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No the lawyer specifically can envision a scenario, according to Ubuntu. | 474 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
No the lawyer specifically can envision a scenario, according to Ubuntu.
Authored by: tknarr on Wednesday, July 04 2012 @ 10:05 PM EDT

I'm minded of a fine distinction Shuttleworth made: he didn't say he'd been told that Canonical would be required to disclose the key, he said he'd been told that key disclosure could be required. Well yes, it could be. The FSF said as much. But it wouldn't be Canonical that'd be required to disclose the key, it'd be the OEM responsible for the hardware. I can't find an exact quote for what the SFLC told Canonical, but I've found it good practice to be skeptical when a businessman or a lawyer or a politician dances around a point without quite saying it outright.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

No the lawyer specifically can envision a scenario, according to Ubuntu.
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 05 2012 @ 09:00 AM EDT
I'm the OP of the 'No the lawyer specifically can envision'
reply.

Thanks PJ, that's a very good point about depending on a
promise. But the FSF didn't say that they wouldn't ever do
it, they said that they couldn't envision a situation where
they would do it, which leaves them the space that they need
if Ubuntu turns bad.

I wear more than one hat. I'm an open source user and
developer. I also run a company, so I hope I have some idea
of Mark Shuttleworth's motivations. I'm in sympathy with
both FSF and Ubuntu positions; as a personal matter and
wearing my CTO hat, I want to be in full control of my
computers. I also want them to be as secure as possible -
and UEFI could help. Security is one of the reasons we use
Linux rather than Windows or Mac (but there is a tradeoff of
usability and community here - we could be using a more
secure OS if security was the only thing that mattered.)

When I'm selling software or services around software, I
wear another hat, and then control, capture and options
_are_ elements that makes for
higher profits, and I see these as informing the Ubuntu
decision, given Shuttleworth's comment. No profit = no
growth = no company, so these are important for _companies_.

By control, I mean the ability to make changes that users
won't necessarily immediately appreciate. I'm an Ubuntu
user. I dislike the single menu system. It's there because
Mark Shuttleworth thinks that the form factor of computers
is changing, and he's right; the growth of mobile computing
is where it's at, and since Ubuntu control Ubiquity, they
could make this change. For booting under UEFI, as
Canonical, it's important to be dead-certain that the
integrity of their system is assured. It's a reputational
matter which could kill Ubuntu if it was compromised. Even
the small chance that FSF could require the private key
would have enormous impact.

By capture, I mean restricting the ability of users to
leave. Sometimes this is a hard barrier; try getting data
out of a proprietary file format. And sometimes this is
soft; for many people, a critical barrier to leaving Windows
is the loss of knowledge built up about how things work.
With my business hat on, everything I can do to raise
barriers to exit is useful towards profit. (But this knife
cuts two ways; people aren't stupid - hard exit barriers
also slow adoption.) I can imagine that full control of the
boot loader could be used to raise a barrier to exiting
Ubuntu. It's odd to talk about capture in a FOSS
environment, but it doesn't have to be hard capture; I don't
see you moving away from Linux.

By options, I mean the ability to make choices. Usually this
comes with control. Raising an exit barrier by making it
impossible to install new OSes is an option. It's one that I
think is unlikely. Another option is to brand with Ubuntu
from the moment the computer is switched on, and I do see
this as likely.

Also, I wonder if there is a business plan which depends
upon people making derivative versions of Ubuntu. For
instance Ubuntu for Bank of America. If I was going to do
that, I would want to minimise the chance that private keys
would have to be disclosed.

But I too would like to know more. I agree that Mark
Shuttleworth paid little attention to the warnings about
Mono. And I agree with your point about relative danger, and
I think it supports the idea that there are potentially
future plans we don't know about.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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