It’s been tried a bit before, but didn’t get through. The current situation with secure boot is worrying, because we’re one manufacturer playing ball away from it to become a reality.

I’d like to say there’s strong incentive to not do that, but it seems that logic alone would not stop this kind of push. And weirdly enough, even financial risk might not be enough, as we’ve seen baffling decisions made these last few months.

The main saving graces is that there are more than two manufacturer for motherboard, and as far as I know, patent lockdown and secrecy isn’t as big on PC hardware than on mobile boards, so it might be easier to escape such lockdown. But fully locked down systems under external control is clearly where some people wants us to go.