> How is that leveraging a monopoly? Doesn't your argument apply to Windows Phone too?

It is leveraging the desktop monopoly to make inroads into the tablet and phone market. If I start a company tomorrow called "Zikrosoft" which produces "Win Zit 8 ZT", a phone OS on par with WinRT 8, I might get some traction or not, but I most definitely would NOT got anyone to lock down hardware they produce for use with my software. The only reason someone takes the Microsoft requirement seriously is that MS has a monopoly in desktop and business software. Ergo: leveraging monopoly in one market (desktop operating system / business software) to gain an advantage in another market (phones, tablets).

> Why would you want the government to exclusively punish the software OS makers who don't sell hardware with that software?

> Sounds like a nice way to kill the whole concept competing on hardware(which drove down PC prices in the latter 80s).

Dude, Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. They've killed tens of companies with practices similar to this. Antitrust laws exist for a reason, and microsoft is arguably abusing its monopoly position in the os market here.

Instead of asking me, ask yourself - how is this different than the integrated browser thing, which was decided by both US and European court to be an antitrust violation. I can't see a material difference.

> Good luck with that, I am sure the requirements will be like the iOS app store, requiring a credit card and a tax id which they can track across all your accounts. One piece of malicious software detected will lead to the keys of all your submissions revoked.

There are apps on the app store that give you proxying ability. (A "trojan" against Apple's and the carrier's tethering income). Whenever one gets famous it is pulled from the store. I cannot name one that is active right now, but I'm aware of at least 3 which were available for months each.

Furthermore, I'm sure there are hundreds of apps which unintentionally can be exploited through buffer overflows (source: I found those in every C program I've evaluated) - the exploitable code can be useful; it doesn't have to be malicious - just exploitable.

Certification against malware is a joke. Just like the SSL certification process is supposed to guarantee identity. If you think this is going to work better than SSL certificates and Authenticode signatures for ActiveX, you have to know something I (and most of the public) doesn't.

> Just turn off the secure boot? Too hard to go into UEFI setup and turn this off?

I don't know. I would think that including reliable ACPI tables would be simple, rather than non-standard ones that only Windows could read (or that are overridden by Windows drivers). And yet, it isn't. I'm not trusting that it is possible to comfortably turn off secure boot until I've seen it happen.

> What are you trying to fight legally on what grounds? Windows RT secure boot or Windows 8 UEFI requirements too?

Yes. Microsoft's monopoly abuse. Both are examples of it.

> How is it Microsoft's fault that OS vendor don't want to bother to create a mechanism to sign kernels with their keys that the OEMs are perfectly willing to add and if not, the user can add themselves?

How is it Microsoft's fault that they give away IE, when everyone is free to install a new browser themselves?

It is, because of antitrust laws. And they are there for a reason.

IE was, at the time, a much better browser than Netscape. But it didn't get any significant market share until it was getting bundled with the OS. And a few years later Microsoft had 90% of the browser market. Yes, Netscape was just as much to blame -- but if IE wasn't bundled, perhaps they (or Opera) would have used the slower IE adoption to get their act together.

You are arguing theory, and I'm arguing practice (as shown by history). History doesn't usually repeat itself, but it rhymes very well.