One of the dirty secrets of open source giveaways is that often there are really good reasons why it was given away, like the quick fixes and workarounds for core problems have finally piled up so high that most changes for the remaining bugs brings the rest of the code down faster than a house of cards.

It doesn't always have to be this way, but Mozilla was this way (prior to the from scratch rendering engine rewrite that took years), as have a few games (Jagged Alilance comes to mind). Eventually a few projects do work their way out of the quagmire, but many die while in process.

On the other hand, some games are released in very good shape, so there is some hope. (I'm thinking of the Quake releases).

That's where you are wrong. You don't have to learn anything from an emotional outpour. You just get a sense of relief after it is done.

In fact, it would probably be safe to say you are less likely to learn something when experiencing an emotional outpur, but are more likely to do something about it. From my understanding, the only time that people are more likely to accept differing points of view are when they are personaly vulnerable; however, feeling vulnerable doesn't assure that the new point of view expressed is any better than the old one they had.

Do you also approve of income tax evasion? Because, compared to what the military-industrical complex is likely to get from the money that HP is likely to get from you in a year, that's peanuts to what you probably already pay in income taxes.

If they are afraid, that's great. We have had too many players enter the market place well, and then rest on their laurels. I like Google, but even if it is a favorite horse in the race, it still has to run.

True, but that is in part due to not having the obsene amounts of cash that rolls in when a big bold bet pays off.

Apple has shown that there are so few people willing to make the bets, that they can safely win about 70% of the time. The payoff seems high enough to cover the few misses (AppleTV), which is why Apple is now has a market capitalization of twice Microsoft, fourteen times HP, and twentyeight times Dell.

HP and Dell made the obscene amounts of cash on big bold bets, that's how they came to be. The friuts of their prior successes, like all fruits, don't keep forever.

HP comes to market too slowly, and kills great products before the public can get excited about them. Dell has streamlined manufacturing and custom orderability enough that it is hard to imagine buying a computer without a Dell like experience.

The real question is, what has HP and Dell done lately?

Your EFI Boot doesn't have the "secure boot" option enabled. Perhaps it doesn't even have it implemented.

With secure boot enabled, the motherboard will check that the bootloader is signed, to assure that it is the bootloader that Apple shipped. To do this, it takes pre-stored keys in a ROM chip and compares them with the bootloader. Consider it a kind of checksum, designed to tell one of the origin of the software, not the integrity.

Booting a secure bootloader is silly unless you intend that bootloader to then check the signature of the operating system, and refuse to boot any non-signed operating system. So a secure bootloader is primarily wanted to assure that you boot an operating system who's origin is that of the operating system distributor (Apple in your case).

Right now, you happen to boot Linux on your machine; because, it has not been configured to boot only the verifiably non-modified operating systems. Linux distributors (Fedora) have obtained permission to use Microsoft's key to sign all of their bootloaders for $99 (one time payment). The decision to use a Microsoft key was due to the logistic problems they encountered when attempting to get their key into all of the motherboards manufactured (too many vendors, surely some of them would ship without a Fedora key). With the signed "Linux Bootloader", a EFI system with security enabled, will not reject the bootloader as non-authorized just after EFI does the hardware checks that are familiar to BIOS users.

The only reason this creates any kind of panic, is that in order to prevent pre-operating system rootkits (and there are a few in the wild now), most motherboards are expected to ship with the secure boot option of EFI on. The reason that Fedora opted to have their bootloader signed was to prevent their users from having to boot Windows to turn it off so that they could have a successful Fedora installed.

It has nothing to do with what Apple or Microsoft wants you to boot. That's just Linux FUD. It has to do with booting what was intended, and if you bought a iMAC, at least prior to the first boot, you wouldn't expect (or enjoy) it coming up with something that Apple didn't ship.

If the bootloader could not be modified from within the running OS, pray tell, how would one reconfigure it to boot anything else? Special mode is a "special" running OS, why wouldn't every OS that wants to modify the boot loader deem itself special?

While that may be true, GRUB has been booting Microsoft Windows for years now. It may have a lot of requirements, but obviously those requirements have been met.

What you might have forgotten is that boot loaders can simply call other boot loaders. It's call chaining, and it is exactly how GRUB boots Micorsoft Windows. You boot to GRUB, which might configure a thing or two (like hide Linux partitions), and then it boots NTLDR (or whatever the latest Microsoft loader is) and the Microsoft boot loader then satisfies all those requirements for the Microsoft Windows operating system.

I won't link, but consider a mail forwarding service. They receive a letter, the might move it internally through a few mail boxes, and then eventually ship it out to you at your new address. What they don't know is that the new address could also be a mail forwarding service. Chaining two mail forwarding services together will still get the mail to the final destination address.

The above example pertains to boot loaders, except that you have the first boot loader set the environment to "boot something" which happens to not be an operating system (actually boot loaders can not differentiate between an OS and a boot loader, because at that level, there are just programs). Without the motherboard configured to only boot signed boot loaders, any number of intermediate boot loaders could be inserted which could then hijack the booting process, perhaps even to the point where they boot a pre-infected (by some means) operating system.

