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... and once again, Stallman (and the FSF) are proved right. https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/ If you buy into a proprietary ecosystem, especially a

... and once again, Stallman (and the FSF) are proved right. https://xkcd.com/743/ https://xkcd.com/743/ If you buy into a proprietary ecosystem, especially a DRM-encumbered one, and doubly-especially a streaming one, don't be surprised when the inevitable happens and your non-ownership of any part of the system bites you. I speak from personal experience. I lost some of my small Kobo library when they dropped support for their Web reader, and I closed my account (no support for my everyday / work laptop).

icebraining 9y ago
I'm an FSF supporter (technically FSFE), but I think we should be careful about these claims. It's not like open source projects never drop features. You could say "yeah, but they wouldn't be forced to upgrade" - but neither are the users in this case, as the reply says. What the users here want is to continue getting the new features and fixes of the new versions of firmware, while keeping support for the CR100. Even with the source, that would require someone to integrate those two parts, which might be prohibitively expensive. Don't get me wrong, I think they should have the right to do that if they wished, but it's not like it would just fix the problem; it would only allow them to fix it if they could afford it.
- alerighi 9y ago
  With free software no one can shut down a service like they are doing. A product will continue to function and it will continue to receive updates as long as there is enough interest by the open source community in that product. Let's take for example Android smartphone, there are some old smartphone that thanks to the community are still updated to the latest version of the OS, on the other side when Apple say it's done you take your outdated iPhone and toss it in the bin, no one can continue to support it.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    They aren't shutting down a service, they are updating a product. Specifically, they are releasing a new version of the speakers firmware that removes support for the protocol used by CR100. All you wrote regarding Android is true, and that's why as I said I support the FSF and Free Software in general, all I'm saying is that you can't take that community for granted. Maybe someone would appear to re-add support for the CR100 to the new firmware - or maybe nobody would.
jopsen 9y ago
Yeah, I would love to have a sonos-like thing I can use to listen to spotify, etc... from my phone. But I can't find any open source solutions, hooking into the chrome cast protocol seems impossible as all receivers must be signed by Google.

icebraining 9y ago

I'm an FSF supporter (technically FSFE), but I think we should be careful about these claims. It's not like open source projects never drop features. You could say "yeah, but they wouldn't be forced to upgrade" - but neither are the users in this case, as the reply says. What the users here want is to continue getting the new features and fixes of the new versions of firmware, while keeping support for the CR100. Even with the source, that would require someone to integrate those two parts, which might be prohibitively expensive. Don't get me wrong, I think they should have the right to do that if they wished, but it's not like it would just fix the problem; it would only allow them to fix it if they could afford it.

alerighi 9y ago
With free software no one can shut down a service like they are doing. A product will continue to function and it will continue to receive updates as long as there is enough interest by the open source community in that product. Let's take for example Android smartphone, there are some old smartphone that thanks to the community are still updated to the latest version of the OS, on the other side when Apple say it's done you take your outdated iPhone and toss it in the bin, no one can continue to support it.
- icebraining 9y ago
  They aren't shutting down a service, they are updating a product. Specifically, they are releasing a new version of the speakers firmware that removes support for the protocol used by CR100. All you wrote regarding Android is true, and that's why as I said I support the FSF and Free Software in general, all I'm saying is that you can't take that community for granted. Maybe someone would appear to re-add support for the CR100 to the new firmware - or maybe nobody would.

jopsen 9y ago

Yeah, I would love to have a sonos-like thing I can use to listen to spotify, etc... from my phone. But I can't find any open source solutions, hooking into the chrome cast protocol seems impossible as all receivers must be signed by Google.