and when will it become relevant to you?

When they push Windows-only "secure boot" on laptops?
When they push Windows-only "secure boot" on servers?
When they push Windows-only "secure boot" on desktop machines?

When, exactly, will this obviously evil and anti-competitive move be of relevance to you?

How isn't this sufficient?

It's not sufficient, because it doesn't solve the problem.

The problem is that MS's implementation of secure boot allows them to control what can and cannot boot on a device.
It is entirely at their discretion.

This is already in practice with the surface tablets
See Mathew Garrett's recent blog post
http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/21189.html

As you can see, locking out other OSs is already in place for the Surface tablet, which is unable to boot any other system (even with the boot-loader shims done by RedHat, Ubuntu and the Linux foundation.)

A rather literal take on the first step.
Hopes are high for the 'extend' part, but swiftly dwindle at the thought being virtually extinguished

No point supporting i386 anyway
As far as I'm aware, GNU binutils won't work on anything less than a 486

I guess you could be affected if you're using some other toolchain, but realistically is pointless keeping support for 386

the ending's disappointing, though...

But the local computer shop or data recovery firm sure cares, as secure boot eliminates their ability to bypass windows to recover data direct from storage.

Joe Shmoe will care that the latest virus to infest his system leaves his data corrupted and secure boot prevents any remedial actions.

Oh, wait. Bad example.

Actually, it's a perfect example.

"Look at Windows 8. Don't like the unterface? tough, there's nothing you can do about it.
Now look at Unity. Don't like the interface? Well try these others, there's plenty to choose from."

town of apps

So that's why they called their UI Metro.
Always wondered about that

This ain't Windows, boy.

go back to your remote desktop, everything-has-to-interact-with-the-GUI-scripting, and other such nonsense...

Playing devil's Advocate here, as personally I agree with this (and don't let the proprietary nVidia driver anywhere near my system).
But just for kicks, how does the recent case of Oracle trying (and failing) to claim copyright on the Java APIs affect this.

If you cannot copyright an API, then you cannot apply a copyright license either.

What if nVidia challenged this with exactly the same arguments that Google used with Dalvik.

Only speaking for Linux here,
But googling for generic issues often throws up heaps of out-of-date or otherwise unhelpful hits
For a set of systems that move so fast (eg. 6 monthly release cycles for Ubuntu and Fedora), you need to get more taylored results

Including "Quantal", "Wheezy" or "Spherical" in your search terms is likely to pull up far more relevant results

How will this affect bootstrapping the GCC on bare systems?

Been a while since I've delved into LFS or the like, but I'd think GCC being C++ based would seriously complicate things as it's now got more dependencies.

So, we have:
- Dell (project Sputnik. Partners with Canonical to sell Linux PCs)
- Valve (Steam for Linux)
- Blizzard (only blasted Windows 8, not announced their contingency plan yet)
- Mozilla (Windows 8 revives the IE browser lockin)

and now Acer
how can you not take the "think twice" line as a threat of defection

Will the Windows 8 Style UI be available on my Windows Phone Series 7, or will I have to wait for the Windows Phone Series 8 to get the new Windows 8 Style UI.

Also, will any sea-shells, woodchucks or pickled peppers be included?

I'm sure lots more details are coming.

Valve are doing a big presentation on their Linux adventures next week at SIGGRAPH (6th - 9th Aug)