Hopefully this clears things up a bit. I know that boot loaders are only somewhat understood, even by those who use Linux quite a bit. I don't even pretend to be an expert, but it is clear to me that if you want to assure that a certain operating system is booted as it was delivered by the distributor, you need to control the entire boot process from power on to the kernel launch.

Linux's security model protects itself well post-kernel launch, but even Linux could be subverted by sloppy controls over the booting process.

Yes, it would defeat the purpose, because if the boot loader isn't signed, then you could replace the boot loader with one that didn't even worry about signed kernels.

The official purpose is to lock down a computer such that you can be assured that it boots off of the intended software. It is not only protection against rootkits, but that is one item it could help with.

The issue now is that there is no way to differentiate between approved software and unapproved software. Signing is an elegant, tried, and stable solution for identifying origin of software. However, signing requries that your keys are distributed with hardware that guarantees it will only work with binaries that can be unlocked with your keys.

Fedora attempted to distribute their keys to all the major motherboard manufacturers; however, even with positive feedback from the hardware manufacturers, it became clear to Fedora that they would not have their keys in every UEFI secure boot system. So they had to make a choice. Either one would need Microsoft Windows as a prerequisite to install Fedora (by launching to Windows and disabling the secure boot system), or they could use a $99 a lifetime key signing portal to sign their bootloader with a key that is guaranteed to be present (due to Microsoft's market presence) so UEFI could boot Fedora install media without launching Windows.

I think Fedora found the right solution, despite the fact that there is a horrible history with Microsoft. After all, the alternative is to require running Microsoft Windows to disable UEFI. Getting an installation boot loader signed once is far less intrusive than requiring a launch of Windows, I mean, you would have to buy a copy of Windows to install Fedora.

Of course, one might argue that PCs ship with the secure boot option of UEFI disabled by default. This still might happen; however, nearly everyone wants the shipped operating system to be the one that boots, so it is not clear how disabling secure boot would assure people that they are booting what they bought.

Allusion to a sinister purpose without even describing it is blatant fearmongering. There might be a ulterior motive, there might not be an ulterior motive. If you really suspect ulterior motives, have the balls to detail them.

If Microsoft didn't want any other operating system to boot, then they wouldn't even have offered the bootloader signing portal. If they didn't want Linux to boot, then they would have altered the terms of service to be incompatible with the legal protection structure surrounding Linux. They didn't do either, and their price seems so low that I wonder if the service is being offered "at cost".

The idea that our military attacks peaceful targets that don't even bother to defend themselves is beyond ridiculous. You should be ashamed for insuinuating such. You are demeaning the job of the military, and belittling the risk they are taking on your behalf.

Whether you desire the military to be active in a particular location or not, give them the respect due to a person who is willing to follow out the wishes of our government, despite their personal feelings, in the hope that we do make the world a better place.

Don't worry, this topic deserves about three more submissions before even Slashdot deems it not worthy of a repeat.

The electronics must be small, they mustn't be very heavy, and the must do something that is computationally expensive (signal isolation in a noisy background), combined with amplification, all in a custom fitting (to your ear) enclosure.

On the other hand, you have people stating that a mass marketed device which is identical for a run of over 11 million last quarter, with ability to use bigger (lower cost) components, bought in bulk (by the millions) is cheap, so this custom device should be too.

Basically they are expensive for all the reasons the article poster is ignoring, which reduces the article to "I want one cheaper, waahhhhaaahhh!!!"

A long time ago, houses were significantly smaller, and parties often extended into the bedroom. In fact, bedrooms became an extension of the entertainment of the house, leading to a number of changes. One of these was the purchase of luxury bedroom furnishings, because it was a further display of wealth, and the other was maintaining a clean and tidy bedroom (including a made bed), because you never know when the party would spill over to the living spaces.

Now houses are constructed quite differently, and the chance of a party spililng over into the living spaces is minimal. Perhaps made beds are passe, but so are many items and behaviours that we still maintain as a nod to our heritage.

The sad part is that as they learn how to fence, or use the eppe, they will learn that all of the cool fantasy action attack swordplay mainly consists of swinging one's sword around in ways that maximise visual appeal, while minimizing ability to guard or strike one's opponents.

Considering that one of the first things I see my 10 year old cousin do with a sword is a full circle swing raising the sword over the head, I would imaging that to be successful, this startup would be under a lot of pressure to emulate fantasy style swordplay. After all, he still can't understand why I can strike him every time with a shorter plastic sword; because I don't move my sword about much.

So are they going to build a true fencing simulation, or a hollywood battle simulation? One choice does advance the state of sword play, the other advances the state of our ability to escape reality.

If you have the ability to be a gardener, rest assured that someone out there doesn't. How much of your crop should you give to them? Should you take anything in return? You can't escape ethics.

Just because it's natural, doesn't mean it's not pollution by our standard of living.

I have a biology degree, and after hearing your description, I'm reminded of something like the sulfur pools of Yellowstone Park.

The world can only support so much biomass. Eventually, most of the energy to create that biomass comes from the sun. Since we only capture solar energy on the surface fo the planet, we are limited in the amount of energy that can be theoretically harvested sustaniably. I do not relish a world where we start to make biomass decisions to support mechanical systems for the sole purporse of transportation, especially when we know we have more efficent (per person) mass transportation technology dating back a couple of generations, but we're too self-important to use it.