"I fully understand that Red Hat and Canonical won't be doing the right thing, they are traitors to the cause, mostly in it for the money and power. They want to be the new Microsoft," de Raadt told ITWire.

SECURE BOOT:

Red Hat declined to comment on de Raadt's assertions, but said the company's policy was outlined in a June 5 blog post by Linux engineering vice president . Canonical has also been contacted for comment.

Secure boot, via the Universal Extensible Firmware Interface, has been a source of controversy in the open source community since its announcement. Critics paint it as an anti-competitive attempt to squeeze out alternative operating systems, forcing computer makers to comply with Microsoft's secure boot standards - which, in the case of ARM-based systems, require that no option to turn off UEFI be provided. (X86 users will have the option of disabling secure boot.)

This put Linux developers in a tough spot, and some - including Red Hat and Canonical - have opted to simply fall in line with Microsoft's plans, purchasing the required keys from the Redmond giant in the hopes of avoiding any loss of functionality.