[sf-lug] Fedora dealing with UEFI

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Larry Cafiero (larry.cafiero at gmail.com):

> I thought I'd jump in when cooler heads prevailed, but then by that
> time I would have missed the party. So to be fashionably late . . . .

With the same caveat:


> What is that saying about a lie can travel halfway around the world
> before the truth puts its pants on? This instance would be Exhibit A
> for that. So Instead of saying "Hey, thanks," to Fedora and Red Hat
> for whipping out the checkbook and making UEFI easier to use on newer
> hardware (putting aside the argument that we should all be buying
> Linux-specific hardware in the first place from vendors like ZaReason
> or System 76), what we're getting is "sky-is-falling" propaganda
> parroted from people who ought to know better.
> 
> [As an aside, I didn't see any other FOSS entity -- like, oh I don't
> know, Canonical/Ubuntu -- stepping up to the plate to address the UEFI
> issue. Nor would I expect them to, since their contributions back to
> FOSS are limited, at best.]

And I was especially not impressed that Grant pulled this bullshit from
his ubuntu.com official e-mail address.  

If you want to look for a passive-aggressive behaviour pattern, that's
actually the direction you want to look, Dennis.  Grant's been waiting
for a chance to slag me in public (under cover of some claim of
self-righteousness, which is the way passive-aggressives do such things) 
for quite a while.  In fact, I think I can cite the exact moment when
Grant got a bug up his tochis about me:  

It was just over a year ago, and Grant was posting to a half-dozen Linux
community mailing lists a well worked out propaganda line about how
Ubuntu is unique in its suitability to 'simple end users'; that no other
Linux distribution is suitable to recommend.

And, after I heard this a dozen or so times, I finally asked Grant a
question, on May 25, 2011, on the BUUG mailing list:

  [...]
  Problem is:  Some of the stuff new users typically seek (proprietary
  codecs and such; see below), and complain about the absence of, _is
  missing_ by default.  By policy.  I respect those omissions; there are
  good reasons for them, and there are 'restricted formats' pages (etc.)
  about how to retrofit them. 

  And yet the point remains.
                                                                                                                                              
  Linux Mint and Ultimate Edition are Ubuntu with those things merged in.
  So, if the aim is to make things as easy as humanly possible for 'simple
  end users', shouldn't they merit higher recommendation?  Shouldn't
  PCLinuxOS, MEPIS Linux, and Zenwalk Linux _also_ merit higher
  recommendation by that same reasoning?

It was a simple question.  Given that Linux Mint and Ultimate Edition
are even _more_ suitable for 'simple end users' by Grant's own criteria,
why isn't he urging _their_ use even more than he's urging use of
Ubuntu?  Not doing so would be illogical... unless of course you're 
a marketing flack for Canonical, Ltd.

And, oddly, Grant never said a word in response to that question.  Not
even evasions, just silence -- and subsequent remarkable smiling
hostility.  Which is what passive-agressiveness is, Dennis.