Is this something we (as consumers of FreeBSD) need to be aware
of?]
Daniel Staal
DStaal at usa.net
Wed Jun 6 16:49:59 UTC 2012
On 2012-06-05 17:20, Jerry wrote:
> The question that I have not seen answered in this thread is what
> FreeBSD intents to do. From what I have seen, most FreeBSD users do
> not
> use the latest versions of most hardware, so it may be a while before
> its user base is even effected.
I don't believe at this point FreeBSD has any intent one way or
another, really. It's not an immediate problem for any platform
supported by the FreeBSD project, at least for a technically-inclined
user who's willing to check out their BIOS. (Even if they are using the
latest hardware, the x86-derived platforms aren't going to require this
code signing yet.) So it'll probably be a 'wait and see if it's
something the FreeBSD community needs a solution for' at this point.
But this is just my impression.
In slight defense of RedHat: They do a lot of worrying about enterprise
and government customers, many of whom don't really care what platform
they are running on - as long as they can get 'support' and it passes
their security/operational tests. In that environment, I can easily see
some middle-manager decreeing that disabling the signed-boot process is
verboten, without any understanding of the meaning or the consequences,
and enforcing it on the whole company/division, to the point where any
non-signed OS would be thrown out the door. FreeBSD has probably
already been thrown out the door at those types of locations, as there
is no 'official' support channel. (Yes, for my sins, I work at one of
these...)
Daniel T. Staal
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