Apple has publicly stated their intent to permit users to run other operating systems on Apple silicon, and has provided various mechanisms for them to do so in a first-class way (still supporting secure boot, for instance). Of course, they haven't gone as far as many of use would like - marcan has had to do a lot of reverse engineering of stuff they could have just released the docs for, and it's always possible they'll change their mind and reverse course.

But those of us who daily-drive macs but need to use Linux occasionally are very much rooting for this to be a going concern.

Can you link to the public statement? Would greatly appreciate that, thanks!

Craig Federighi:

> As for Windows running natively on the machine, "that's really up to Microsoft," he said. "We have the core technologies for them to do that, to run their ARM version of Windows, which in turn of course supports x86 user mode applications. But that's a decision Microsoft has to make, to bring to license that technology for users to run on these Macs. But the Macs are certainly very capable of it."

— https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/we-are-giddy-intervi...

It's a pretty disingenuous way to blame Microsoft. Afterall, there are two ways that Windows 10 on Mac M1 could have occurred: Microsoft could relax the licensing so that end users could buy/install Windows 10 onto the Mac M1, or Apple could approach Microsoft like any other OEMs and license/preinstall Windows 10.

We know the latter isn't going happen.

I don’t see what’s disingenuous about it? Apple are basically saying that they haven’t put in any technical barriers to stop Microsoft from porting Windows to the M1, and that Microsoft are free to do so if they want.

Thanks!

The public statement is in the software by allowing to boot even non signed OSs from an external disk. https://techsviewer.com/how-to-allow-m1-and-t2-mac-to-use-an...

Imagine buying hardware where the manufacturer has to explicitly permit you to run certain software on it. No thanks...

It's never a waste of time to try and assert more control over the hardware you own. Apple kept the iPhone fully locked down since day 1, but that didn't deter a massive jailbreaking community. Heck there were app stores on iPhone even before Apple could launch its own.

With that attitude, no one would have ever started trying to write and run their own kernel called Freax on a PC...

The PC has always been an open platform. Documentation is readily available and the intention is for users to run whatever they want on the hardware. Completely different.

Intel and Microsoft control Secure Boot. If Linux hadn't already been so popular on servers when SB came about, it's very possible that PC platform would today be locked down to run MS-only operating systems.

Right, but that happened 10 years after Linus started writing his OS. If Microsoft had had their way then the PC would have also been a closed platform. This doesn't contradict my point in any way.

It doesn't change the way things stand today but still I think there's a marked difference between openness as a commitment and openness by lucky alignment of interests so far.

They can certainly lock down future models if they want, but the current models for sale will always be able to boot Linux now. That's a good thing, and even if Apple ships a new laptop next year that only accepts signed OS images from Apple, that doesn't detract from the ability to run Linux on this year's model.

I think they've started taking steps to allow other OS more easily than before? Someone will tell me if I'm wrong or right, I don't remember the specifics.

Which makes it more unlikely that they will pull the plug. Of course, it's always a possibility.

The way they've implemented it suggests that it's intended for there to be support to boot other things.

Going back on it and locking it down could end in another lawsuit like the OtherOS removal from the PS3 (Which ended in $65 settlement payments it seems)

Yeah it’s a waste of time but there are people out there that enjoy wasting their time making this work and Linus likes hardware support.