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Imagine that Samsung shipped the Note 7 and the battery worked just fine but charged more slowly than people would like. If Samsung wasn't able to lock down the
by viggity 10y ago
Imagine that Samsung shipped the Note 7 and the battery worked just fine but charged more slowly than people would like. If Samsung wasn't able to lock down the firmware (via DRM) on the charging chip and people were able to "repair" the charging firmware. What happens liability wise if someone's "repair" of the firmware caused batteries to explode? It puts companies in a really shitty spot. Same thing with a John Deere combine. A user "fix" could potentially destroy a million dollar piece of equipment or otherwise malfunction and kill someone.
I'm certainly sympathetic to wanting to be able to modify my devices as I see fit, but I can't help understand how much legal liability that puts on the manufacturer.
- chopin 10y agoI think you put it in a much darker light than necessary. Many of these problems can be solved by making hardware for which it is impossible for software to cause these problems. Finally that's what we did in the era when not everything was software controlled: design the stuff in a way that it doesn't explode in your hand. Of course, for electonical stuff this would require firmware which can't and doesn't need to replaced. Therefore it'd need to be tested rigorously and the manufacturer can't control devices out there retroactively.