There's another insane thing I've recently heard about - that Intel intends to lock the OS to their own (new) chips, and you can't dual-boot or install another OS. If they do this, yes I expect them to say that "the OEM has the choice" to allow for dual-booting or whatever, but I bet you 90 percent of PCs will be locked to Windows, when this arrives on Windows machines:
I like how they use antivirus/antimalware software as an example, because it's what is almost universally considered "a good thing".
The flip side of it is that this security software can also be used as a tool for mass censorship, and I certainly don't want something like that being impossible to remove and running in "ring -1".
Well, once they do that, the same way that one should avoid Windows 8 if he wants to have a chance of running Linux, one will also be recommended to avoid an Intel processor if he wants control of his system.
Except that Intel has less of a monopoly than Microsoft, so that's way easier.
This would be worse on laptops. It's braindead easy to just snag an Intel-based laptop and know everything will work out of the box. (Other than the Poulsbo netbooks generally speaking they've done a great job supporting Linux on their hardware).
With AMD laptops you might end up with a Broadcom wireless card and an AMD GPU.
https://plus.google.com/+GuidoStepken/posts/bD2VHB4LcEU