Microsoft to insist on Windows 8 only for ARM

Microsoft's Secure Boot feature will be mandatory on ARM-based Windows 8 tablets, according to a discovery in Windows hardware certification documents just found this weekend. While it will be optional on x86, disabling Secure Boot "must not be possible" on ARM. As described, it would prevent any unsigned operating system from running on the resulting hardware, including Linux and variants on it, like Android.

Linux could technically run on these devices if it was signed, but it would also be violating the GPL (GNU Public License), the term needed to be considered an open-source platform. GPL code usually needs to be redistributed, which isn't practical when even the Linux kernel would need to be signed. Every unique variant on Linux would need a code signing from every hardware manufacturer.

Apple and some Android makers also clamp down on running unapproved firmware on their tablets, but unlike Microsoft, they produce their own hardware. The Windows 8 policy would be dictating what third-party hardware makers would be allowed to use.

Microsoft hasn't responded to the latest claims, although there appears to be less ambiguity than there was when concerns originally emerged over Intel tablets.

The decision could create at least some irony for Microsoft, which has often touted the choice and flexibility of Windows PCs as a selling point over Apple. It may also attract antitrust regulators that could interpret the lockout as Microsoft reverting to abusing its desktop monopoly just months after regulator oversight ended to silence Linux and other rival operating systems.

Microsoft could ultimately try to claim that ARM tablets are a different category and point to Windows' expected minority in tablets as proof it's not subject to legal concerns. Former Windows Phone lead Andy Lees may have condemned Microsoft, however, by saying that the company sees tablets as PCs and thus that it's once more trying to silence competition through means other than the quality of its products. [via Computerworld]

By Electronista Staff