Supporting Restricted Boot statement
Hi Folks, At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot: http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know. Otherwise I'll email the FSF this weekend. There was some concern about the strong phrase "We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom", since it is foreseeable that someone could one day buy one of these devices either unknowingly or because there was no other alternative. I certainly understand these concerns in wanting to maintain your personal integrity. In both these scenarios though, you wouldn't have purchased a Restricted Boot device by your own free choice, so I don't think anyone would hold your original statement against you. Cheers, Ben
On Fri, 20 Jul 2012 13:14:50 +1000, Ben Sturmfels
There was some concern about the strong phrase "We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom", since it is foreseeable that someone could one day buy one of these devices either unknowingly or because there was no other alternative.
The 'critical freedom' here is the freedom to run an operating system of the user's choice. Manufacturers can enable this freedom merely by providing a way to disable restricted ('secure') boot through a UEFI setting, though obviously it would be preferable if they would allow the user to add non-Microsoft keys. It isn't much to ask. The bigger challenge of course will be with ARM based devices, though fortunately Microsoft has less control in that area, and vocal action now will make our position clear. I don't see how the FSF statement could be made much weaker short of removing any consequence to the petition. I can understand that this makes it complicated to sign if you were a purchasing officer for a large corporate, but for individuals running a handfall of machines and making recommendations, and for organizations such as Free Software Melbourne, it is simply a statement that we won't buy/recommend a machine that can only run Windows. How can we advocate for free software if we do not advocate for machines that can run this software? Glenn -- sks-keyservers.net 0xb1e82ec9228ac090
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
There was some concern about the strong phrase "We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend computers that strip users of this critical freedom", since it is foreseeable that someone could one day buy one of these devices either unknowingly or because there was no other alternative.
I think the concern was more about not knowing what the petition said; the actual wording is: # We, the undersigned, urge all computer makers implementing UEFI's # so-called "Secure Boot" to do it in a way that allows free software # operating systems to be installed. To respect user freedom and truly # protect user security, manufacturers must either allow computer # owners to disable the boot restrictions, or provide a sure-fire way # for them to install and run a free software operating system of their # choice. We commit that we will neither purchase nor recommend # computers that strip users of this critical freedom, and we will # actively urge people in our communities to avoid such jailed systems. In other words we won't buy systems that are locked down in UEFI to only boot a single OS (whatever that may be), and we will tell others that we don't think buying such systems is a good idea. I think that's fairly reasonable. cheers, Chris -- Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-( # Sorry. A non-recoverable error has occurred. # The requested Profile (gid=37) is disabled OR it is not configured # to be used for 'Profile' listings in its Settings OR there is no # Profile with that ID OR you do not have permission to access this # profile. Please contact the site administrator if you need assistance. Will report to their webmaster. -- Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 04:26:54PM +1000, Chris Samuel wrote:
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-(
Yep. It's sadly been broken for some time now (I've tried on at least two separate occasions).
# Sorry. A non-recoverable error has occurred. # The requested Profile (gid=37) is disabled OR it is not configured # to be used for 'Profile' listings in its Settings OR there is no # Profile with that ID OR you do not have permission to access this # profile. Please contact the site administrator if you need assistance.
Will report to their webmaster.
I would be surprised if the FSF wasn't aware, given the popularity of the petition. Can't hurt to ask though.
On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 16:39 +1000, Adam Bolte wrote:
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 04:26:54PM +1000, Chris Samuel wrote:
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-(
Yep. It's sadly been broken for some time now (I've tried on at least two separate occasions).
That's odd, it worked for me just a few hours ago, off the back of the first email to the list today. Cheers, Martin
Working now.
On 20 July 2012 18:36, Martin Ebourne
On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 16:39 +1000, Adam Bolte wrote:
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 04:26:54PM +1000, Chris Samuel wrote:
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-(
Yep. It's sadly been broken for some time now (I've tried on at least two separate occasions).
That's odd, it worked for me just a few hours ago, off the back of the first email to the list today.
Cheers, Martin
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In Martin's email on my mail reader, there was a line break that truncated the last 3 characters from the URL link. Is that the problem? !-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ! Professor Geoff Shaw | ! | ! Department of Zoology ,, | ! The University of Melbourne 3010 |:> | ! Email g.shaw@zoology.unimelb.edu.au. ///\-- | ! Phone 61-3-8344-6267 Fax 8344-7909 ||||> | ! http://www.zoology.unimelb.edu.au ______//||___ | !------------------------------------------wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww-------------+ -----Original Message----- From: free-software-melb-bounces@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au [mailto:free-software-melb-bounces@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au] On Behalf Of Martin Ebourne Sent: Friday, 20 July 2012 6:36 PM To: free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au Subject: Re: [free-software-melb] Supporting Restricted Boot statement On Fri, 2012-07-20 at 16:39 +1000, Adam Bolte wrote:
On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 04:26:54PM +1000, Chris Samuel wrote:
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-(
Yep. It's sadly been broken for some time now (I've tried on at least two separate occasions).
That's odd, it worked for me just a few hours ago, off the back of the first email to the list today. Cheers, Martin _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list Free-software-melb@lists.softwarefreedom.com.au http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-m...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 22/07/12 10:49, Geoff Shaw wrote:
In Martin's email on my mail reader, there was a line break that truncated the last 3 characters from the URL link. Is that the problem?
No (not for me at least) as I recall getting an error on the form. However, I checked the list of people who had submitted previously and my name was there, so clearly it did work one of the times I thought it had not. - -Adam
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-(
Yep. It's sadly been broken for some time now (I've tried on at least two separate occasions).
That's odd, it worked for me just a few hours ago, off the back of the first email to the list today.
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On 20/07/12 16:26, Chris Samuel wrote:
That petition code is broken at the moment.. :-(
# Sorry. A non-recoverable error has occurred. [...]
Will report to their webmaster.
Got a response overnight on this: # Thanks for letting us know about the problem -- it's a transient # problem that we think we finally solved. I verified that your name # is on the statement. Thanks for your support! So it was a real problem, and the fact it was transient explains why some of us saw it and some didn't, and why people saw their names on the list after the fact.. :-) cheers! Chris -- Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC
On 20/07/12 13:14, Ben Sturmfels wrote:
Hi Folks,
At last night's discussion group, I mentioned that I'd like to see us support the FSF's statement on Restricted Boot vs Secure Boot:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/statement
If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know. Otherwise I'll email the FSF this weekend.
Just letting you know that Free Software Melbourne is now listed under "Organization and corporate signatures". Ben
participants (7)
-
Adam Bolte -
Ben Sturmfels -
Bianca Gibson -
Chris Samuel -
Geoff Shaw -
Glenn McIntosh -
Martin Ebourne