Poor Adobe, they have the nicest little platform-in-a-box and the rest
of the industry is always ganging up on them to try to eliminate it.
It must be pretty good, everybody knows you can't get the good tech win.
Although I've never looked at it myself, from what little I heard years ago, it was pretty unpleasant to write for.
But maybe things have changed.
And we all know that OEM's don't really have the ability to make "decisions" when there are millions of dollars in kickbacks from Microsoft on the line that depend on doing things Microsoft's way.
I wonder how long it will be before DVD Jon publishes Microsoft's signing key.
To me, this sounds like the TPM jadda jadda from some years ago. Seems that nobody uses it, only a few manufacturers even built them into their boards and only some linux geeks (at least I know only about those) are using the functions.
Personally, I like that Secure Boot feature, but since it is my system under my administration, I want to control the whole key/cert stuff. If they come up with some homebrew stuff, it will be cracked like the bootloaders of the Wii, the PS3, mobile phones and what not. Also I think someone will leak/hack/whatever the master key.
Also, though I don't know any real windows fanboys, I believe that people are not really crazy about getting/installing a new windows. Maybe they can trick in a few gamers with some DirectX 3000 bundled only with win8, but the rest is fed up enough with their win7/vista stuff. So, conclusion: Long before MS will be able to dictate it, Apple will seal their beautiful machines with it, in order to not soil their machines with inferior OSs.
But weren't people thinking that the world was going to end, all privacy abolished, all content DRM'ed, etc back when TPM was introduced? And nothing like that happened.
I understand that they could lock out anything else with Secure Boot, but major companies like Dell, etc. are those companies that sell laptops without preinstalled Windows right now and I think they know why. They could easily say No to some OEM deal forcing Secure Boot. MS might be desperate and they might have some more raving lunatics like this Elop guy on board of their burning oil rig, but I really doubt they will be able to force this to the mass market.
In their subnotebook/netbook OEM spec they defined that 12" display and 1gb ram is the maximum in order to get their cheap winxp (home) licenses. So manufacturers shipped with 1gb ram, but also with an additional slot to put on 2gb more ram. Problem solved, they will do something similiar with Sec. Boot: make the board "Secure Boot Ready" but they won't activate it.
In the meantime, Microsoft built a media player that uses what they call "secure" media paths involving signed drivers and a handshake with the TPM, while the rest of the world simply used YouTube.
UEFI Secure Boot means that "someday" is now coming very soon. This is the scenario they warned us about in 2003, that we would eventually be faced with hardware that can only boot a "trusted" operating system, despite the wishes of the hardware's owner.
It may even be the reason why the RIAA has been less aggressive in recent years. Microsoft and Apple may have told them "relax, we are exterminating software that is capable of piracy."
Oh, and forget about Hackintoshes; Apple will be all over this even more than Microsoft.
Although they will continue to provide funding and programmers, Nokia and non-Nokia contributors will be on equal footing.
This is a good thing. I'm willing to bet that someone inside the company knows that Nokia will eventually get assimilated into Microsoft, so they want to make sure Qt does not become a Microsoft product as part of that process.
(hmm ... Skype is a Qt app, isn't it?)
Didnt they do something similiar with some version of Symbian earlier? Then they closed it down and you could get the open source code via CD copy and had to sent patches alongside Permit A38 (only with the blue form!!!) as well as a copy of your blood type sent to the transilvanian embassy?
As much as I like my Symbian^3 (Anna) phone, I find their politics confusing.
And of course Qt is released under the GPL nowadays, isn't it?
But yes, I do agree that Nokia has a habit of acting inconsistently and erratically.
There are probably a lot of different factions in that company with different attitudes. And it's probably a good guess that there are people in that company who know that Elop is a servant of Redmond and they need to make sure that important assets like Qt can't be used to hurt the free world.
Even if you're not a KDE user (and I am not) -- Qt remains an excellent way to write cross-platform applications, and it must not fall into Microsoft's hands.
otoh, I like the Idea of mono getting swapped away by a c-carpet qt binding...
Not so sure Mono would consider that a fair trade!
Subject: I found this by google - hint hint.....
Thu Sep 29 2011 09:44:48 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ UncensoredSo ... is everyone following the "UEFI secure boot" drama? Will Microsoft succeed in coercing OEM's to build computers that can only boot Windows? .....
Well, the way things are proceeding it could be prognosticated that Microsoft will probably get this implemented
but with the outside-the-american-borders growth in linux it will only be economically-suicidal or niche market
manufacturers that would actually implement this without leaving a hardware jumper backdoor or whatever.
The growth in linux usage is huge outside the american borders,
not that any media will ever admit to that.
Added to that is the old 'necessity is the mother of invention' meme
- someone will probably crack that problem anyway, if not for spite then maybe just for fun.
--
TheOneLaw
Subject: Re: I found this by google - hint hint.....
The growth in linux usage is huge outside the american borders,
I'm interested in hearing more about that.
Is desktop Linux heading towards the mainstream outside of the corporate-run USA? How fast and how much?
I have heard that also. A lot of foreign governments are turning to Linux to avoid license fees and save money. Corporate America can't break free of Microsoft's grip yet.
I'm just waiting for the day when the USA realizes there are better, more secure, and more flexible, options for operating systems waiting out there if they just look and keep an open mind about it.
I've changed my entire home to nothing but Linux boxes (either Ubuntu, Debian, Slax, or Android). The only thing in my house that isn't linux-based, is my wife's phone (it's BREW based... damn cheap-o verizion phone).
It's the closed-minded-ness of corporations and businesses that puts them in the M$ license loop. They invest so much into software that they barely have money left over for decent hardware or other expenses. I'm pushing a movement at my place of work to get completely away from the grip of M$ and move into "cloud" computing and non-platform-specific workflow.
A lot of what we do now is in a browser to a web server on-site. our email is gmail based (though i pushed for them to use Citadel, but meh). the only thing that's holding us back is our ERP system and our design software.