Comment by bayindirh
3 hours ago
You're absolutely right, but considering Windows requirements drive the PC spec, this capability can be used to force Linux distributions in bad ways.
So, some of the people doing "typical HN rage-posting about DRM" are also absolutely right.
The capabilities locking down macOS and iOS and related hardware also can be used for good, but they are not used for that.
> but considering Windows requirements drive the PC spec, this capability can be used to force Linux distributions in bad ways
What do you mean by this?
Is the concern that systemd is suddenly going to require that users enable some kind of attestation functionality? That making attestation possible or easier is going to cause third parties to start requiring it for client machines running Linux? This doesn't even really seem to be a goal; there's not really money to be made there.
As far as I can tell the sales pitch here is literally "we make it so you can assure the machines running in your datacenter are doing what they say they are," which seems pretty nice to me, and the perversions of this to erode user rights are either just as likely as they ever were or incredibly strange edge cases.
Microsoft has a "minimum set of requirements" document about "Designed for Windows" PCs. You can't sell a machine with Windows or tell it's Windows compatible without complying with that checklist.
So, every PC sold to consumers is sanctioned by Microsoft. This list contains Secure Boot and TPM based requirements, too.
If Microsoft decides to eliminate enrollment of user keys and Secure Boot toggle, they can revoke current signing keys for "shims" and force Linux distributions to go full immutable to "sign" their bootloaders so they can boot. As said above, it's not something Amutable can control, but enable by proxy and by accident.
Look, I work in a datacenter, with a sizeable fleet. Being able to verify that fleet is desirable for some kinds of operations, I understand that. On the other hand, like every double edged sword, this can cut in both ways.
I just want to highlight that, that's all.
I don't see how this relates in any way to Amutable and it has been a "concern" for 20+ years (which has never come to pass). How do you think this relates at all?
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