[flyinghamster]

Yup. Finding out that Big Sur phones home every time one opens an application is a showstopper for me, never mind Apple's ever-changing ports and its campaign against the right to repair.

We've also already seen that Microsoft considers ARM systems to be "special" enough to require locked bootloaders as well. Don't get me started on the mess in the smartphone world. I'd hate to see a world where the only "open" computing revolves around either Raspberry Pi-class SBCs or expensive datacenter servers, with no middle ground.

[my123]

Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down.

Meanwhile for arm64 Macs, they aren't either. Yesterday, https://twitter.com/xenokovah/status/1339914714055368704?s=2... was released to run unsigned kernels.

[flyinghamster]

It's encouraging to see an effort like this, but unless it can become a first-class citizen on M1 hardware, it will be at best like trying to keep an iDevice jailbroken, or having a custom Android ROM that lacks important basic functionality like VoLTE.

One can hope, I guess. If I could be sure I could run Linux without it being hobbled, and that Apple wouldn't pull the rug out from under me, I could actually see myself adding a Mac Mini to the stable.

Edit:

> Windows on arm64 systems aren't locked down.

Has this changed? I recall that on ARM, Microsoft requires that UEFI Secure Boot be enabled, cannot be disabled, and cannot load custom keys. So, you could boot Linux as long as it's been "blessed" by Microsoft, assuming they don't pull the rug out, much like the leaving Secure Boot enabled on an x86 PC (except on a PC you can usually load your own keys).

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/01/windo...

[my123]

That was a restriction for 32-bit Arm Windows devices, which were indeed locked down. (I ended up breaking the Secure Boot implementation for Windows RT devices later on, and they didn't bother to fix it)

For 64-bit Arm Windows devices, they had the security policies of a conventional PC since the very beginning.

[flyinghamster]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I've long viewed that as one of the storm clouds on the horizon, as it was.

[salawat]

Alternate source, though may be dated to around the time of v2.2 of the UEFI spec.

https://www.happyassassin.net/posts/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how...

I find it funny that almost all the real gripes with user freedom infringement actually tend to come as a result of Microsoft or other big players getting their fingers into a hardware platform.

[saagarjha]

Not quite, since Apple actively works against jailbreaks on iOS. On macOS they have provided an actual path for code execution to boot alternate OSes.

[pjmlp]

When Windows 10X gets release it might be different, as the original before COVID happened was for it to be the introduction of Win32 sandboxing as well.

Now with Reunion merging both worlds, and Windows 10X only planned for 2021, it might be a different story.

[my123]

Windows 10X is launching for Intel SoCs first, hopefully without locked BLs.