Matthew, I don't dispute the facts you present. But you also present the opinion that "If Microsoft were serious about giving the end user control, they'd be mandating that systems ship without any keys installed."
There's a problem. MS are in-scope to define the hardware features necessary to their own software. They would be out of scope to mandate even one iota more than that. Imho, a healthy market does not want MS (or any other vendor) mandating the set of keys which must be installed, even if 'the mandated set of keys' == 'no keys'. Similarly, MS should not be choosing the UEFI featureset delivered. Why should such this power be ceded to Microsoft? Answer - it should not. MS should only say which features are necessary to get its own products running. OEMs can deliver those features if they want MS software to work, but beyond that, no OEM should be taking its marching orders from MS.
There needs to be some other authority which provides mandates for things within this higher scope. Right now that authority is "the market" - but apparently you have little confidence that the market will demand the sort of openness you want to see. So I suppose you should start lobbying governments. Don't lobby MS to flex its muscles for you, because that cedes future power to them, which you might not want them to have.
Power management, mobile and firmware developer on Linux. Security developer at Aurora. Ex-biologist. mjg59 on Twitter. Content here should not be interpreted as the opinion of my employer. Also on Mastodon.
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Appealing to the wrong authority
Date: 2011-09-23 11:30 pm (UTC)There's a problem. MS are in-scope to define the hardware features necessary to their own software. They would be out of scope to mandate even one iota more than that. Imho, a healthy market does not want MS (or any other vendor) mandating the set of keys which must be installed, even if 'the mandated set of keys' == 'no keys'. Similarly, MS should not be choosing the UEFI featureset delivered. Why should such this power be ceded to Microsoft? Answer - it should not. MS should only say which features are necessary to get its own products running. OEMs can deliver those features if they want MS software to work, but beyond that, no OEM should be taking its marching orders from MS.
There needs to be some other authority which provides mandates for things within this higher scope. Right now that authority is "the market" - but apparently you have little confidence that the market will demand the sort of openness you want to see. So I suppose you should start lobbying governments. Don't lobby MS to flex its muscles for you, because that cedes future power to them, which you might not want them to have.