6 ms·

Software updates should be indefinite, like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine. The future ought to be something like PinePho

Software updates should be indefinite, like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine. The future ought to be something like PinePhone (but with better hardware) that can be customized to run a variety of OS with consumables such as batteries easily user replaceable.

bootloop 5y ago
I would assume the reason why open Linux distros support 15 year old hw is because the OEM dropped support for it in the first place.
sto_hristo 5y ago
Yeah, that is definitely the ideal future. Problem is that it has to be a well organized entity behind this. The open source community is very fragmented and can't spawn a reliable product for the mass consumer in the way current companies can.
goohle 5y ago
Yes, but who will pay for that? More burden on maintainers -> less maintainers -> more burden on maintainers.
- southerntofu 5y ago
  If phone manufacturers stopped producing 10 models every year and focused on making a single robust one, they would have plenty of resources left for actual maintenance.
  - hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
    Sure, but they're in the business of selling as many phones as possible which means getting you to upgrade every so often. Unless they settle on a business model that allows them to make money from your old phone, I see this continuing.
    - gruez 5y ago
      > Unless they settle on a business model that allows them to make money from your old phone, I see this continuing. ...like apple and its recent focus on services?
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      Honestly why should I care what their business model is, if it is detrimental to users and the environment. That's the whole point of laws, to discourage behaviour that we as society deem undesirable.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      And that's why you can't let the market govern lives, and we have regulations.
    - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
      Plus one flagship phone neglects the largest portion of the market who want cheaper phones
      - kasabali 5y ago
        Then they should do like Apple did(?) and continue to sell older generations as the low end segment offering. Which should incidentally make sense since they'd be still supporting because of the said law anyway. Another side effect is this may also discourage them from churning pointless new models year after year with minor spec bumps.
        kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
        > from churning pointless new models year after year with minor spec bumps. They'd never abandon a working business model like that
    - ben-schaaf 5y ago
      > Sure, but they're in the business of selling as many phones as possible which means getting you to upgrade every so often. Indeed they are, but planned obselescence should quite simply be illegal. For sure it'll hurt some businesses, but it's better for everyone else.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    Basically... be more like Apple?
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      How so? Apple also releases new models almost every year with very dubious quality. I remember some scandals about antennas, and more recently about RF interference with pacemakers, but i'm sure there's a lot more i'm unaware of. Apple prevents users from using the hardware however they please and blocks the bootloader. They don't even give you root on your own phone! Also they're famous for making their products hard to repair. It's hard to find spare parts, hard to find their custom screw heads, and hard to tear everything apart. You can't even remove the battery without tools which is very user-hostile, bad for the environment, AND was a pattern "popularized" by Apple, because if any other hardware manufacturer had dared to do that, they would have sold exactly ZERO phones. All in all, Apple is close to the worst manufacturer i can think of to get inspiration from, although on specific topics (eg. LCD screen solidity) they are definitely not the worst.
boudin 5y ago
I so wish that at least when a manufacturer stops supporting hardware, he has to drop source code of drivers and the firmware in the public domain.
- tgv 5y ago
  Wouldn't that cause them to skip features and pick cheap drivers? How many people would benefit (not theoretically, but in practice)? Average life span of a mobile seems to be 2 years and a bit. After seven years, very few users will be left. And it's not as if everyone ditches their phone because of lack of updates.
  - boudin 5y ago
    I don't see why. Theorically it could benefit a lot of people and help community driven projects or companies wanting to provide long term support. For example, if you create a phone that relies on Qualcom socs, qualcom only provides a few years of support, once they don't provide any new driver you're screwed. Forcing the release of source code would at least help open source driver initiatives.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    > And it's not as if everyone ditches their phone because of lack of updates. Often it's because of lack of app support, which is in turn because of lack of updates. Of course some people will always want the latest phone, but there are plenty of people that don't, and the second hand market is thriving. This is especially true in countries with lower income levels. I went on a trip to South America a few years ago, and most of the young people seemed to be using iPhone and android phones from top-tier manufacturers, but several generations old.
karteum 5y ago
> like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine First, let's remind that LineageOS does not run on 15 year old smartphones (and they drop support for a device when there is no upstream support from vendors on the same Android version). One issue is that unlike x86/x86_64, there is no generalized abstraction platform (similar to BIOS/UEFI/ACPI description tables) that enables "one kernel to rule them all" i.e. you need some custom adjustments on your kernel for your SoC and board. Since a few years we have device-tree which improves a lot the situation, but I understand it does not cover everything (i.e. there would still be some missing aspects compared to UEFI/ACPI with regards to hardware description. Maybe some embedded experts can comment ?). Besides it is still not always implemented in chipset vendor's BSP which sometimes still rely on board files (where the data is not easy to extract from a binary kernel, noting that a lot of low-end OEMs do not properly comply with GPL and do not publish their sources)...
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > and they drop support for a device when there is no upstream support from vendors on the same Android version Nope, they drop support when the community runs into issues with a particular model that it's impractical to fix. Upstream vendor support helps but is not required in any way. Device tree "doesn't cover everything" because some device components are yet to be supported in the mainline kernel. Once mainline support is added, that enables a 'universal' kernel to provide that support via the device tree.
  - eric__cartman 5y ago
    This is true. I have used Lineage OS with android 7.1 on a first gen Motorola G phone (that was declared EOL after the Android 5.1 update) and now on a OnePlus 5 with Android 11 (manufacturer dropped support after 10)
    - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
      And I can get Android 11 (LineageOs 18.1) for my Galaxy S5. I believe Samsung stopped updating it at 6.
rspoerri 5y ago
While the idea that companies are held responsible for all theyr actions are good, there is one big problem. If the rist of failure of a product is to large, companies build shell companies that can go bancrupt. It is done so in oil shipment companies and i am sure there are other good examples. Nothing has been done against that even after huge oil leaks where the responsible companies have been very obvious. (I do agree to longer enforced support on devices nevertheless)
pjmlp 5y ago
Linux distros also drop hardware support as my AMD card knows quite well.
- dvdkon 5y ago
  Which card are you talking about? I recently ran a ~15 year old card for basic video output and all worked fine.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    AMD Brazos E-450. Basic video is the keyword, on its heyday of GNU/Linux drivers it was capable of OpenGL 4.1 with hardware video decoding, then it got replaced with a driver that does OpenGL 3.3 and that is about it, thankfully the Windows drivers have been kept up to date.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Software updates should be indefinite, like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine. We'd need an open spec SoC for that.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Pinephone and Librem 5 have that.
swiley 5y ago
This requires hardware manufacturers to work with kernel maintainers. It’s hard enough just getting them to publish the driver source code and not screw the user over for removing “value add” user space software.

