6 ms·
How about "you didn't fix a known security flaw within 3 months, pay 10% of MSRP to all your customers"?
by foepys 5y ago
How about "you didn't fix a known security flaw within 3 months, pay 10% of MSRP to all your customers"?
- simonh 5y agoSounds wonderful, but the entire Android platform relies on patches from upstreams (Linux kernel devs, Google, device driver vendors. Numerous other open source projects that contribute critical components). Timelines like that simply aren't possible. It would kill Android stone dead.
- southerntofu 5y agoI upvoted because it's an actual concern, but don't agree with your point. Of course non-profit vendors should be excluded from such regulations, providing a best-effort solution. For other vendors, that would actually be a feature. It would incentivize hardware manufacturers to stop bundling bad/broken Androids with their hardware, open the bootloader and partner with serious free-software organizations who won't break your system or backdoor it. If you really want to roll out broken software for your customers and not give them a choice, pay up.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoThen the commercial upstreams will have to provide patches in time in order to still be able to sell their products downstream-wards. For the open source upstreams... I've heard they accept patches. If not, the source is open, the downstream vendors can fix that. They can even put together a pool, pay into it together, and use the pooled money to develop (and hopefully upstream) a patch...
- ryan93 5y agoHow do you people never consider the difficulty of implementing these policies. I dont get why some people love new rules and schemes so much.
- VortexDream 5y agoThese are massive companies with revenue in the billions of dollars. If this was regulated, they would figure it out. Frankly, in a lot of cases, it's their own fault that phones aren't updated anymore, not because of any inherent difficulties. If a handful of volunteers can push the latest Lineageos to 7 year odl devices, then Samsung can too. It's just that they have no financial incentive to do so and there are no regulations forcing them to implement what's necessary for long-term support.
- baggy_trough 5y agoThey have no financial incentive to do so because people don't care. So why should the government try to substitute its own remote, bureaucratic judgement?
- VortexDream 5y agoPeople generally don't see long-term or on a societal level. Do you think most people wanted seatbelts or the founding of the EPA? A lot of times these are issues that are outside the purview of individuals, outside of their visibility. Most people only care about a small number of things like where their next paycheck is coming from and what to wear going out tonight. This is what government is for.
- postingawayonhn 5y agoMany phone manufacturers really struggle to make a profit. See HTC, LG, Nokia, etc.
- worldofmatthew 5y agoThis will put many smaller brands out of business, driving up prices on the poor. Most lower end brands barely make a profit as if (often selling at a loss when doing sales).
- VortexDream 5y agoThey don't even have to do their own security updates. If they stick to vanilla Android, they have much less work than if they customize the ROM for every one of their devices. There might even be an industry-wide push for Google to make it easier to update phones independent of firmware blobs (beyond project treble), because suddenly there will be financial incentive to push as much work/effort onto the most obvious candidate.