Why do Linux fanatics want to make Windows 8 less secure?
The FUD is flying fast and furious over Windows 8, and the OS isn’t even in beta yet.
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is organizing a petition-signing campaign over Microsoft’s announced support for the secure boot feature in next-generation PCs that use Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) as a replacement for the conventional PC BIOS. My ZDNet colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols is urging his readers to sign the petition with a bit of deliberately inflammatory language, calling it “UEFI caging.”
The crux of their argument is that Microsoft is deliberately requiring a change in next-generation hardware that will make it impossible to wipe off a Windows installation and install Linux. They are wrong, and their effort to whip up public fury is misguided at best and cynical at worst.
Allow me to illustrate by turning the argument around in an equally cynical way, with an equally inflammatory rhetorical flourish:
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"Why do Linux fanatics want to make Windows 8 less secure?" - I'm not a "fanatic" (I think), but i dont give a sh*t about windows 8 or any other versions. I expect the option to turn off UEFI to disappear in time, locking my machine, and this I do not like. Measures must be taken to take care of it before it gains any momentum.
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither."
Doesn't matter if the pundit is pro-Linux or pro-MS
Stupid flame wars are their bread and butter, and hurling their rhetorical feces is always a great way to generate traffic for their... uh, rhetorical feces. Last week it was SVJN, protecting the dignity of Steve Jobs' public mourning by provoking readers to post missives comparing Richard Stallman to Charles Manson and Steve Jobs to Pol Pot.
This week we have this. This seems important, and I would like to know more about this issue, but I had counted three insults against Linux users (and no facts ) when I bailed. The author had a chance to demonstrate that he knows anything about the topic, and he chose instead to pelt me with poop.
I never use ad blocking software, but I think that in the future I'm going to use it to block ads from sites that deliberately flame their readers.
Author is spreading his own FUD
"People who make their living in the Linux ecosystem are demanding that Microsoft disable a key security feature planned for Windows 8 so that malware authors can continue to infect those PCs and drive their owners to alternate operating systems."
Yes, that's it. It would have nothing at all to do with the fact that with the UEFI switch enabled, installing Linux could potentially become a major pain in the ass, or an impossibility in extreme cases.
The author of that article is a tool.