You wrote: "NO ONE wants this. NO CUSTOMER wants this." The capitalization is your emphasis. You assumed the customer is the user, I demonstrated that this is not so. Only one counterexample is necessary to disprove a claim such as yours. The existence of an employer who does not want to let employees disable secureboot is something far beyond speculation. There are already companies out there that try to lock down configuration for security and compliance reasons. I've known people who work in environments where their PCs netboot for such reasons.

No, there is actually every reason to believe that well funded Linux distros like Red Hat and Ubuntu will work with hardware vendors to make sure they are not locked out.

Yes, that is annoying. But there is a tradeoff here. Possibly inconveniencing users of smaller Linux distros unable to work with hardware vendors and people who want to compile their system code (been there) versus strengthening security on the Windows boxes used by the overwhelming majority of users. Its not unreasonable for companies who are selling dedicated Windows boxes with no promise of the ability to repurpose as Linux boxes to get on board such a tradeoff.

No, run the OS in a VM.

What outrage? Its a simple question and skylights are recognized as a green technology. If anyone is being faux it is the person equating skylights with water slides.

This thread begins with "the efficient use of government resources trumps justice". That is a general statement not exclusive to anti-trust.

The owner may prefer not spending the time to do so, it being far more convenient to just buy a factory locked down box. Plus BIOS passwords can be worked around, jumpers, batteries, etc.

The real point is that for some owner perspectives the feature is a vulnerability not a freedom.

And using your own logic, freedom has a cost and is not necessarily convenient, that's also true in the sense that people who want the feature would need to do a little research before buying a box or motherboard.

Actually a MacBook Air is just fine for software development. At least for iOS and Android development. For Mac OS and Windows app development it would depend on the app. To be honest I normally use a MacBook Pro but on the road I've occasionally used a colleague's MacBook Air. I was pleasantly surprised. For a couple colleagues it is their normal dev system. External monitors and keyboards/mice used at home and their office; used with internal display, keyboard and trackpad on the road and at client's.

This portion of the gov't does not work on a market model, it works on a revenue generation model. What generates more revenue, having staff go after mega corporations that can afford to defend themselves or much smaller businesses that can not?

So many problem in business and government exist because the incentives/rewards are screwed up. In business school there is a recurring lesson that shows up in many varied topics. You don't get what you ask for. You don't get what everyone agrees is right. You get what you reward. So if you reward a gov't bureaucrat based on win/loss ratio and/or fines generated you will not get justice, you will get wins and fines.

I realize it is currently trendy to believe that fascism is somehow related to corporate control but it is not. Fascism is an odd combination of far right *and* far left ideas. With respect to industry its actually socialistic. Fascism promotes control of industry by syndicates of workers *not* control by corporations.

Yes the federal employee will be paid win or lose. But the goal is for the federal employee to generate revenue, to bring in money. Their time is "better spent" going after some mom-and-pop shop that can't afford to defend themselves and will just pay the fine.

The owner may not want to spend the time setting the password and prefer to just order it from the factory locked down. Besides the time, a cryptographic key sounds more secure than a password.

One counterexample: The user of a computer is not necessarily the owner of a computer. For example a business may not want to allow an employee to disable secureboot.

Then buy a machine that was not built to be a dedicated Windows box. Motherboard vendors will continue to make boards where secureboot is absent or configurable. They already cater to the build-your-own and tweaking segments.

More importantly its not Dell's or HP's or whoever's mission to promote and support the GPL. Free Software advocates can donate their own time and money to open hardware projects, support other vendors who cater to the Linux community, etc.

Easily disproven. Owners and users are not necessarily the same people. A company may not want to let its employees disable secureboot.

And consider that the owner is not necessarily the user. In a business environment the company may not want users to disable secureboot.