4 ms·

My phone today is completely usable but the carrier has decided to stop issuing updates to the phone.... This is the worst kind of planned obsolesces

• onli 6y ago
  Right. Repairable hardware is just the one side, security updates needs to be available as well. We need mandated open sourcing of device software (including firmware and drivers + unlocking of the bootloader) after the support timerange, or at the very least alternatively the obligation to continue security updates for decades.
  • martinald 6y ago
    Who is actually going to update this even if it is open source though? There are so many drivers and firmware in a smartphone, nevermind the tens of thousands of models of smartphones out there. It would require an army of people to patch, test and distribute everything. That's even if you can figure out all this code.
    • onli 6y ago
      We see that happening all the times with devices that are open and popular enough, as much as is possible now. Have a look at the xda forum to see how it is done today.
    • Nextgrid 6y ago
      I don't think this should be a consideration. I agree that the manufacturer or carrier doesn't owe you updates indefinitely, but they definitely should give you all the resources you need to develop these updates yourself if you wanted to. The landscape can change. Maybe there's going to be a huge open-source project that will make these updates. Maybe someone will figure out a way to automatically handle a large number of hardware configurations at scale (a powerful enough hardware abstraction layer should be able to deal with it). Maybe someone will make a business out of it, providing security updates at a reasonable cost. Either way, there shouldn't be any artificial hurdles against the customer developing and running their own firmware on hardware they paid money for.
    • reegnz 6y ago
      It's not about 'who's going to do it' but about 'if I want to do it, I can'. I would really like to hack on a tablet I have that's 5 years old, but I can't because the firmware and drivers are both closed source. I think when I buy a device, I should get the source code to it once the manufacturer decides it's not worth it for them to continue patching the software for the device I've bought.
    • fsflover 6y ago
      Have a look at Pinephone. It has no official developers, but the community created >17 operating systems for it with constant updates.
  • harrierpigeon 6y ago
    OTOH, you can wind up with stuff like installing an OS that requires more than the device has to offer- like installing the most recent version of Ubuntu Desktop on a Intel Core2 Duo isn't going to go well, nor did installing iOS 7 on iPhone 4's- which I remember eagerly installing without realizing the major slowdown all the new features added that I couldn't undo.
    • onli 6y ago
      Linux usually works perfectly fine with old hardware, a Intel Core2 Duo should be completely enough. That's even 64 bit hardware. Worst case you have to swap out Gnome with something more minimal, but that's unlikely.
      • fuzxi 6y ago
        I'm currently running Manjaro with i3wm on a laptop with a core 2 duo. It came with a couple of simple conky widgets enabled by default and those probably took 5-10 seconds to load. Just boxes, one with static text and the other with load statistics. Resizing windows is a little painful, as is opening them. I3 runs reasonably well, but Gnome would probably be too heavy to make for an enjoyable experience.
• RHSeeger 6y ago
  Creating those updates costs money. At what point is the cost no longer worth it? It is not realistic for companies to support every phone forever; I think that's something we can all agree on. Would you be willing to pay whatever your share is of how much generating the update would cost, in order to get it? With a clear indicator when you buy the phone that you automatically get a subscription to 3 years worth of security updates; past that, you pay whatever amount is needed to keep it up to date.
  • acka 6y ago
    In my opinion, manufacturers who cannot be bothered to provide updates to their software should not be allowed to claim intellectual property rights on the hardware. When support ends, drivers and documentation should be made open source, enforceable by law if need be.
  • brendoelfrendo 6y ago
    I think that the problem is central to how phones are developed and constructed. Dell doesn't determine how long my XPS 13 gets updated; they provided the hardware, and I can put any software I want on it. It can keep running a secure, up-to-date OS as long as I want it to, until the hardware truly can't keep up (which, based on computer lifetimes these days, is a long time). Conceptually, I dislike that mobile development hasn't followed a similar path. Samsung should not dictate how many updates my phone gets and for how many years. Practically, I realize that this is a consequence of how we've built SOCs and mobile hardware and there's no incentive for companies to change. That doesn't make it less problematic.
  • syshum 6y ago
    In my case the Manufacturer (LG) already did the updates, the phone was offered on 2 of 3 carriers, of the 2 one of those carriers are still offering updates for it, but because it was a less popular model on the 2nd carrier it is not longer getting updates