The OLPC and BIOS upgrades

Posted Sep 5, 2006 0:27 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806)
Parent article: The OLPC and BIOS upgrades

This is incompatible with GPL3 isn't it? GPL3 would force you to distribute the private keys, allowing crooks to sign binaries, so worms can run rampant. GPL3 makes it impossible to secure the BIOS using crypto.

...right?

The OLPC and BIOS upgrades

Posted Sep 11, 2006 2:33 UTC (Mon) by Klavs (guest, #10563) [Link]

Not as I see it. GPLv3 is written to protect against a situation where your hardware won't run something, not signed by an unknown key (ie. TiVO). In this situation, the installed software (of which the specific part, can be easily replaced by the user, without breaking the whole) simply won't do an automatic update, per default, without this correct signing. ie. no user lock-in. Just a precaution, that the user is free to remove/change as they see fit.