Dell, HP and UEFI
A big issue right now in the world of operating systems – especially Linux – is Microsoft’s requirement that all Windows 8 machines ship with UEFI’s secure boot enabled, with no requirement that OEMs implement it so users can turn it off. This has caused some concern in the Linux world, and considering Microsoft’s past and current business practices and the incompetence of OEMs, that’s not unwarranted. Dell has stated it’s plans to include the option to turn secure boot off, while HP was a bit more vague about the issue.
You believe OEMs and Microsoft on their blue eyes. After years of abuse and patent troll behaviour, smart people don’t.
Dell confirmed that they have plans to ship Windows 8 machines with the ability to turn secure boot off in UEFI, while HP had no idea what was going on. BIOS maker AMI, meanwhile, has said it will advise OEMs to not remove the option, but adds that they can’t mandate as such.
A Dell spokesperson has stated that “Dell has plans to make SecureBoot an enable/disable option in BIOS setup”. Dell plans to move to UEFI with secure boot in the Windows 8 time frame.
HP, sadly, was less clear. “HP will continue to offer its customers a choice of operating systems,” HP said, “We are working with industry partners to evaluate the options that will best serve our customers.” Nobody at HP was apparently even aware of the issue, which means this is a general PR statement with zero actual value.
Lastly, BIOS maker AMI stated that it “will advise OEMs to provide a default configuration that allows users to enable/disable secure boot, but it remains the choice of the OEM to do (or not do) so”. This is entirely reasonable – AMI just provides a software package, it doesn’t control what OEMs remove and include.
Michael Reed is the latest person to write about “restricted boot” (or UEFI) in a major GNU/Linux Web site. Matthew Garrett, who started a lot of the outcry, calls it a bug and Groklaw helps remind us that “Microsoft’s license provision [was] prohibiting OEMs from modifying the initial boot sequence…” There are several other examples of Microsoft sabotaging Linux adoption through booting complexity [1, 2, 3, 4,5, 6, 7] . The worst thing one can do is assume good faith from Microsoft. The people who run the company are extremely anti-competitive. Don’t blame Microsoft; it’s in their nature.
My biggest fear is that like with BIOS today, every computer – even revisions within the same model – will have its own unique UEFI implementation, some of them broken and/or limited, without any means of telling which features are supported and implemented and which aren’t. Heck, I’ve encountered countless BIOS implementations over the years which only allowed you to change the boot drive order, and nothing else.
All in all, this issue is far from over, and Considering Microsoft’s history of anti-competitive practices, its current patent troll behaviour, and the general incompetence of OEMs, it’s entirely reasonable and smart for us geeks to be on our toes.
Windows 7 is supported til 2020 … most large businesses are only just thinking about moving to it and doing testing … the will probably never move to Windows 8. Windows 7 is going to be around for the next good few years as well as businesses that will use XP forever and ever … will need new hardware.
