Richard Stallman wades into Microsoft
 

After being uncharacteristically quiet on the matter of Microsoft's Window's 8's secure book, Open Source Guru Richard Stallman has finally vented his spleen.

In an interview with Bytes Media, Stallman dubbed Windows 8 secure boot a disaster.

He said that it was not really a secure boot at all, just a restricted one.

Stallman said that when it was under the control of the user a secure boot was a security feature because it allowed the user to control which programs can run on a machine and stop unexpected malware from running.

But what Microsoft's version does is cause the machine to only work with programs that are signed with a certain key which are not controlled by the user.

Microsoft demands that ARM computers sold for Windows 8 be set up so that the user cannot change the keys.

Stallman thinks that this is abuse of the users and ought to be made illegal.

He added that this sort of thing proved that non-free software was wrong because users deserve to have control of their computers.

If the user doesn't control the keys, then it's a kind of shackle, and that would be true no matter what system it is, Stallman said.

http://news.techeye.net/software/ric...into-microsoft