No Stupid Questions

It's been tried a bit before, but didn't get through. The current situation with secure boot is worrying, because we're one manufacturer playing ball away from it to become a reality.

I'd like to say there's strong incentive to not do that, but it seems that logic alone would not stop this kind of push. And weirdly enough, even financial risk might not be enough, as we've seen baffling decisions made these last few months.

The main saving graces is that there are more than two manufacturer for motherboard, and as far as I know, patent lockdown and secrecy isn't as big on PC hardware than on mobile boards, so it might be easier to escape such lockdown. But fully locked down systems under external control is clearly where some people wants us to go.

Microsoft is already starting to lay the groundwork with their CPU, SecureBoot, and TPM 2.0 requirements.

Apple has been doing this for a long time, though there are ways to get around it on MacOS, for now.

On PC, the answer is Linux. For mobile devices, things are looking more bleak.

With Linux being the standard for server systems there is no way to force locked bootloaders everywhere without making the whole web and a lot of companies collapse. But I expect more limitations regarding desktop systems. It's hard to tell at this point because it's a complex issue, not only from an economical but also political point of view (Mass surveillance).

Never

It isn't gonna happen

The enshittification would be too much, and people would gravitate twoards the more usable tech.

People liked Apple and Google because they offered simplified UX that still let people access what they wanted, as soon as people feel too restricted they will stop using the tech.

This trend is independent and unimpeded by the legality of the tech.

I would say if/when PCs move over to ARM than we very well may see the same issues mobile devices have. There is a severe lack of Linux compatibility due to proprietary drivers, sometimes no drivers at all, no software support, and no device trees.

Too late to do this for PCs. You already have Linux laptop providers and Linux distros supported by corporations. Most of the components have multiple providers. You will be able to source "unlocked" hardware from somewhere.

The problem with mobile is that the hardware is too complicated for open source projects to handle. Many have tried, all have failed. So far. Hopefully we will finally see something usable come out of projects like PinePhone and PostmarketOS.

They'd have to completely kill the ability to build your own machine (the whole "IBM compatability" thing) and I don't see that happening when almost every business and factory uses their own custom shit for specific niche reasons.

It's called secure boot and it's been around for over 10 years now.

Fortunately, Microsoft is too incompetent to pull this off on Windows.

They tried. See the metro app push in Windows 8+. But it’s kind of incredible how much they bungled it; even now, it would be totally dysfunctional with Win32 apps locked down.

And if Windows doesn’t do it, hardware makers aren’t really interested in that sort of thing.

Stuff like SteamOS does worry me a tiny bit. It’s obviously fine now, but I can see a future where, say, Valve (or any hardware seller with some kind of successful storefront) starts to not like rising competition on their own stuff.

It's been done before. ChromeBooks comes to mind, but there have been others. Usually winds up killing the outfit that tries it.

As far as I know Chromebooks only survive because of the educational market. Locked down devices are preferable in schools.

I won't buy one, but I could see such systems becoming dominant in another 20 years or so.

This is what happened when we allowed companies with a profit incentive to code our devices. Linux will always be free, and there will be companies that design computers for Linux, such as Fairphone, Framework, Furi, Fedora, and probably some that don't start with F too

Absolutely not, that would never happen. Why? Because there's a load of stuff that runs on Windows that is ancient and only exists as legacy software and never receives updates.

If anything, Windows is the last operating system that will have locked bootloaders, because if they do, there's gonna be some bank somewhere in the world suing them because their ancient counting software was originally made for Windows 3.0 back in the day and Microsoft has had to build their entire operating system around making sure that software continues to run.

They might have hardware requirements like the TPM chip, but they're never going to make it so you can only install software approved by them, because they've got over 40 years of software they'd need to approve before they can do that, and they won't.

I have a feeling, that Windows 12 PCs will be just glorified smartphones with voice control as the default.

It will creep in slowly since most people dont touch any settings on their computer after the initial unboxing and setup.

Big box retailers will offer discounts on them, much like how you can buy a Chromebook for very little.

Enticed by cheap computers, people will buy not knowing that any limitations exist. They'll be encouraged to use centralized app repositories but they can still install some other stuff.

A year or two later, some things won't be permitted, computer will make scary warnings when installing, but with enough clicking, you can get past. Until the day you can't.

It will be a progression, but it will happen eventually. I honestly am surprised that computers dont require some sort of registration. I'm sure that will happen eventually.

Expect specialist "open" hardware capable of installing any software/OS to become increasingly expensive, while increasingly locked-down, mass-produced consumer hardware remains at current price. You only need to look at TVs for an example of this - try finding a recent non-smart TV at a reasonable price as the cheap models are all subsidised by the revenue from pushing ads into your face.

It's almost already like this. In my country every single bank reinvented the wheel by creating a single purpose app which does what aegis does (otp generation from a seed) but with some bits changed (one for example "encrypted" the seed with ROT13) and with draconian measures like bootloader must be locked, adb must be disabled, and are using literal exploits to see if you have "forbidden" directories on /sdcard like/sdcard/magisk even if no file access is granted

That's probably why risc-v is getting quite popular in embedded stuff - smaller companies wanting more supply chain independence. Hopefully it'll start to get more powerful soon for more serious computing. Its nice that stuff like debian now has risk-v version too.