8 ms·

Companies that shut down connected systems should be required to release all device and server source code and hardware electrical schematics. I don't care if

by edrxty 3y ago

Companies that shut down connected systems should be required to release all device and server source code and hardware electrical schematics. I don't care if it'll be useless to the average consumer, I don't care if it'll hurt their "sensitive intellectual property" (frantically cobbled dog shit) portfolios, but it'll make them think before they roll things out they don't actually intend to support literally forever...

pabs3 3y ago
We should make them escrow their source code before releasing products, so that the source can be automatically released when they abandon them.
hgomersall 3y ago
Honestly, the technological exit strategy should be integrated into every development plan. There are loads of options... Spin out, sell the technology, open source. Simply dropping support should almost never be an option. I daresay there are situations it makes sense, but I can't think of them.
- midnitewarrior 3y ago
  Put the code / schematics into escrow, and require that the company or its successors must release the contents of the escrow in the event that the service ceases to be commercially viable. If another company wants to take over the assets and operate the service, they can, but they are obligated to release the contents of the escrow in the event they cease to operate the service.
  - lobsterthief 3y ago
    Honestly, escrow is usually just one small part of the puzzle compared to the many SaaS/hosting services chained together to make the thing work. I’m sure most iOT startups that fail are no different.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      In general, throwing some code over the wall for some commercially unsuccessful (or just something small time the creator got tired of) project is pretty much useless 99.99%+ of the time. As you say, for starters, it's probably only a piece of a fully-documented product.
quickthrower2 3y ago
Or full refund recall. Plus environmental tax and full onshore recycling of parts.
- vincnetas 3y ago
  How do you achieve that with company that is going bankrupt? Big corps, will spin up a branch responsible for that product and cut it off in case of the problems.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    That must become illegal at some point. I spin up a branch, take a billion in off the plan appartments deposits then declare that branch bankrupt while my agency branch rakes it in.
    - jwestbury 3y ago
      It's a legal grey area, generally. It's not uncommon for companies to utilise special-purpose vehicles/strategy bankruptcies to insulate themselves from the financial fallout of their actions, though.
  - jonhohle 3y ago
    Insurance.
  - jrockway 3y ago
    "Dear CEO, you will make license plates in this prison until the recycling is paid off."
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      Aaaand [clicks fingers] you’re awake
  - vidarh 3y ago
    You can tax the products at the time of sale for expected externalities. Then you can still let people run reclamation/returns themselves and claim against tax and be responsible for overruns. An example is the drinking container taxes in Norway, where single use containers are subjected to a graded tax depending on return rates. If the containers are part of approved returns schemes etc. and achieve 95%+ return rates you pay nothing. Below that the worse the return rates the higher the tax per unit (even if returned in other recycling). This gives an incentive to avoid containers that are not part of the recognised returns schemes. [Some returns schemes, like the bottle return scheme further applies a specific deposit amount per unit, so the amount added, or a portion of it, is recoverable for customers] While ensuring payment for returns processing is important, getting the cost of externalities pushed to the point of sale is also important, because it punishes you with higher prices for products that are hard to get decent return rates for.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
> frantically-cobbled dog shit And that's my suspicion about why open source often seems two steps behind: when it's in the open, you have to do it right and can't hide the bodies. Doing things right is hugely slower at first. It's only in the long run when doing it right pays off. Steady incremental progress outruns the FCDS junk when that inevitably reaps the whirlwind of the technical debt incurred during the initial breakneck development. Sometimes the FCDS is a consultancy deal from the outset and you cannot maintain the steaming bowl of canine leavings in front of you at all. Ever wonder why every now and again a serviceable, but clunky and unmaintained shovelware-like app (parking, alarm system, transport ticketing, that kind of thing) gets replaced with one that's basically the same but a different icon and a handful of trimmed features? New consultants just got done frantically cobbling it from scratch. This is clear in the app landscape, but hardware is often a similar consultancy thing.
- memefrog 3y ago
  Wait, wait, wait... Behind? If you'd asked me, I'd have said that's why open source always seems to be a step ahead! You're under no obligation to do things 'right', and worse is better. But free software means that you start from scratch much less often. You can take what already works and use it again and again in new products, and so can everyone else. Reusing the core of Linux in a billion small devices seems like a good idea to me.
  - orev 3y ago
    I suspect your perspective is based on using well-established open source projects that have a long history and are popular enough to have reached critical mass. The reality is that most open source projects are playing catch-up, especially in the hardware space. Linux still has many issues with newer GPU drivers (binary blobs instead of actually OSS ones), and even a semi-popular project like OpenWRT doesn’t have WiFi 6E support, even though devices have been out for a while.
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Yeah, especially in this space, open source is miles ahead. HomeKit seems to get worse with every release; HomeAssistant is a much better alternative.
hollow-moe 3y ago
Or any kind of product requiring a server, there's a lot of games heavily dependent on online features and when the online platform closes you lose of lot of features or even sometimes the best part of the game. You can still play Mario Kart Wii online today because someone saw the issue coming and reverse engineered the server code but it's not a viable solution
Gibbon1 3y ago
> "sensitive intellectual property" (frantically cobbled dog shit) portfolios That phrase always makes me think of crazy person that thinks you're coveting his shopping cart full of precious things. Or maybe as my dad alluded to, classified information usually means stuff that makes us look like lame and petty buffoons.
dwg 3y ago
I'm not saying they should not be required, as I have not thought about this deeply, but in whichever way I imagine this playing out, it seems likely to lead to situations in which people are using some device with a lot of security vulnerabilities that were made much easier to find and exploit once the code was opened up.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  An unmaintained device was always going to be a security problem; at least with open code and a way to install it there's a way to patch problems after the vendor stops providing fixes.
  - dwg 3y ago
    I'm on the same page, but was wondering if there would be any concern about liability on the part of the company that released the code (mandatorily, as suggested).
- fsflover 3y ago
  Security through obscurity doesn't work.
harry8 3y ago
Especially so a utilities provider such as gas.
ProxCoques 3y ago
I agree, but suspect most such systems are using licences from other closed-source projects, IP from 3rd party agencies they commissioned, and stuff that may well have cross-licencing and other crap going on. I doubt a company like BG would do more than just glue together other people's stuff.
gadders 3y ago
This is often a factor with commercial contracts with a vendor - source code is put in "escrow" [1], to be released if the vendor goes bankrupt. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow
jojobas 3y ago
Unfortunately they "can't". A lot of the dog shit and the beaver snot that holds it together is licensed from third parties.
- edrxty 3y ago
  That's kinda what I'm getting at though. If you regulate that everything is going to be escrowed with a contingency (by which I mean guarantee) that it'll end up being forcibly released under GPL/whatever, you suddenly need to use components that are compatible. Short term this would be an e-waste bill, long term it would help strengthen the FOSS community and by extension the quality, speed of development, and general performance of the whole industry.
smashah 3y ago
This is why regulation is required to force companies to release feature-parity APIs and protect reverse engineering projects from legal threats.
segmondy 3y ago
It's a great idea! Lobby for it, contact a lawmaker and get a bill passed.