bootloop 5y ago

I would assume the reason why open Linux distros support 15 year old hw is because the OEM dropped support for it in the first place.

sto_hristo 5y ago

Yeah, that is definitely the ideal future. Problem is that it has to be a well organized entity behind this. The open source community is very fragmented and can't spawn a reliable product for the mass consumer in the way current companies can.

goohle 5y ago

Yes, but who will pay for that? More burden on maintainers -> less maintainers -> more burden on maintainers.

southerntofu 5y ago
If phone manufacturers stopped producing 10 models every year and focused on making a single robust one, they would have plenty of resources left for actual maintenance.
- hahamrfunnyguy 5y ago
  Sure, but they're in the business of selling as many phones as possible which means getting you to upgrade every so often. Unless they settle on a business model that allows them to make money from your old phone, I see this continuing.
  - gruez 5y ago
    > Unless they settle on a business model that allows them to make money from your old phone, I see this continuing. ...like apple and its recent focus on services?
  - cycomanic 5y ago
    Honestly why should I care what their business model is, if it is detrimental to users and the environment. That's the whole point of laws, to discourage behaviour that we as society deem undesirable.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    And that's why you can't let the market govern lives, and we have regulations.
  - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
    Plus one flagship phone neglects the largest portion of the market who want cheaper phones
    - kasabali 5y ago
      Then they should do like Apple did(?) and continue to sell older generations as the low end segment offering. Which should incidentally make sense since they'd be still supporting because of the said law anyway. Another side effect is this may also discourage them from churning pointless new models year after year with minor spec bumps.
      - kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 5y ago
        > from churning pointless new models year after year with minor spec bumps. They'd never abandon a working business model like that
  - ben-schaaf 5y ago
    > Sure, but they're in the business of selling as many phones as possible which means getting you to upgrade every so often. Indeed they are, but planned obselescence should quite simply be illegal. For sure it'll hurt some businesses, but it's better for everyone else.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Basically... be more like Apple?
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    How so? Apple also releases new models almost every year with very dubious quality. I remember some scandals about antennas, and more recently about RF interference with pacemakers, but i'm sure there's a lot more i'm unaware of. Apple prevents users from using the hardware however they please and blocks the bootloader. They don't even give you root on your own phone! Also they're famous for making their products hard to repair. It's hard to find spare parts, hard to find their custom screw heads, and hard to tear everything apart. You can't even remove the battery without tools which is very user-hostile, bad for the environment, AND was a pattern "popularized" by Apple, because if any other hardware manufacturer had dared to do that, they would have sold exactly ZERO phones. All in all, Apple is close to the worst manufacturer i can think of to get inspiration from, although on specific topics (eg. LCD screen solidity) they are definitely not the worst.

