Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters) [LWN.net]

Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters)

Posted Mar 27, 2013 7:45 UTC (Wed) by jejb (subscriber, #6654)
In reply to: Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters) by s0f4r
Parent article: Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters)

> Seems misguided - win8 certification requires all sorts of things that require the end user to be able to disable secure boot, upload their own keys, remove vendor keys etc..

First, does anyone have a pointer to the actual complaint? I can't seem to find it on the web.

Based surmise, the news articles all report the complaint as being an "obstruction mechanism". The test for this is whether the mechanism has a significant impact on the ability of the average person in the street to perform whatever action they need to perform to avoid the situation being anti-competitive. This means it's not a sufficient defence to say a way of disabling the mechanism exists and a bunch of Linux engineers can find it by poking around in the UEFI menus. The average person on the street who wants to install or try out Linux must be able to find it as well.

By analogy, it's like the Hitch Hiker's Guide situation of the plans to demolish Arthur Dent's house being on display. You can say they're "on display", but if they're on display in a locked lavatory in a disused basement with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard, that rises to the level of obstruction and means they're not really on display at all.

to post comments

Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters)

Posted Mar 27, 2013 8:58 UTC (Wed) by jbv (guest, #66170) [Link]

ARTHUR DENT:
It's not exactly a noted social venue is it? And even if you had popped in on the off chance that some raving bureaucrat wanted to knock your house down, the plans weren't immediately obvious to the eye were they?

MISTER PROSSER:
That depends where you were looking.

ARTHUR DENT:
I eventually had to go down to the cellar!

MISTER PROSSER:
That's the display department.

ARTHUR DENT:
With a torch!

MISTER PROSSER:
The lights, had… probably gone.

ARTHUR DENT:
So had the stairs!

MISTER PROSSER:
Well you found the notice didn't you?

ARTHUR DENT:
Yes. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard”. Ever thought of going into advertising?

Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters)

Posted Mar 27, 2013 11:21 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

The average person on the street who wants to install or try out Linux must be able to find it as well.

Not only that, in this context it is obstruction if the user is required to do anything other than put the installation media into DVD drive or USB port and reboot. People not already familiar with installing Linux or other non-bundled OS will be put off, if they are required to change BIOS settings, which also might be accompanied with scary messages like "Are you sure you want to disable secure boot?" ("What? no, I want to be secure, better dump this Linux disk before it infects my computer.")

Linux users file EU complaint against Microsoft (Reuters)

Posted Mar 27, 2013 22:30 UTC (Wed) by geofft (subscriber, #59789) [Link]

> The average person on the street who wants to install or try out Linux must be able to find it as well.

The average person on the street is not going to compile their own kernel; they're going to download a halfway-popular distro from somewhere. (Honestly, anyone who can figure out `make menuconfig` can figure out the UEFI menus.) So the question is whether Microsoft _signs_ all the halfway-popular distros' Linux kernels / bootloaders, not whether Secure Boot can be disabled. And in practice, they have signed those bootloaders, so I'm not sure what the problem is here.

That said, if Microsoft refused to sign Linux kernels, that would definitely be grounds in my eyes for a serious antitrust complaint.