SFLC: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices [LWN.net]

SFLC: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

Posted Jan 13, 2012 23:30 UTC (Fri) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: SFLC: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices by bricef
Parent article: SFLC: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

> What's a real shame is that the average smartphone consumer will be hurt most if this goes through, but that they're unaware of the issue and the implications. The irony is that they have the power to vote with their wallets, but won't know that they need to.

I kinda doubt that. If the average consumer was interested in using something other then a Windows OS they wouldn't be purchasing Windows phones, would they?

I know I am suppose to be all upset and bothered buy this, but I can't for the life figure out why shipping a locked down Windows is any worse then shipping a locked down Android phone, Kindle, or a iPhone or a iPod.

The whole thing strikes me a kinda silly. I read the article and their analysis and I was thinking to myself 'Sooo.. exactly why this is so tragic?'. I mean it's generally bad that these devices are locked down, but I fail to see what Microsoft is doing is any worse then what anybody else is doing.

At least they are only interested in locked down their already closed source software. It's not like Apple or many Android vendors that lock down open source using software written by other groups.

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SFLC: Microsoft confirms UEFI fears, locks down ARM devices

Posted Jan 25, 2012 14:54 UTC (Wed) by jospoortvliet (subscriber, #33164) [Link]

It's not about phones but laptop- and tablet devices. I for one are looking forward to an affordable, reasonably powerful ARM based laptop on which I can run openSUSE. But it's highly likely that those won't come to exist as the ones which get mass-produced are Windows only... In the PC world you can simply wipe windows and have your nice device, the only downsides being the Microsoft tax and possibly hardware support issues. In the ARM world - you're out of luck.