

Thought



Summary: Following the FSF's paper, criticism of Canonical and Red Hat becomes more commonplace

TECHRIGHTS spent a lot of time covering UEFI because it relates closely to technology rights, or lack thereof. Microsoft essentially gives the finger to Linux users, as one publication put it. The spin from Microsoft boosters [1, 2] sought to portray it as Linux-friendly even though it clearly is the opposite. This led to a blow against the GPLv3-licensed GRUB 2, which Canonical's reaction in no way a solution but a compromise.

Here is a a good article about what Microsoft has done. It's from a site about encryption:

A second Linux Distro has joined the Microsoft Secure Booth party. You see Microsoft has come up with what they are calling the UEFI Secure Boot. 61285 Secure boot is somewhat controversial in that once set up it will only allow signed versions of an OS to be installed. This means that if a computer is shipped from an OEM with Windows 8 and UEFI Secure Boot on you could not install a generic version of Linux or indeed any other OS including Windows 7 etc. This would effectively lock someone into using Windows 8 only on these devices. This block would include even downgrading your new system to Windows 7.

Now Microsoft is claiming that there might be a way to turn this off for x86 systems (ARM based systems will be locked to Windows RT), but it has prompted both Red Hat and Canonical to find a way to work within the UEFI Secure boot structure just in case. To do this they are getting a digital signature (from Verisign apparently) which will allow them to work with the UEFI Secure boot.


The FSF has already criticised Canonical, as we pointed out before. "Both the Linux Foundation and the Free Software Foundation voiced their own perspectives last fall when the issue first came up, but over the weekend the Free Software Foundation felt the need to speak out again in response to the approaches being taken by these two popular distributions," notes the article. "In a nutshell, the advocacy group isn't thrilled with what either distro has proposed, but it prefers the Fedora approach over Canonical's solution. It also has a number of suggestions of its own."

Pogson covered this too, as did some news sites and Groklaw. Here is a snippet from Pamela Jones' words:

With regard to Fedora's approach, Sullivan writes that while it's a thoughful effort that results in GPL compatibility, trusting Microsoft is not an option: "Encouraging free software distributors and users to trust Microsoft or any other proprietary software company as a precondition to exercising their freedoms is simply not an acceptable solution."

FSF has a number of suggestions going forward, including helping users to learn how to do what they can do to protect themselves, and it is also working with companies like Lemote, Freedom Included, ZaReason, ThinkPenguin, Los Alamos Computers, Garlach44, and InaTux to make computers available that are preinstalled with fully free GNU/Linux distributions.


The bottom line is, UEFI is an attack on computing freedom and it's therefore unsurprising that it is not compatible with GRUB's licence. The FSF writes the GPL to help defend against the empire of proprietary software companies. Playing nice with those companies is giving up, it's defeatism.

"He [Bill Gates] is divisive. He is manipulative. He is a user. He has taken much from me and the industry."

--Gary Kildall

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
 
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Snowy Photos and utism is a Spectrum
Links for the day
Microsoft-Sponsored Xenophobia and Nationalism
IBM is very similar in this regard
Vintage is Sometimes Better
Why can't we get back to "simple" if (or where) "simple" means better?
Climate Breakdown Means We'll be Publishing More, Not Less
Press freedom will be a common, recurring theme
Our 5-Year Geminispace Anniversary is Coming Up
I still remember when Gemini Protocol was quite new
It's Right to Point Out Violence From the Right
Violence is a recurring theme
Tentative Summary of Things to Publish in Project 2030
I'll still be in my forties by then
Web Browsers That "Do Hey Hi" (AI)
State-of-the-art plagiarism or "autocomplete on steroids" (not coined by us, nevertheless a nice description) don't have much/any prospect
Links 20/09/2025: Hardware Projects in View, Some Independent Publishers About Russia Prosper After Cheeto Cuts Funding
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Options and TV Time Machine
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Retrocomputer, Antique Phone Experience, and More
Links for the day
Links 20/09/2025: Internet Shutdowns, Media Censorship, and Climate Worries
Links for the day
About 700 New Gemini Capsules in 13 Months (or 54 Per Month)
4.8K would represent a 20% increase
Rust People: Drain the Swap, You're Holding It Wrong
Does Rust make sense?
Techrights the Name Turns 15
About 6 weeks from now we turn 19
Microsoft is Running Out of Time and Floating Fake Figures, Fake Projects, Fake Narratives, Fake Excuses
Also, a lot of Microsoft's "revenue" claims are circular financing (i.e. Microsoft buying from itself, which means Ponzi-like fraud)
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, linuxconfig.org, and Plagiarised Phoronix
Many articles out there are nowadays fake
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 19, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 19, 2025
Gemini Links 20/09/2025: Navigating the Pressures of Modern Life and SpellBinding Accidentally Wrote Another Gemini Server
Links for the day