William C Vaughan <curtvaughan@???> wrote:

> I have been flamed before because of my posts on this mailing list

That's inexcusable.

> I think that ultimately, EFF or the GNU folks will need to pursue lobbying for legislation to prevent hardware companies from imposing restrictions upon software installs by owners of PC hardware.

I agree, but lobby who ? And on what grounds ?
Yes *we* know why, but expressing that in clear legal terms might be tricky - a variation of "I can't describe it but I'll know when I see it".

I think to stand any chance you need to be able to show that one company or group has a dominant position, AND that they've abused that, AND that consumer harm has happened or is likely. My feeling is that (in legal terms) you'd fail to show any of those - as long as there are systems "reasonably widely available" that still work with other OSs then it's hard to show that you are being prevented from running other OSs.

And of course, you need to pick your arena - are you going to attack this in the USA, Europe, other regions, all of them at once, one at a time ? Just sticking with USA and Europe - we've got significantly different legal frameworks, so different arguments to make.


> On another forum, a discussion of hardware compatibility to installations of Free Software ensued, originally in reference to installing Linux on Macbook Pros. When Apple converted their hardware paradigm from the Power PC to Intel, there was concern at the corporate level that OSX might be installed on non-Apple hardware, and that non-Apple system software might be installed on Macs. So for about a year and a half, from late 2006 to early 2008, the TPM chip was incorporated into the Apple motherboards. It prevented installation of non-Apple blessed software, i.e., unlicensed Windows - collaterally damaged were Linux and other non-Apple OS's. The machines were only produced for about 18 months. Except for those particular machines, one can still install Linux on Macs. The converse, installing OSX on PC hardware, is an alive-and-well hacker cult - hence, the "hackintosh". A quote from my forum response:
>
> The newer generations of TPM chips are still around and are incorporated into some PC's - some can apparently be disabled in firmware, some not. I have no real proof about Microsoft's intent or on shake-hands agreements with PC hardware companies, but, along with Secure Boot, it looks like future PC hardware could be made to be difficult for Linux installations. I guess we'll see eventually, and hopefully such restrictions placed upon PC owners' abilities to control the software on their own machines will be legally prohibited.

It's not the TPM itself that's the problem - there are plenty of non-controversial uses for it. The TPM is really only there as a secure store for keys and such - which can be of use in "open" systems as well as closed.
It's how it's used that matters.

UEFI as a whole is a minefield as far as freedom goes. It (AIUI) isolates the user from the hardware sufficiently that a vendor can disable processor features - eg I've heard of some system where the virtualisation support is disabled in the processor (presumably to force those who want to use it to buy a more expensive model).

Here in the UK I think there could be grounds under the Computer Misuse Act if someone finds that the hardware they have "bought" cannot be used because of some "software lock". But again, it needs someone with the time, knowledge, and money to pursue it - and have the resources to appeal any lost cases so as not to create an adverse precedent.