boudin 5y ago

I so wish that at least when a manufacturer stops supporting hardware, he has to drop source code of drivers and the firmware in the public domain.

tgv 5y ago
Wouldn't that cause them to skip features and pick cheap drivers? How many people would benefit (not theoretically, but in practice)? Average life span of a mobile seems to be 2 years and a bit. After seven years, very few users will be left. And it's not as if everyone ditches their phone because of lack of updates.
- boudin 5y ago
  I don't see why. Theorically it could benefit a lot of people and help community driven projects or companies wanting to provide long term support. For example, if you create a phone that relies on Qualcom socs, qualcom only provides a few years of support, once they don't provide any new driver you're screwed. Forcing the release of source code would at least help open source driver initiatives.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  > And it's not as if everyone ditches their phone because of lack of updates. Often it's because of lack of app support, which is in turn because of lack of updates. Of course some people will always want the latest phone, but there are plenty of people that don't, and the second hand market is thriving. This is especially true in countries with lower income levels. I went on a trip to South America a few years ago, and most of the young people seemed to be using iPhone and android phones from top-tier manufacturers, but several generations old.

karteum 5y ago

> like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine First, let's remind that LineageOS does not run on 15 year old smartphones (and they drop support for a device when there is no upstream support from vendors on the same Android version). One issue is that unlike x86/x86_64, there is no generalized abstraction platform (similar to BIOS/UEFI/ACPI description tables) that enables "one kernel to rule them all" i.e. you need some custom adjustments on your kernel for your SoC and board. Since a few years we have device-tree which improves a lot the situation, but I understand it does not cover everything (i.e. there would still be some missing aspects compared to UEFI/ACPI with regards to hardware description. Maybe some embedded experts can comment ?). Besides it is still not always implemented in chipset vendor's BSP which sometimes still rely on board files (where the data is not easy to extract from a binary kernel, noting that a lot of low-end OEMs do not properly comply with GPL and do not publish their sources)...

zozbot234 5y ago
> and they drop support for a device when there is no upstream support from vendors on the same Android version Nope, they drop support when the community runs into issues with a particular model that it's impractical to fix. Upstream vendor support helps but is not required in any way. Device tree "doesn't cover everything" because some device components are yet to be supported in the mainline kernel. Once mainline support is added, that enables a 'universal' kernel to provide that support via the device tree.
- eric__cartman 5y ago
  This is true. I have used Lineage OS with android 7.1 on a first gen Motorola G phone (that was declared EOL after the Android 5.1 update) and now on a OnePlus 5 with Android 11 (manufacturer dropped support after 10)
  - BenjiWiebe 5y ago
    And I can get Android 11 (LineageOs 18.1) for my Galaxy S5. I believe Samsung stopped updating it at 6.

rspoerri 5y ago

While the idea that companies are held responsible for all theyr actions are good, there is one big problem. If the rist of failure of a product is to large, companies build shell companies that can go bancrupt. It is done so in oil shipment companies and i am sure there are other good examples. Nothing has been done against that even after huge oil leaks where the responsible companies have been very obvious. (I do agree to longer enforced support on devices nevertheless)

pjmlp 5y ago

Linux distros also drop hardware support as my AMD card knows quite well.

dvdkon 5y ago
Which card are you talking about? I recently ran a ~15 year old card for basic video output and all worked fine.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  AMD Brazos E-450. Basic video is the keyword, on its heyday of GNU/Linux drivers it was capable of OpenGL 4.1 with hardware video decoding, then it got replaced with a driver that does OpenGL 3.3 and that is about it, thankfully the Windows drivers have been kept up to date.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Software updates should be indefinite, like Linux distros, which can still run on 15 year old hardware just fine. We'd need an open spec SoC for that.

fsflover 5y ago
Pinephone and Librem 5 have that.

swiley 5y ago

This requires hardware manufacturers to work with kernel maintainers. It’s hard enough just getting them to publish the driver source code and not screw the user over for removing “value add” user space software.