<story><title>FSF recommendations for free OS distributions considering Secure Boot</title><url>https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/whitepaper-web</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tzs</author><text>&amp;#62; Their stated concern is that someone might ship an Ubuntu Certified machine with Restricted Boot (where the user cannot disable it). In order to comply with GPLv3, Ubuntu thinks it would then have to divulge its private key so that users could sign and install modified software on the restricted system.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; This fear is unfounded and based on a misunderstanding of GPLv3. We have not been able to come up with any scenario where Ubuntu would be forced to divulge a private signing key because a third-party computer manufacturer or distributor shipped Ubuntu on a Restricted Boot machine.&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s because like pretty much everyone who is not the FSF, Ubuntu has not actually carefully read the part of GPLv3 that deals with software that requires signing in order to install. Almost everyone just seems to skim through that section, sees something about having to provide keys, and then moves on. They don&apos;t read the definitions that define the terminology used in that section, and so have no clue whatsoever about what they have just read means.&lt;p&gt;I can kind of excuse it when it is just random end users or individual software developers who don&apos;t understand the license they are using...but one of the leading Linux companies!?&lt;p&gt;Another place you see this problem is in discussion of the incompatibility between Apple&apos;s App Store and GPLv3. There are people who still think the signing requirements have something to do with it. They do not. The problem is Apple&apos;s terms and conditions, which Apple requires end users to agree to before being allowed to use the store, count as additional terms under GPL (both v2 and v3) that are incompatible with GPL. The GPLv3 restrictions on distributing signed code without the signing keys would only apply to GPLv3 code that Apple ships bundled with iOS devices.</text></comment>
<story><title>FSF recommendations for free OS distributions considering Secure Boot</title><url>https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/whitepaper-web</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>rdl</author><text>I would prefer not to be &quot;protected by a GPL licensed bootloader&quot; from having a machine actually boot successfully under default conditions.&lt;p&gt;Pretty much ok with Fedora and Ubuntu making the best of a somewhat bad situation.  I wish they&apos;d just fix the standard to allow multiple signatures on code and extensions, though.  With that, Secure Boot would be basically all positive.</text></comment>