Hacker News Reader

They didn't even contact the FSF to discuss the matter. FSF wrote a white paper about this and stated that the GPL would not force them to release the public key. Also, does anyone really believe UEFI is not going to be compromised ? The entire thing ridiculous. It's a power grab, and a lot of leaders in the open sourced movement are going to come out of this looking like a pack of fools.

https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot...

View on HN

The FSF whitepaper is still a bit ambiguous -- it says that they can't come up with a scenario in which they'd require Canonical to disclose the private key. It's not as strong as saying the GPLv3 text definitely does not require it, or, better yet, that they definitely will not require it, as copyright holders to GRUB.

Now because FSF is also the copyright holder of GRUB, their interpretation of the GPLv3 is trustworthy in this context, but in other contexts, the FSF doesn't get to issue retroactive interpretations about the text of the GPLv3. So seeking the advice of actual lawyers about what the actual text means is entirely reasonable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com