UEFI Secure Boot spells doom for open source; Microsoft won't permit decryption keys for free OSes!
...Or, maybe not.
At this stage I assume the secure boot process will be an optional measure, as enforcing this would obviously lock out not just Linux and other open source OSes, but also Microsoft's own Win7, Vista, XP and so on. Clearly not something anyone with half a brain would stand for.
Anyhow, I think most people would agree that more secure OSes are a good thing rather than something bad; a secure boot feature could pretty much kill off the threat of rootkits for example, but what remains somewhat unclear is what will be required to gain access to an encryption key to sign your binaries with.
It would obviously be a pretty large competitive disadvantage to free software if a hefty license fee (or even any kind of fee, really) is involved, for example...
...Or, maybe not.
At this stage I assume the secure boot process will be an optional measure, as enforcing this would obviously lock out not just Linux and other open source OSes, but also Microsoft's own Win7, Vista, XP and so on. Clearly not something anyone with half a brain would stand for.
Anyhow, I think most people would agree that more secure OSes are a good thing rather than something bad; a secure boot feature could pretty much kill off the threat of rootkits for example, but what remains somewhat unclear is what will be required to gain access to an encryption key to sign your binaries with.
It would obviously be a pretty large competitive disadvantage to free software if a hefty license fee (or even any kind of fee, really) is involved, for example...