On Tuesday, February 18, 2014 12:21:38 AM amloerx@tfwno.gf wrote:
As a privacy and freedom oriented PC/Linux user, it scares me how modern day devices are becoming extremely proprietary. Companies are beginning to ship their laptops/tablets with proprietary EFI systems which have some nasty things in them. I recently purchased a Dell Venue 8 Pro(one of many upcoming 8" windows 8.1(x86) tablets) and while i was searching through its BIOS, i noticed that it had the computrace option activated
Well, it's your fault that this concern is growing. You bought a windows device. You paid microsoft to develop proprietary software, and you paid an IVB to develop proprietary firmware, instead of paying someone to develop free software and firmware for your device. The market is rich enough to allow you to make that choice.
All I ask of you is to try and make EFI alternatives to all these upcoming devices.
So, you paid someone to write firmware, which you neither trust nor like, but want me to do it for free?
If software/firmware freedom is important to you, then I suggest you return the device to the store -- assuming you have this option -- and purchase a device which offers you what you want.
Alex