The relevant quote is: "Garrett said that Windows 8 certification requires that hardware ship with UEFI secure boot enabled. A feature allowing secure boot to be disabled – necessary to run Linux and FreeBSD on certified systems – is not required for certification."
And further: '"We've already been informed by hardware vendors that some hardware will not have this option," Garrett writes in a flow-up blog post to his original critique of the technology.'
Edit: reply to comments on spec and disabling boot loading.
FYI, I haven't read the spec, and I based my statement from the other article on the home page: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/26/uefi_linux_lock_out_...
The relevant quote is: "Garrett said that Windows 8 certification requires that hardware ship with UEFI secure boot enabled. A feature allowing secure boot to be disabled – necessary to run Linux and FreeBSD on certified systems – is not required for certification."
And further: '"We've already been informed by hardware vendors that some hardware will not have this option," Garrett writes in a flow-up blog post to his original critique of the technology.'