> Industry and middleware vendors are absolutely opposed to giving away anything I mean, "industry and vendors" were also opposed to everything from the 40h we

> Industry and middleware vendors are absolutely opposed to giving away anything I mean, "industry and vendors" were also opposed to everything from the 40h week to pollution filters. That's why they are laws: because otherwise money trumps the common good. It's absolutely doable and enforceable that any consumer device sold in a given market should be repurposeable after, say, a period of 5 to 10 years from the end of its manifacturing run. On expiration of such window, schematics, software, and keys, should be provided to some central state-run repository. If a company is sold, acquirers should inherit all obligations, hence improving the situation with "lost" IP as a side-effect. It would be the hardware equivalent of patent expiration.