General > Chit-Chat
"Learn more about Windows 8, UEFI, and boot restrictions"
EdPellesC99:
I stumbled upon this:
http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/
--- Quote ---frightening and unacceptable: users would have to go through complicated and risky measures to circumvent the restrictions; the popular trend of reviving old hardware with GNU/Linux would come to an end, causing more hardware to be tossed in landfills; and proprietary operating system companies would gain a giant advantage over the free software movement, because of their connections with manufacturers.
--- End quote ---
There is a petition you can sign
CommonTater:
It does seem, of late, that much is being done to dissuade all but the most ambitious amongst us. Between the UAC, code signing, manifests, metro coding, etc. the little guy is really hard pressed... never mind the panic if some piece of otherwise inoccuous code stops a machine from booting....
This is getting a tad ridiculous. >:(
Give me back the "good old days" when shareware was king and the little guy still stood a chance.
EdPellesC99:
Boy you said it Tater.
I am thinking that people like us ...in the future, will look back at the "XP days" (when other OS could easily co-exist on the machine) as the "days of freedom" before the advent of the "Nanny OS dictators".
I am wondering if little people have a chance ....against the forces of those: "looking to protect us".
Must the pendulum of flexibility and freedom swing the other way? And all because there are people, "out there", who use their talents in a destructive rather than constructive way.
All 'n all pretty darn sad.
CommonTater:
I am presently mid-way through a total rewrite of my Remote Media package. Now there was nothing wrong with the original, it worked just fine on 2000, XP, 7, etc.... except for one small problem. I used a DLL with a hook in it to catch program launches (to give the server feedback about what's running and what's not) and on about half the vista machines where people installed it, the UAC was being triggered for reasons I never did figure out... I know it was the DLL but the "why" is a total mystery...
Now I'm sure that you can appreciate that having the system stop and ask if it's OK to run this program on a "headless" HTPC machine, intended to be administered from the LAN is a bit more than minor pain in the backside. ("Headless" = no keyboard, no mouse)
Just my luck, it would stop the thing from booting entirely with this new BIOS replacement...
Microsoft really needs to get out of this "Our operators are too stupid to handle their own machines" mindset. It's not true to begin with, it's an insult to any experienced user and a nuisance to everyone... If I tell it it's OK to run a given program once... that should be enough.
Indeed I do crave the good old days and to be fully honest, if there was a way to update Win2000 with High Definition Audio support (which nees XP sp3) and SATA (again XP sp3) I'd be there in a heartbeat... Those were great times for programmers. Tons of decent freeware and shareware, lots of innovation going on, simple setups and ultra reliable operation....
Nothing would make me happier than to see Microsoft wake up and gut all the eye-candy and bloat out of Windows, taking a "Back to Basics" approach with all the extra mupping snarf installable as extras... most of my clients never use the Windows CD/DVD writers, never use speech recognition, speak English and so on. A Minimalist version would be just the ticket for 90% of what I do.
IMO... the current direction has a lot more to do with big Corproations trying to protect their market share than anything even remotely related to security or end user convenience.
EdPellesC99:
All I can say is Yes Yes Yes.
And I think that is what anyone with a brain in their head could ever say in response to you Tater.
If only enough people would catch wind of this and scream bloody murder at the senseless of this.
Maybe they will hear us.
If anyone has an idea of where we could complain ....POST the url !
Otherwise they will steam roller over grass roots innovation !
Tx for the great post-back Tater, (sp edit)
........Ed
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version