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It's official - Linux Foundation Secure Boot System Released

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40hz:
they'd probably end up with antitrust lawsuits if they tried to pull that stunt,
-f0dder (February 10, 2013, 05:24 PM)
--- End quote ---

Maybe in the EU, but probably not in the US. At least not as easily. Because GNU/Linux is, of itself, not a business or commercial product. So if Windows is unfairly "competing" with Tux, what exactly is it competing against? Something that's free and can be acquired by anybody just for the asking? And in most cases at no out of pocket? What competitor's business is being harmed?

What business is being hurt? Some PC vendor that wants to put Linux on their machines? Why not Windows? That's a commercial product that this same vendor can get from Microsoft under the same terms any other PC vendor can. Sure there will be breaks for volume purchases - but there's nothing illegal about that. Discounts are an accepted part of business as long as they're not offered as a form of favoritism.

And requiring some specific UEFI setting in order to load or run Windows is no different really than requiring a certain level of CPU, graphics subsystem, or RAM complement to run something. Or needing .NET or a similar runtime like JRE.

As long as UEFI can be disabled (with all that implies) - and the hardware supplier controls how and if it can be done - Microsoft has 'plausible deniabilty.' And that would force a plaintiff to argue something was an "effective" monopolistic behavior or practice as opposed to an actual one. That's extremely hard to prove. Especially in a legal system like the US has where the "letter of the law' generally prevails even when it's pushed to logical extremes. Because, in the US, anything not specifically prohibited by law is generally deemed to be 'legal' by default. With us, unless you've been told you can't - you can.

So I don't see there's anything here that a US antitrust complaint can be directly based on. It would require extrapolation. And that's a tough sell.
 8)

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