Although I would like to agree with you, I'm not convinced.

The reason Ubuntu (and Red Hat) aren't pushing to get their key included in the hardware is clear from the article:

"Microsoft's WinQual key, for much the same reasons as Fedora: it's a key that, realistically, more or less every off-the-shelf system is going to have, as it also signs things like option ROMs, and the UEFI specification only allows an image to be signed by a single key."

The Microsoft WinQual key monopoly is there because option ROMs (and other drivers) are only given one slot for a signature. After Microsoft signs the ROM, the manufacturer _can't_ add a Red Hat or Ubuntu signature to the drivers for their hardware.

This means even if you convinced all the manufacturers to include, say, a Ubuntu key, you still couldn't verify option ROMs were secure. Only Microsoft's key would work for that - thus, Microsoft's key will be the only one installed by the manufacturers.

Your next solution - creating unstickered hardware - is not a solution. There are a few manufacturers offering a linux option (Dell, Lenovo), and a few who sell only linux hardware (system76.com). In a UEFI secure boot world, there would be < 1% of hardware that wasn't locked to Microsoft's key, while 99%+ would be locked. I know users are supposed to be able to access a BIOS screen to disable secure boot, but that makes installing Linux much more painful than installing Windows 8. Why cede the advantage to Microsoft?

The best way to fight this, I believe, is to put your time and resources into coreboot.org and the FSF.

I'm not arguing that unstickered hardware solves anything, I'm arguing that it is hard to construe the sticker program as anti-competitive. As long as the stickered hardware can boot anything, then it is a reach to say that it is harming anyone (I don't find the confusion and unnecessary difficulty arguments very compelling, people that have difficulty twiddling the bios are going to run into problems anyway).

I don't understand the details of the option rom stuff, but my superficial impression is that no other entity is particularly motivated to run a meaningful program for signing such code. And it's still an open question if Microsoft can run such a program and have it end up meaning anything.

I don't have to convince you that "it is harming anyone" (your words).

You have to convince me that Microsoft's UEFI Secure Boot requirements aren't a threat to Software Freedom (as defined by the FSF).

Otherwise, Microsoft, Secure Boot-enabled laptops, and anything with a Windows 8 sticker will continue to get lots of bad press.

The context of my comment was someone labeling the practice anti-competitive. That's where harm comes into the picture.

I'm sure that the stuff will continue to get bad press, the idea of centrally controlled hardware is offensive to a large chunk of the people that bother to think about it.

Anti-competitive includes future harm. The way bundling IE was found anticompetitive by US and EU courts. Specifically, it is illegal to leverage monopoly in one market to gain entry to others - because history has shown that this is always abused and eventually harms society.

>Otherwise, Microsoft, Secure Boot-enabled laptops, and anything with a Windows 8 sticker will continue to get lots of bad press.

The iPad and iPhone got loads of bad press about the lockdown, the 30% cut of all in app payments and rejecting things like Android magazine apps and a bunch of other stuff. And Apple still can barely keep up with the demand. I think consumers have been conditioned by iOS not to think about openness.

By iOS? I do not remember seeing people walk the streets in protest against the closed nature of XBox, PS2, Playstation,…, or the Xerox 9700.

If you disagree, please give some proof of consumers (at large, as opposed to small groups, or at least in greater numbers than they do today) thinking of openness before iOS.

Look at the media coverage of Palladium, Trusted Computing etc.... it was brutally against it. When the iPad hit, the media was mostly about fawning over it and pushing the openness concerns under the rug for the most part.

Thanks reminding me of that case. Thinking of this, it is a nice example of why one has to start shouting for the tiniest infringement of rights. Trusted computing got press because people knew it was a battle that could lose the war. iOS and the App store, on the other hand, seemed a battle not worth fighting over when they debuted.

> The logo program doesn't stop manufacturers creating similar unstickered hardware

Effectively, it does. Microsoft routinely audits OEMs' products for logo/MDA compliance, and if any product offered under the same brand name fails the audit, then the entire company could lose all of its MS 'discounts' (that they've already likely baked into their cost accounting.)

In other words, if MS audits you, and any of your products fail the audit, then your unit cost for Windows licenses goes up significantly across all of your product lines.

It's very difficult for an OEM to simultaneously offer some products which are covered by the MS logo agreement and some which aren't.

Source: I used to work for a large OEM, and dealt with MS logo compliance on a daily basis.

That's orthogonal: the issue here is that if you want to sign a bootloader (or anything else) then you can only do it with a single key. While there's nothing stopping Win8 stickered machines containing two keys, you can be sure that not all of them will, so you need to sign your code with a Microsoft-derived key if you want it to work everywhere. That means you can't sign it with your own key.