5 ms·

From what I can find, this particular device was launched around 2011, and went end of support pre-2016. (Although potentially something that in hindsight WD w

From what I can find, this particular device was launched around 2011, and went end of support pre-2016. (Although potentially something that in hindsight WD would have wanted to patch anyway - assuming end users patch things). And maybe highlights that support lifecycles for IoT devices should be longer. Correction: End-of-Support appears to be last manufacture date (2015) + 3 years, so assuming 2018.

busymom0 5y ago
I wonder if the bad publicity which will come out of this was worth it for them. Fixing such a crucial bug would have probably taken a few hours of work.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  There's really no winning with this. You can release patches 6 years after your device is EoL but there will forever be more security issues and people using your ancient product (think how long it takes some versions of Windows to truly reach less than 100k active machines. Hell I wonder if Windows 3.1 has really reached that number or not. The long tail is going to be loooong). Not to mention you've created a precedent that the device is still getting patches and can be used by users, only making the lifecycle issue worse. You can release a version which severely limits the capability of the product or effectively disables it but this is just a guaranteed way of getting bad press and even more customers will be mad at you for killing a device early. You can turn the device over to the community (if you can managed to get it through legal and 3rd party agreements) but that isn't actually going to solve anything as it's not a product for extremely tech savvy users, at best it buys deflection in the news report in exchange for the effort of doing this (if you can at all). You can claim the lifecycle is over and years later and be technically correct but still get the bad press and user feedback anyways. . Retrospective in this particular case it would have been really great for them to fix this particular issue but that's an extremely hard thing to accurately judge unless you're from the future. I mean what percentage of devices that are many years EoL you've heard get this bad of a publicity hit? I'm sure there are many individual cases to point to but it's nothing against the absolute deluge of devices that have been discontinued over the years quietly without issue.
  - andi999 5y ago
    EOL is 3 years after purchase (if bought in 2015)? Just imagine a car and after 3 years no more spare parts? Personally everything below 10 years sounds ridiculous to me.
    - Algent 5y ago
      With modern high end smartphone it's the same issue. At best you get 2 years of patchs now, which is ridiculous because they really expect people to be able to afford >700€ phones that often.
      - andi999 5y ago
        You have a Citation? I read 5-7 years.
        bellyfullofbac 5y ago
        Pixel XL released October 2016 (from [1]), no guaranteed updates after October 2018 [2]. I looked at the Pixel 4, released October 2019, discontinued October 2020, no guaranteed updates after October 2022... [1] https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_xl-8345.php https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_xl-8345.php [2] https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en#zippy=,pixel-phones https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en#zippy=...
        andi999 5y ago
        That is not at best, probably this is at worst. But thanks for the info.
        LeonidasXIV 5y ago
        In Android-land this is currently about the best actually. There is a chance of it improving over time as the updates will be decoupled from hardware support but the situation is markedly worse than on iOS.
bonzini 5y ago
Despite being end-of-support in 2018, the device received its final firmware update in 2015 according to https://community.wd.com/t/action-required-on-my-book-live-and-my-book-live-duo/268147 https://community.wd.com/t/action-required-on-my-book-live-a.... Four-year support for a device that is connected to the Internet is ridiculous. I bought a Synology device in late 2012 and it's still getting major release updates.
black_puppydog 5y ago
That's three years for a device that is presented as an archival thing that you put in our broom cupboard and forget about. That is insanely short.

busymom0 5y ago

I wonder if the bad publicity which will come out of this was worth it for them. Fixing such a crucial bug would have probably taken a few hours of work.

zamadatix 5y ago
There's really no winning with this. You can release patches 6 years after your device is EoL but there will forever be more security issues and people using your ancient product (think how long it takes some versions of Windows to truly reach less than 100k active machines. Hell I wonder if Windows 3.1 has really reached that number or not. The long tail is going to be loooong). Not to mention you've created a precedent that the device is still getting patches and can be used by users, only making the lifecycle issue worse. You can release a version which severely limits the capability of the product or effectively disables it but this is just a guaranteed way of getting bad press and even more customers will be mad at you for killing a device early. You can turn the device over to the community (if you can managed to get it through legal and 3rd party agreements) but that isn't actually going to solve anything as it's not a product for extremely tech savvy users, at best it buys deflection in the news report in exchange for the effort of doing this (if you can at all). You can claim the lifecycle is over and years later and be technically correct but still get the bad press and user feedback anyways. . Retrospective in this particular case it would have been really great for them to fix this particular issue but that's an extremely hard thing to accurately judge unless you're from the future. I mean what percentage of devices that are many years EoL you've heard get this bad of a publicity hit? I'm sure there are many individual cases to point to but it's nothing against the absolute deluge of devices that have been discontinued over the years quietly without issue.
- andi999 5y ago
  EOL is 3 years after purchase (if bought in 2015)? Just imagine a car and after 3 years no more spare parts? Personally everything below 10 years sounds ridiculous to me.
  - Algent 5y ago
    With modern high end smartphone it's the same issue. At best you get 2 years of patchs now, which is ridiculous because they really expect people to be able to afford >700€ phones that often.
    - andi999 5y ago
      You have a Citation? I read 5-7 years.
      - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
        Pixel XL released October 2016 (from [1]), no guaranteed updates after October 2018 [2]. I looked at the Pixel 4, released October 2019, discontinued October 2020, no guaranteed updates after October 2022... [1] https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_xl-8345.php https://www.gsmarena.com/google_pixel_xl-8345.php [2] https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en#zippy=,pixel-phones https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705?hl=en#zippy=...
        andi999 5y ago
        That is not at best, probably this is at worst. But thanks for the info.
        LeonidasXIV 5y ago
        In Android-land this is currently about the best actually. There is a chance of it improving over time as the updates will be decoupled from hardware support but the situation is markedly worse than on iOS.

bonzini 5y ago

Despite being end-of-support in 2018, the device received its final firmware update in 2015 according to https://community.wd.com/t/action-required-on-my-book-live-and-my-book-live-duo/268147 https://community.wd.com/t/action-required-on-my-book-live-a.... Four-year support for a device that is connected to the Internet is ridiculous. I bought a Synology device in late 2012 and it's still getting major release updates.

black_puppydog 5y ago

That's three years for a device that is presented as an archival thing that you put in our broom cupboard and forget about. That is insanely short.