"I do not understand this stuff all that well, but wouldn't it be a problem if _you_ could be the one in control of what the system started out determining as a securely signed key?"
How on earth do you figure it would be a problem if I was the one that determined what keys my system, that I paid for and own, trusts?
Really, I am not trying to be dense, I have no clue what you are trying to say here. It's a security system that is part of my hardware. Why would I not be the one to determine what keys it trusts?
It's UEFI, the Unified Extensible Firmware interface. EUFI is ExtraUterine Fetal Incubation. Very different things.
The motherboards they are shipping now have a simple disable. So there is no immediate fear of being unable to run Linux on the things. BUT you have to go in and disable it in BIOS which is just completely over the head of most computer users these days. You dont have to make it impossible to deter most people from using it, just a tiny hurdle will divert the herd.
Right now they are signing the certificates without a problem. But what will they do in a year or five or a decade? Building a business that relies on getting certs signed by MS doesnt seem wise long term. Of course no one thinks long term anymore... a small change in the law here, an easily fabricated incident using a signed bootloader to compromise a business there, and they could easily revoke these keys.
The other problem is that UEFI is actually really cool tech, we dont want to get rid of it. We want to be able to use it. I should be able to install my own key on my own motherboard so it will only load code that I sign personally. Rather than simply trusting MicroSoft or turning off a great security component that I already paid for and theoretically own.
It's more than that, the issue is a state apparatus completely gone out of control and we are just seeing signs of it. Contrary to all the faux-sophisticates in this thread, spying isnt a matter of everyone does it and anything goes. Of course intelligence agencies *gather data* but bugging diplomats is quite illegal in most circumstances, both under international and domestic law. It also tends to piss people off. Spying on a nation you are at war with is expected, yes. Spying on your own allies is just a dick move though.
These American people, embarrasment that we are to our founding fathers, dont seem to grasp matters of principle anymore at all. So we (present company excluded of course) seem not to give a damn how many of those funny foreigners our government spies on, burns alive, kidnaps and tortures, etc. Only when we find out they are doing it to us does some dim remnant of intelligence cause us to furrow our brow. But as long as they are only attacking foreigners so many of us seem to lap it up. And so we have a vicious cycle, the more foreigners our government maims or murders or mistreats in whatever way, the more foreigners there are that want to kill us. And the more they want to kill us, the more the populace clamors for yet another bucket of gasoline to be poured on the fire. But when we find out that the machine built to use against the filthy foreigners has been turned against them, THEN we suddenly discover that there are laws and principles to be respected. Hah.
On the other hand, our allies are countries like ours with rulers who give lip service to democratic forms but think no more of their peasants than those in DC think of the rest of us. THEY dont mind a bit that the NSA is spying on us little people, in fact they are overjoyed at the opportunity to sidestep their own laws and share information with the US, so that the US gives them information on their own citizens they are legally prohibited from collecting. But the revelation that this same machine they are so happy to collaborate with targets them directly as well... oh, suddenly they are outraged.
It's a game of hypocrisy and all sides reek. Karma is coming and I bet she'll be a bitch. Unfortunately a lot of innocent people will wind up getting hurt.
And yet those that live in California but have the means to move have been doing so in droves for many decades. To the pacific northwest, among other destinations.
I've been to cali many times and you couldnt pay me enough to live there. The weather may be nice but there isnt much else to like about the place.
You are right that the Supreme Court is not the Legislature. But I never said it was.
I was making the point that if the Congress wants to step in and prohibit the states from taking these sorts of actions, that would appear to be in keeping with their Constitutional powers. I didnt say, but thought it could be inferred, that if the Executive branch wants to move on this petition, it can easily propose legislation.
It may not change the outcome in terms of browsers supporting it initially, but it would affect adoption and could still help head off disaster for web users.
As well as rescuing W3C from complete oblivion. It may be that few of us ever cared about what they said, but that will become absolutely no one if they endorse this crap.
For all the times that we see the interstate commerce clause treated as a blank check for federal power, this is one time when it would actually be appropriate. Preventing one state from erecting barriers to trade with another is exactly what that clause had in mind.
Guess Washington is too busy regulating everything else they can see to even notice when an opportunity to wield power constitutionally comes along.
"Then this should be made specific and overt. If a relevant or necessary demand is missing from the license, the license needs to be rewritten to include said demand."
You marched right past the point. This is NOT a demand! It is not the intention of the GPL to in any way expand copyright law to regulate any more than it already does! As long as copyright law doesnt define the artwork as a derivative work of the GPLd code then the license, legally speaking, isnt needed. And that's fine. One of the key differences between the GPL and other common license is that it does NOT attempt in any way to push its scope beyond activities that legally require a license, and that was a very deliberate choice, in accord with the spirit you claim to be unable to discern though it is explained all over the free software foundations website, including but limitied to the preamble and FAQs accompanying the various GPLs.
But the purpose of the GPL and the free and open software (and content, and hardware...) movement is ultimately to make as much as possible free and open. And so if you say you are really working in the spirit of free and open software, you should want to free everything you CAN free, not just as much as you are required to free in order to use the code. It's ok to use the code and do the minimum required! That's why it's called the minimum required, because you can do that and that's ok. But you should NOT do that and claim to be some kind of champion of the community, or a big believer in free and open, because if you are just doing the minimum required you just are not that, because that turns something positive into something negative. Instead of just being smart enough to take advantage of free software, you are now a hypocrite trying to exploit it.
Honestly, this is basic ethics, I feel silly having to explain that you can be within your rights but nonetheless acting hypocritically. It shouldnt be such a difficult concept.
"I do not need to worship Richard Stallman as God. I do not need to subscribe to the philosophy of Karl Marx or Leon Trotsky in general terms."
Oh FFS go crawl back under a rock. (I'm a conservative republican dont you dare call me a communist you blithering idiot. Also get off my lawn.)
That is not true at all. The GPL was devised for a very specific purpose and that purpose has been explained and discussed at work.
What is true is that using force to prevent people from exercising their rights here would be wrong and against the spirit (ie if you actually sue someone in for violating the spirit of the license that suit should not be a winner.) But expecting people that claim to be oriented towards the ideals of free and open source software to avoid circumventing that spirit does not seem unreasonable at all. It's not exactly a fine line, but a pretty broad one, between 'what you are doing is not illegal' and 'what you are doing is positively good.'
"If Microsoft could make some fake open-source license, grant it to a fake non-profit, and then spend $10 Billion on Windows 9, and get a massive tax write-off because it all counts as a charitable donation would you be happy?"
As long as that license is a genuine free software license, I would say absolutely. Doesnt matter what their intent is, doesnt even matter how bad their code will inevitably be, as long as there is no legal restriction preventing us from fixing it.
There is a difference between keeping secrets in an investigation (which is done all the time in regards to normal non-secret courts) and simply using secrecy as a weapon to place oneself above the law. And unfortunately that is exactly what our government has spent the last century doing - using secrecy to place itself above the law.
If we are to keep a free society we must be very clear that no one is above the law. Secret courts and general warrants are absolutely anathema to a free society. Converting the land of the free into a police state is not a way to beat the terrorists, it's a way to capitulate to them.
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love." -- Albert Einstein
