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• I don't disagree - Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 01:27 AM EDT
  • But maybe not - Authored by: pem on Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 10:33 AM EDT
    • But maybe not - Authored by: Wol on Thursday, July 05 2012 @ 05:09 PM EDT
      • Sure - Authored by: pem on Friday, July 06 2012 @ 10:44 AM EDT

IOW, the problem would have been avoided by the distributor allowing the owner to turn off secure boot or add his own keys.

You're assuming that the distributor is actually making the motherboard and firmware.

More likely, they are an OEM assembling generic parts.

Let's face it, secure boot isn't a problem if it is easily turned off - the worry is that because of the market dominance of Windows there is no particular incentive for motherboard makers to make it easy, or even possible to do this on their mass-market motherboards. The choice for OEMs could be - live with secure boot or use a more expensive 'specialist' motherboard that makes your product uncompetetive.

Also the typical end-user (a) isn't competent to change motherboard firmware settings, or manage keys, and (b) isn't going to like the idea of disabling a security setting. So this 'feature' will only be there to satisfy geeks and GPL lawyers - and no OEM is going to want to increase costs for that.

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