[Arm-netbook] Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

[Vladimir Pantelic]

On 01/15/2012 05:33 AM, lkcl luke wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 11:49 PM, Alain Williams<addw at phcomp.co.uk>  wrote:
>> On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 07:50:37PM +0000, Luke Leighton wrote:
>>> On Sat, Jan 14, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Alain Williams<addw at phcomp.co.uk>  wrote:
>>>
>>>> That is roughtly what it did all those years ago. I'm not sure if there was
>>>> the ability to refuse to boot if signatures were not verified, but that would
>>>> have been a trivial addition:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> well, this time, it's unbreakable.  the boot loader's internal to the CPU,
>>> in a small amount of internal NAND.  there's no access to that; there's
>>> no way to replace it: nothing.
>>
>> Oh -- I didn't see that bit.
>>
>> But if it is internal to the CPU then it will be quite hard to change if/when
>> someone creates a signed versions of grub (or something) that will then
>> happily load anything.... this only will need to be done once.
>
>   yes, but you can't _do_ that.
>
>   look up the situation with the toshiba ac100.  you can't even choose
> to boot up an alternative to the linux-android kernel because toshiba
> doesn't allow anything other than That Which They Have Dictated Heil
> Toshiba
>
>   however on the early toshiba ac100s somehow the key has been obtained
> (i don't know the details) so you can actually do something.
>
>   but for the newer ac100s, you're f*****d.  you have to do stupid
> things like stick with that stupid stupid version of the linux kernel
> that The Gods That Are Toshiba have Dictated from On High and you have
> to run replacement OSes as a chroot environment.  it might even be
> possible to use kexec but it's a bitch-awful way to have to run
> alternative OSes.
>
>
>   ... luckily there's a provision in the GPLv3 which requires that all
> DRM keys be published, eh?
>
>   oh wait - oh dear whoops-a-daisy, the f*****g arseholes on LKML
> refuse to even begin the process of converting the linux kernel from
> GPLv2 to GPLV3+ because there are so many people to contact that they
> consider it to be a lost cause even to try.

I don't have the impression that the work to contact copyright
holders is what is preventing the kernel going V3. My impression
is that it would be very unwelcome in most of the Linux using
industry.