Red Hat, Canonical 'Traitors' To Open Source: OpenBSD Founder

In an interview with ITWire, Theo de Raadt, the founder of the OpenBSD project and a prominent figure in the Open Source world called Linux giants, Red Hat and Canonical as ‘traitors’ for working with Microsoft's secure boot system. "I fully understand that Red Hat and Canonical won't be doing the right thing, they are traitors to the cause, mostly in it for the money and power. They want to be the new Microsoft," de Raadt told ITWire.

Since the announcement of Windows 8, Secure boot, via the Universal Extensible Firmware Interface, has created a lot of stir in the open source community. Many critics termed the Secure boot move by Microsoft as an anti-competitive act, as they feel that it tries to abandon the installation of alternative operating systems, thus, forcing computer makers to comply with Microsoft's secure boot standards.

This has made things difficult for Linux developers. Red Hat and Canonical both have opted to simply follow Microsoft's plans to avoid a dip in usage by purchasing the required keys for secure boot via Universal Extensible Firmware Interface.

"I sense that disaster is coming, and hope that someone has the moral strength to do the right thing," de Raadt told ITWire. Similarly, Richard Stallman also referred to UEFI as a "disaster" in a recent interview with Bytes Media, saying that the practice amounts to "abuse of the users. I think it ought to be illegal."

Source: RedHat & Canonical Are Traitors