by edrxty 3y ago

pabs3 3y ago

We should make them escrow their source code before releasing products, so that the source can be automatically released when they abandon them.

hgomersall 3y ago

Honestly, the technological exit strategy should be integrated into every development plan. There are loads of options... Spin out, sell the technology, open source. Simply dropping support should almost never be an option. I daresay there are situations it makes sense, but I can't think of them.

midnitewarrior 3y ago
Put the code / schematics into escrow, and require that the company or its successors must release the contents of the escrow in the event that the service ceases to be commercially viable. If another company wants to take over the assets and operate the service, they can, but they are obligated to release the contents of the escrow in the event they cease to operate the service.
- lobsterthief 3y ago
  Honestly, escrow is usually just one small part of the puzzle compared to the many SaaS/hosting services chained together to make the thing work. I’m sure most iOT startups that fail are no different.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    In general, throwing some code over the wall for some commercially unsuccessful (or just something small time the creator got tired of) project is pretty much useless 99.99%+ of the time. As you say, for starters, it's probably only a piece of a fully-documented product.

quickthrower2 3y ago

Or full refund recall. Plus environmental tax and full onshore recycling of parts.

vincnetas 3y ago
How do you achieve that with company that is going bankrupt? Big corps, will spin up a branch responsible for that product and cut it off in case of the problems.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  That must become illegal at some point. I spin up a branch, take a billion in off the plan appartments deposits then declare that branch bankrupt while my agency branch rakes it in.
  - jwestbury 3y ago
    It's a legal grey area, generally. It's not uncommon for companies to utilise special-purpose vehicles/strategy bankruptcies to insulate themselves from the financial fallout of their actions, though.
- jonhohle 3y ago
  Insurance.
- jrockway 3y ago
  "Dear CEO, you will make license plates in this prison until the recycling is paid off."
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Aaaand [clicks fingers] you’re awake
- vidarh 3y ago
  You can tax the products at the time of sale for expected externalities. Then you can still let people run reclamation/returns themselves and claim against tax and be responsible for overruns. An example is the drinking container taxes in Norway, where single use containers are subjected to a graded tax depending on return rates. If the containers are part of approved returns schemes etc. and achieve 95%+ return rates you pay nothing. Below that the worse the return rates the higher the tax per unit (even if returned in other recycling). This gives an incentive to avoid containers that are not part of the recognised returns schemes. [Some returns schemes, like the bottle return scheme further applies a specific deposit amount per unit, so the amount added, or a portion of it, is recoverable for customers] While ensuring payment for returns processing is important, getting the cost of externalities pushed to the point of sale is also important, because it punishes you with higher prices for products that are hard to get decent return rates for.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

