On Mon, 2012-06-18 at 09:35 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote: > A couple of concerned Red Hat / Fedora developers - Peter and Matthew - > have stated that they are unhappy that the certification requirements > for Windows ARM client devices don't state that the user should be able > to disable Secure Boot or install their own signing keys, and stated > that because of this, they don't intend at present to pursue the > approach of having Microsoft sign Fedora ARM releases for use on > Microsoft-certified ARM client devices. I don't think we can formally > characterize this as 'Fedora's' position on the issue, as AFAIK it > hasn't come up before any kind of Fedora representative body, but in > practice, I suspect it's highly likely to hold as Fedora policy if that > were to happen. > > This is the entirety of the situation with regards to ARM client > devices. I am not sure what you think would constitute us 'disallowing' > Microsoft from making things we don't like part of their certification > requirements. Sending them a strongly-worded letter? Making a complaint > to some body that Microsoft had...done what? Sorry for the self-reply, but just in case it's not brutally clear yet, I wanted to explicitly state this: I hesitate to put words in people's mouths, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it reads to me as if Jay and others are arguing from an incorrect premise. That premise is to assume that there is a God-given right for people who own computing devices to retrofit alternative operating systems onto those devices. I want to put it out there that this is _not true_. It is perfectly possible, of course, for one to aspire to a world in which it is true. Many of us would want to live in such a world. We have been lucky enough to live in a world for some time where it _so happened_ that the 'computing devices' we cared about almost always allowed us to do this. However, in the boring practical world where such 'rights' are granted by process of law, no such right exists. As a practical matter, people have been manufacturing, advertising and selling computing devices to the public, all over the world, for decades, which do not intend to allow the end user of the device to retrofit alternative software - operating system software, firmware, bootloader, or application. It is _already demonstrably the case_ that over the last few years and over the next decade or so, the trend has been and will be for reduced user freedom on typical client computing devices. A smartphone is a 'typical client computing device'. A tablet is a 'typical client computing device'. The vast majority of such devices sold today are designed to preclude the user from installing alternative operating systems and to impose restrictions on the user's ability to execute arbitrary code: virtually all cellphones and tablets are sold with locked bootloaders and without user root access. This has not been challenged in a court of law and I am not aware of any basis on which a challenge to this could plausibly be launched. (As an aside, of course _in practice_ many of these devices are hacked, and the question of whether such hacking can be illegal in a given case is a complex legal one. I don't think it should detain us here, though; the key point is that it's fine for the manufacturers to take steps to _try_ and prevent the installation of alternative software. The question of what happens if their mechanisms are defeated is besides the point.) Fedora can deplore the situation; Fedora can state its support for computing devices which allow the user the freedom to install alternative operating system software, with reasoned arguments in support; Fedora can work together with manufacturers of computing devices which allow such freedom. But I believe it's true, and I think it's vitally important to keep in mind when debating this topic, that there is no way in which Fedora can possibly forcibly impose its position on anyone. It appears to be legally fine for companies to ship computers you can't (aren't intended to be able to) put other operating systems on; it is trivially demonstrable that some companies consider it desirable to do so in some markets; therefore said devices are going to exist. Fedora can take any one of several approaches to their existence, but simply deploring the fact and acting, in all respects, either as if such devices will magically cease to exist at some point or as if we can pressure them out of existence both seem to be losing strategies in all regards, to me. I also think any argument which seems to be rooted on the assumption that such devices are Wrong, Evil and/or Illegal _and that All-Right Thinking People Will Agree if we can only motivate them enough_ is doomed to fail. Zillions of people buy locked devices. They understand, in a vague way, just what it is they are buying. They are not outraged. They won't be outraged no matter how outraged we try to make them. There will always be some people who believe that locked devices are Wrong and Evil. These people will join the FSF and buy other devices, and Fedora can and will certainly cater to them. It's possible that Fedora as a project could take such an uncompromising position and continue to exist. That's perfectly consistent with reality. But I think the chances are extremely high that if we were to do such a thing the consequence would simply be that Fedora would become even more of a niche project than it already is. If we're fine with that, that's fine. What's important to understand is that we're not going to be able to have our cake and eat it too: if we embrace such an uncompromising line, it is not going to prevent locked devices from existing, and there is almost certainly not going to be a great Rise of the Computer Users who will storm the factories of Taiwan and demand their fundamental right to an unlocked bootloader. It's just not going to happen. Call me a cynic, it's what I believe. Ultimately, whatever position we take needs to be rooted in a recognition that the existence and the short-term growth of locked down devices are both inevitable. We can try to accommodate them or we can refuse to, and restrict ourselves to open hardware. We can take a nuanced position like the one Matthew proposes, where we modify our approach based on the specific attributes of particular platforms. On any of those paths, we can present and publicize our belief (I'm assuming we all _do_ believe this) that open computing devices are desirable and generally good for everyone. What I don't think we can practically do is act as if there's some kind of road we can march down which will roll back the existence of locked down hardware. -- Adam Williamson Fedora QA Community Monkey IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora http://www.happyassassin.net -- devel mailing list devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
