Mercury was orbital after the first two manned flights, which used the same vehicle on top of a smaller rocket. Scaled Composites' work is not something that will apply to orbital flight (unless you want to re-create the space shuttle, and take a long time to get there).

Funny you should say that, since none of Virgin, Scaled Composites, and XCOR are working on orbital flight.

As soon as it is up to juries to set precedent, the small-time software developer is going to quit. I certainly wouldn't release or contribute to any free software that could cause me to get sued; I wouldn't have time or money to pay a lawyer to eventually hopefully get a decision in my favor.

If it was possible to prevent all security holes, this wouldn't be a bad idea. However, it is provably impossible to do so. This would just create a new inurance industry, profiting from others' mistakes. It would really only serve to cut down on development, especially from small companies and individuals that couldn't afford to make a single security mistake (or insurance against lawsuits).

I ordered some special-order sliding patio doors at Home Depot recently, and I'm paying to have them installed (next week). I've worked on over two dozen Habitat for Humanity house building projects, I helped when my parents added on to their house when I was a teen, and I have a good supply of my own tools (some of them handed down from my grandfather, who was a contractor). Why am I paying someone else?

• Installing a quality sliding door (especially in the place of a French door that is slightly larger) is a little tricky to get right, and if you don't get a sliding door installed correctly it won't work right. If I installed dozens or hundreds of sliding doors, I'd be able to get it right with ease, but these would have been the only sliding doors I'd ever installed.
• These doors are heavy. They are probably more than my father and I (even with a neighbor) could have easily managed. We sit at desks for a living (I carry the occasional server or router, but not that often). Sliding doors are awkward to handle as well.
• The installer is a professional tradesman with his crew (probably just one other person for this job). They have specialized skills and knowlege, just like I have specialized skills and knowlege. If they want a website, or need a office network, etc., they'll call someone like me.

As for complaining about self-stick flooring or pre-hung windows, WTF? Does this guy make his own plywood too? Guess what; builders have been using such materials for many years. It is quicker and easier, and in many cases allows for a nicer finished product (because a factory can generate a pre-finished piece that is nicer than even most professionals could fabricate on-site).

It got more than drop tests. It went through dynamic testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center for something like a year; that was the first time the entire shuttle stack (orbiter, ET, SRBs) was assembled. Without Enterprise and the extensive testing it underwent, the rest of the shuttle program would not have happened.

Do you think there were only 12 men involved in the Apollo program because they were the only ones to walk on the Moon?

Heh, I saw it on the back of the 747 as it landed in 1978 at the Marshall Space Flight Center for dynamic testing. We got to walk up to it (and an external tank) at the NASA employee picnic right after that.

He's not the only person on the planet throwing knucklers. I played slow-pitch softball with a guy that could throw a knuckle-softball; we'd be tossing a ball to warm up and he'd drop a knuckler in there. Seeing that coming made you just want to jump out of the way (or fire a fastball back at his knees! :) ).

Do you personally trust every single employee of your bank? Your doctor's office and health insurance company? They are all governed by a large number of regulations about data control for privacy. Nobody wants their banking or health records leaked, but they act suprised when companies that handle sensitive data like this by locking down the computers and network.

Basically, it is their network, so their rules. Many companies are required by various regulations to make sure that sensitive and private data does not leave their control (which we all want), and the biggest threat is intentional (disgruntled employees) or unintentional (infected computers) leakage of bulk data across computer networks (sure, you could have a photographic memory and remember all the records you view, but that is limited in quantity and not the big concern). The only way to be (relatively, obviously nothing is perfect) sure of preventing that is to scan all data at the border, which requires nothing encrypted crosses that border.

No, I really don't think they'll stop for PCs. It makes it easier for them to get vendors to agree to the Secure Boot requirement to begin with. I don't believe they could really get HP and Dell to ship computers that were unable to run anything other than Windows 8.

Even if they do, we're no worse off than we would be if Fedora didn't get a key signed (telling users how to disable Secure Boot or trying to get vendors to include a Red Hat key in the UEFI firmware).

Nope, you've got it wrong. To get the Windows 8 "certification", Microsoft is requiring x86 vendors to ship systems with UEFI Secure Boot enable. They are requiring there also be a way for end users to add/remove keys and completely disable Secure Boot as well.

For Windows 8 on ARM, Microsoft is not only requiring Secure Boot, but requiring the exact opposite of x86: that it cannot be disabled or keys modified.

Note that Fedora is not planning on signing the ARM binaries; that would be releasing something that the users can't modify, and they don't think that's right (the answer there is "don't buy Windows tablets and expect to run anything other than Windows on them").

Red Hat Linux started on x86; it was never "only available for the DEC Alpha" (it didn't get ported to Alpha for several years).

They are doing this so that Fedora can be installed without end users having to disable Secure Boot in their UEFI firmware settings. If you want to disable Secure Boot, Fedora will run equally well. Fedora is also going to have signing tools, so you put your own key in the firmware and then sign your own loader and kernel (giving you more control, not less). If you switch to another distribution or OS that doesn't have a signed boot-loader, you'll also have to disable Secure Boot.

This "feature" exists because malware that affects the boot loader and kernel is a real and growing problem, and there isn't really any other technical means to block it. Setting up an independent CA to sign keys for loaders and then trying to get vendors to include the CA key would be highly expensive and would still result in Fedora having a key that you don't have. As long as Microsoft will sign things cheap, it is much better to go that route (if they were to stop signing, then this would obviously change).

The alternative is to tell users that want to run Fedora to not buy hardware that has the Secure Boot functionality, but that is going to become scarce once Windows 8 ships. Here in the real world, I'd like to continue running Fedora on new hardware.

Yeah, completely irreplaceable.

I think you're a little late. Nobody expects the Industrial Revolution!