> frantically-cobbled dog shit And that's my suspicion about why open source often seems two steps behind: when it's in the open, you have to do it right and can't hide the bodies. Doing things right is hugely slower at first. It's only in the long run when doing it right pays off. Steady incremental progress outruns the FCDS junk when that inevitably reaps the whirlwind of the technical debt incurred during the initial breakneck development. Sometimes the FCDS is a consultancy deal from the outset and you cannot maintain the steaming bowl of canine leavings in front of you at all. Ever wonder why every now and again a serviceable, but clunky and unmaintained shovelware-like app (parking, alarm system, transport ticketing, that kind of thing) gets replaced with one that's basically the same but a different icon and a handful of trimmed features? New consultants just got done frantically cobbling it from scratch. This is clear in the app landscape, but hardware is often a similar consultancy thing.

memefrog 3y ago
Wait, wait, wait... Behind? If you'd asked me, I'd have said that's why open source always seems to be a step ahead! You're under no obligation to do things 'right', and worse is better. But free software means that you start from scratch much less often. You can take what already works and use it again and again in new products, and so can everyone else. Reusing the core of Linux in a billion small devices seems like a good idea to me.
- orev 3y ago
  I suspect your perspective is based on using well-established open source projects that have a long history and are popular enough to have reached critical mass. The reality is that most open source projects are playing catch-up, especially in the hardware space. Linux still has many issues with newer GPU drivers (binary blobs instead of actually OSS ones), and even a semi-popular project like OpenWRT doesn’t have WiFi 6E support, even though devices have been out for a while.
- jrockway 3y ago
  Yeah, especially in this space, open source is miles ahead. HomeKit seems to get worse with every release; HomeAssistant is a much better alternative.

hollow-moe 3y ago

Or any kind of product requiring a server, there's a lot of games heavily dependent on online features and when the online platform closes you lose of lot of features or even sometimes the best part of the game. You can still play Mario Kart Wii online today because someone saw the issue coming and reverse engineered the server code but it's not a viable solution

Gibbon1 3y ago

> "sensitive intellectual property" (frantically cobbled dog shit) portfolios That phrase always makes me think of crazy person that thinks you're coveting his shopping cart full of precious things. Or maybe as my dad alluded to, classified information usually means stuff that makes us look like lame and petty buffoons.

dwg 3y ago

I'm not saying they should not be required, as I have not thought about this deeply, but in whichever way I imagine this playing out, it seems likely to lead to situations in which people are using some device with a lot of security vulnerabilities that were made much easier to find and exploit once the code was opened up.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
An unmaintained device was always going to be a security problem; at least with open code and a way to install it there's a way to patch problems after the vendor stops providing fixes.
- dwg 3y ago
  I'm on the same page, but was wondering if there would be any concern about liability on the part of the company that released the code (mandatorily, as suggested).
fsflover 3y ago
Security through obscurity doesn't work.

harry8 3y ago

Especially so a utilities provider such as gas.

ProxCoques 3y ago

I agree, but suspect most such systems are using licences from other closed-source projects, IP from 3rd party agencies they commissioned, and stuff that may well have cross-licencing and other crap going on. I doubt a company like BG would do more than just glue together other people's stuff.

gadders 3y ago

This is often a factor with commercial contracts with a vendor - source code is put in "escrow" [1], to be released if the vendor goes bankrupt. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source_code_escrow

jojobas 3y ago

Unfortunately they "can't". A lot of the dog shit and the beaver snot that holds it together is licensed from third parties.

edrxty 3y ago
That's kinda what I'm getting at though. If you regulate that everything is going to be escrowed with a contingency (by which I mean guarantee) that it'll end up being forcibly released under GPL/whatever, you suddenly need to use components that are compatible. Short term this would be an e-waste bill, long term it would help strengthen the FOSS community and by extension the quality, speed of development, and general performance of the whole industry.

smashah 3y ago

This is why regulation is required to force companies to release feature-parity APIs and protect reverse engineering projects from legal threats.

segmondy 3y ago

It's a great idea! Lobby for it, contact a lawmaker and get a bill passed.