Linux and Secure Boot Certificate Expiration
Key topics
The Linux community is abuzz about the impending expiration of a Secure Boot certificate tied to Microsoft, sparking heated debates about the risks of relying on proprietary tech. Some commenters, like roscas, are adamant that anything from Microsoft is toxic and should be avoided, while others, like h4kunamata, point out the irony of folks praising Microsoft's "investments" in open-source projects despite its self-serving motives. The discussion quickly devolves into a broader critique of corporate influence, with pjmlp noting that many websites, including the Linux Foundation's, are similarly tainted by corporate logos. As the debate rages on, it's clear that the Secure Boot certificate issue has tapped into deeper frustrations about the complex relationships between open-source and proprietary tech.
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- 01Story posted
Aug 27, 2025 at 5:19 PM EDT
4 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Aug 27, 2025 at 5:35 PM EDT
17m after posting
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2 comments in 6-9h
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Aug 29, 2025 at 11:23 AM EDT
4 months ago
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Microsoft never did and never will do something without personal interest. It is so ridiculous that the simple fact of using VSCodium, blocks many extension from being installed because it must be VSCode. If I cannot find the package elsewhere and manually install it, I'm going nowhere. Microsoft is taking what matter to them while killing everything else.
Also, the major part of the problems within the open-source world is its own community. Things are way too fragmented, competition is better than sharing and so on.
I mean, look at Ubiquity, how much did they give back to the open-source projects that helped them be who they are today??
Look at Ubuntu, the distro that dragged users away from Windows is now our enemy. SNAP is fully managed by them only, thankfully Mint kept FLATPAK instead, not to mention privacy issues Ubuntu has been involved into.
Raspberry Pi project using Microsoft repos without making announcements, users found it out and the usual "We are sorry, not really because we go the money"
pfSense merged crappy WireGuard code with vulnerabilities into pfSense and FreeBSD forcing the WireGuard creator to fix the mess. Netgate, a company is backing up pfSense so nothing new there.
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
If some project decides to take this secure boot mess seriously which has been a problem since forever, we will see tons of forks, more fragmentation, more competition and nobody gets anywhere.
Anyone that believes big corporations are good for FOSS only due wanting to make the world a better place, are fooling themselves.
Maybe after they cut some OSS projects on Github, some will finaly wake up. But, they already did this and noone noticed.
But something from M$ that is so critical is just bad. Even some Thinkpad T come signed with some M$ keys and that is really bad.
So even if you enable secure boot, use your own keys if possible.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware...