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They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use: disallow vertical integration. Force har

They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use: disallow vertical integration. Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. For vendors from abroad, don't go extra-territorial, just force them to chose: either they only sell hardware in the EU, or they only sell software. Intel and microsoft would have no problem. NVDIA might complain very loudly. Apple would likely have to split itself. Now the complicated part is how to define a company. We don't want a single company to just split itself into 2 legal entities that work so closely together they might as well be the same company. Do that, and you'll get much better than device drivers for one free OS. You'll get the necessary specs required to make it work on all OSes. Even better, the user-facing hardware interface will start to matter, and there will be some selection pressure to drive the more complex ones, or the non-standard ones, out of the market. (Won't be ideal, I can see a particular over-complex architecture win out, similar to x86, but at least there won't be that many left, so writing a driver for most devices will actually be possible).

gjsman-1000 3y ago
Sounds great - there’s just one problem: The desktop applications will still almost entirely be written for Windows. Or MacOS. Or Android. So yay, you can buy a device… and 99% of people will install the same OS on it that it would have originally come with anyway. What’s the point here? You’d have to say desktop apps must support all competing operating systems. But, hah, good luck with that.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  The hope is that hardware interfaces harmonise to the point where writing a new OS becomes actually possible. Right now it's not, there simply is too much diversity, and that's before we talk about all the quirks in hardware APIs vendors currently hide under the software rug. Then maybe, just maybe, we could start some real competition on the OS space. Even if that doesn't happen I would be happy with the end of vendor lock-in.
askonomm 3y ago
Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't want to give this up either just because Linux fanboys want to.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Circumstantially, yes. I am a KDE user though, on GNOME you do have to install a little app for it.
- oynqr 3y ago
  With those preconditons, it doesn't even work on Apple devices.
  - vesrah 3y ago
    What do you mean? This is what Universal Clipboard does.
    - alphager 3y ago
      Pretty sure you had to configure both devices for it to work.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        No, just sign into both of them with your iCloud account
        abenga 3y ago
        It obviously uses "a program, a hack, or configuration" (taking these from the original reply), just that they are written and pre-installed by Apple, and work seamlessly.
kanbara 3y ago
terrible idea. people buy apple products precisely because of how integrated they are. this idealism and desire to force companies to support everything (as much as i want gaming on mac/linux and drivers for things supported) is the single most dangerous idea that would completely ruin the user experience for millions.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  > this idealism and desire to force companies to support everything I'm sorry, where did I proposed we do that? As far as I am aware my proposal would only force Apples to split itself in 2: a hardware company that sells top notch hardware (so top notch in fact that even the hardware interfaces are as clean and slick as an iPad's case), and a software company that sells a top-notch integrated software suite on whatever hardware they chose to support (and no other hardware). This idea that Apple's hardware is somehow better because they don't publish their spec sounds incoherent to be honest. As is the idea that their software is better because it runs on company hardware. If there's still a company selling good hardware, one can still write good software for that particular hardware. So… forcing hardware companies to support all software? Nope, though publishing their spec does automatically provide some level of support for arbitrary software. Forcing software companies to support all hardware? No more than they do now, possibly even less: hardware vendors will be incentivised to harmonise their respective interfaces to appeal to a maximum number of software vendors, so software vendors will be incentivised to support a relatively limited set of interfaces.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    Why split the company? What does that do?
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      I'm not proposing that we split companies. I proposing that no company that sells hardware be allowed to distribute software, and no company that distributes software be allowed to sell hardware. The Apple split is only a consequence of that. As would be the likely end of locked down game consoles, now that I think of it. What I'm hoping to accomplish with this is: reduced or eliminated vendor lock-in, harmonisation and simplification of ISAs, the ability to support any hardware in any OS, and maybe even the the ability to actually write new OSes and see some real competition in this space. Note one important component I haven't mentioned: ISA patents should be rendered null and void. Anyone should be allowed to design, make, and sell an ARM or x86 CPU without asking anyone's permission. Or a GPU clone, or a network card clone, etc. Without that we'll just strengthen monopolies, or maybe allow new ones to arise.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
rather than "disallow vertical integration", start with "disallow lock-out". By all means, vertically integrate as much as you want but it should not be illegal for someone to take your hardware and use it for another purpose that you have no say in, or write and run software using your hardware without you having a say in that.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  Yeah, someone on that Reddit thread said it right - force the companies to publish documentation for the interfaces. Let the hackers write the drivers without painful, slow and error-prone reverse engineering.
  - TheRealPomax 3y ago
    I wouldn't even go that far: by all means, don't publish your interfaces, but if someone reverse engineers them: legalize that. And don't offer tax cuts to companies that don't publish their schematics and interfaces.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  It would be more prudent indeed to just force hardware vendors to release the specs, and it would be even more prudent still to just disallow lock-out. I would start there like you suggest. I do suspect however that we'd miss out on many benefits if we don't go all the way the way to disallowing vertical integration eventually. It's also something I rarely see spoken of.
- midoridensha 3y ago
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scarface_74 3y ago
I know no other way to say this. But this idea is just dumb. The entire value proposition would be worse for everyone. Software and hardware integration is what makes a product better.
- yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
  > Software and hardware integration is what makes a product better. ... Except for the times when it makes things worse.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    And when would that be?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      I suppose I should say forced integration; ex. see the recent nonsense with Hue deciding you need an account to control your local lightbulbs, which isn't a problem with third party apps. I'm generally skeptical of vertical integration because of lock in, but if it's not forced it's less obviously bad.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        If only adults had agency to make their own decisions about lightbulbs without depending on the government…
        yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        What decision would those adults make? The vendor changed the deal after the sale.
        ClumsyPilot 3y ago
        If only adults had the agency to make their own decision about how to deal with corporate malfeasance. Like back in the good old days when lynching was an option. /s
unix_fan 3y ago
This would be terrible for specialized hardware, such as assistive technology. Open source software doesn’t really exist for it because there is simply no interest.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  We could carve out exceptions for specific niches. Ugly, but could work. Who says the software has to be open? It would be better for sure, but companies may be interested in selling software for assistive technologies. Interest may go up if the barrier to entry lowers. Undocumented hardware is quite the turn off.
  - unix_fan 3y ago
    You can't really sell software for running a braille display on its own, for example. As for interest going up, I doubt that very much, as linux is still lacking good vision accessibility, such as a screen reader that doesn't brake with every update to the gnome desktop. windows and macOS figured that one out years ago, and the only decent open source screen reader is windows only.
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      Braille displays were precisely on my mind: there is a sizeable community of blind programmers out there. And realistically: how hard could it be to operate such a device? The thing is basically a super-low resolution screen with an abysmal refresh rate. A sufficient design could be a serial interface where you send all the pixels in a single packet. Or perhaps we could go fancy with modifying single characters or shifting the display left or right… done right, writing a driver for this thing is nearly trivial, to the point of being possible in user-space. One reason for the blight of the blind here is the ludicrous complexity of the software, much of it comes from the ludicrous complexity and diversity of hardware interfaces, such that there is no competition and everything is terrible. Most people however sharply underestimate the mountain of avoidable complexity we've accreted over the decades. I would situate it between 99% and 99.9% for personal computing. No silver bullet perhaps, but I know almost for a fact that there's enough silver dust around to gather 2 or 3 bullets.
chme 3y ago
I get you in principle, but the company should still be allowed to sell hardware with some default software installed, because if I had to search for someone on the internet that wrote software for my specific smart TV, washing machine or whatever this becomes much more painful. I would rather see a 'right to repair' extended to software bundled. Any device or software that can connect to a network or can be interfaced with in any way is prone to security (or any other) bugs, which the customer should have the right to fix themselves, because they bought it, and in order to do so, the company needs to hand out the source code and documentation for all their devices. Also about vendor writing Linux drivers, you probably don't want them too, there are already vendor board support packages (BSP) out there that enabled their hardware on Linux, but those are overwhelmingly abysmal in quality. What you rather want is for vendors to upstream their driver into the kernel, so that it is properly integrated, doesn't break the hardware of others and has a high quality, but that process is not something you can regulate and force.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  Of course your hardware would come with software installed! That software would simply be written by a separate company. We already do this! HP didn't write Windows, but they sure as hell sell laptops with Windows preinstalled.
  - chme 3y ago
    I still don't get how that would solve the issue of having no linux drivers. Lets say I create a new GPU IP core, i give it to a third-party chip manifactorer to produce it, then that delivers it to a fourth-party to burn a privat key into the fuses, then a fifth party signs its firmware with that key, which contains checks that Windows is running in secure boot mode with Microsoft keys. And then it is sold to the end user via a distributor, which did't do any other work on it. How would preventing a 'vertical' integration forbid that? I would rather just regulate that users should be given the full specs and possibility to use their own keys, to allow them to run their own software on/with it without any feature gates to the hardware. This can be argued for as a right to repair or as giving devices a second life and thus reducing electronic waste. Your rule would likely make the work of smaller companies and startups more difficult, if they have to hire a third-party to write the software. A solo dev might has to create two companies in order to create one product, that seems painful. I guess a lot of OSH projects would not be possible with that rule.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
You'd have to define "hardware" in a rather interesting way for that to have any hope of working. Consider any sort of user-facing device (say, an electronic toy, or a music performance device, or for that matter, even a phone). These are all aggregates of hardware made by other companies. Yet they are also hardware. Being unable to develop such devices along with the firmware that runs them would make it more or less impossible to develop them at all. So where does "hardware" stop and "device" start?
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  Let's say one wants to make hardware made of 3 pieces of hardware that talk to each other. They may need to write firmware to do that. At a first approximation, I would say one of the following should apply: Either the firmware can be modified by the user, or remotely, in which case it should not be shipped. Or it is an implementation detail of the communication between the 3 pieces of hardware, not reasonably modifiable without returning the whole thing to the factory, in which case that firmware is actually part of the 3-piece hardware, and can be shipped.
  - crote 3y ago
    But it is often both. Just because it is essential for proper operation and therefore an implementation detail, doesn't mean it cannot be updated. Even a device as trivial as a keyboard, mouse, or SSD drive has firmware which can be updated. Shipping them without firmware would be completely ludicrous, and you'd basically buy a fancy brick. Hell, you need to flash firmware onto it in the factory to make future updates by the user possible!
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      The prudent manufacturer makes sure that some of the firmware is truly immutable, to prevent bricking the device if some firmware version is botched enough. I'm not proposing that no hardware ships with firmware. I'm proposing the hardware manufacturer choses: enable updates and don't ship the parts that can be updated, or disable updates entirely.
vegetablepotpie 3y ago
I like this idea because it’s incredibly American. If we’re going to go full on free-market, we might as well live up to those principles. There is precedent for this idea, in 1948 the Supreme Court forced the film studios to give up exhibition (theaters) with the paramount decision. This enabled the rise of independent film, and audiences benefited from more choice. If you try to do this legislatively the Apples and the NVidias of the world will hire an army of lobbyists and storm Capitol Hill. But it might be to their benefit. After the breakup of Standard Oil, John Rockefeller became richer because competition forced out the less efficient portions of his old business from the market. It’s true that it could temporarily degrade the user experience of some people, but that’s a small price to pay. People who give up liberty for safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  There are so many flawed analogies here it’s hard to know where to start. How will it make my everyday experience better as an Apple customer without the integration of software and hardware between my Mac, iPads Watch, Airpods and phone? Windows laptops are worse in every vector than MacBooks. No consumer is asking for this. So you want to degrade the user experience for “freedom” by giving the government more power???
  - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
    > Windows laptops are worse in every vector than MacBooks. Plainly not true. Some are better hardware/quality wise. All are better when it comes to freedom with what you can actually do with the device.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      Is there one Windows laptop that can get 14 hours of battery life, fanless and that runs at a decent speed?
      - PrimeMcFly 3y ago
thomastjeffery 3y ago
We live with such an extreme amount of vertical integration today that people actually believe it is benefiting them. Every time I see an Amazon delivery truck, part of me dies inside.
osigurdson 3y ago
In practice, what fines would hardware manufacturers be held liable for for any bugs in their specifications? How do we conclude that, yes, a hardware manufacturer hasn’t lived up to the regulation? Perhaps the operating system is “using it wrong”. Do governments have entire departments running tests on these devices?
- deleted 3y ago
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- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  That's in part why I didn't propose that we force manufacturers to specify their products, but simply make sure that if they don't, nobody would want to use their product. Who would buy a CPU they don't know the ISA of? Forcing the separation between software and hardware companies may be more stringent, but it may be simpler to enforce, and likely even more effective at making sure the hardware is humanely specified than direct regulation would be.
jacquesm 3y ago
I really like this. Other than an upvote I would very much like to express my support for this idea and I hope someone with connections to the halls of power passes it on, there is a lot of merit to this. It would immediately result in hardware manufacturers having to document each and every input and output of their hardware if they expect any sales at all and it would also do an end run around various monopolies. Check out the idiocy around Broadcomm's WiFi/Bluetooth drivers on the Mac, it's absolute insanity, there are so many of them that to install Linux on one of the machines with such a chipset you need to copy your drivers from the Mac operating system (if you still have it installed...) in order to give Linux the ability to load firmware onto the devices so that they can work. Three different files iirc.
tbrownaw 3y ago
> either they only sell hardware in the EU, or they only sell software. Intel and microsoft would have no problem. Intel has microcode. Microsoft has Xbox which I'd guess would have issues getting game releases if excluded from a decent-sized market. Also. My phone (hardware) came with an OS (software) already installed. As do other pre-assembled computers.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  Microcode can be non-configurable. I'm willing to sacrifice the business model of game consoles. I hate OEM deals, it just propagates the current monopolies and oligopolies. I'm okay with forcing everyone to buy their phone or laptop separately from the OS.
  - tbrownaw 3y ago
    > Microcode can be non-configurable. Some of the Spectre bugs were patched via microcode. That seems like a rather useful ability to have.
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      It is a useful ability, and I’m still willing to sacrifice it. I’m afraid that allowing updatable firmware to be part of the hardware will just allow hardware companies to get sloppy, not to mention the freedom we could lose if that firmware is proprietary. If hardware is (by law) immutable, then it’s pretty clear it’d better work from day one. No last minute patch, it has to work, or it won’t sell. This will drive up the costs, as well as the selling price, but if it means hardware will work out of the box more often than it does now I’m willing to pay that cost.
deleted 3y ago
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Someone 3y ago
> Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. So, I would go buy a smartphone at a shop, and then buy an OS to run on it at another shop? Or would it be allowed for a third party to integrate the two and sell me a working phone? Also, would “any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits” mean Intel/Samsung/… couldn’t sell CPUs with microcode installed, or even write microcode? It may be hard to legally define where the border between “software that’s part of the hardware” and “software.” lies. > You'll get the necessary specs required to make it work on all OSes I don’t see how that follows. Software company C could pay hardware company H to build hardware according to specs they give, with the specs under NDA, possibly even forbidding H to sell that hardware design to others than C. I think banning trade secrets (https://www.wipo.int/tradesecrets/en/tradesecrets_faqs.html https://www.wipo.int/tradesecrets/en/tradesecrets_faqs.html) on the interface between software and hardware, rather than splitting companies into hardware and software parts is the way to achieve your goals.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  > So, I would go buy a smartphone at a shop, and then buy an OS to run on it at another shop? Good point, by default you would. Perhaps allowing some third party to bundle the two could be a nice convenience, but then we must make absolutely sure that they never sell the bundle for less than the separate parts, that would be anti-competitive. Also, I'm sick of paying for a Windows copy I never use. I'd very much like to see the OEM deals Microsoft make with laptop vendors just die. > Also, would “any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits” mean Intel/Samsung/… couldn’t sell CPUs with microcode installed, or even write microcode? Depends whether that microcode can be changed by the user or remotely, or if doing so basically means returning the CPU to the factory. If it can conveniently be changed, that's software, and the actual interface to the CPU is not the final ISA, but how to encode that micro-code to make the final ISA. If however the microcode is etched or locked, then it's part of the hardware. Another example would be an FPGA implementation of a RISC-V core: if the bitstream is locked into the NVCM it can no longer be modified, and thus counts as hardware. But if it's in the easily rewritable SPI flash, then it's software, and it can't be bundled with the FPGA itself. While I'm not absolutely certain my border is the right one, I believe it's at least one that can be fairly easily delimited. > Software company C could pay hardware company H to build hardware according to specs they give, with the specs under NDA, possibly even forbidding H to sell that hardware design to others than C. Correct, some trade secrets need to be banned. Even further, I would void all ISA related patents and copyright. Specifically, cloning the functionality of any piece of hardware should be allowed, similar to how the IBM PC was cloned. Note thought that splitting the activities is still worth it: when software is bundled with the hardware, we still need exploitable specs. Banning trade secrets doesn't force vendors to disclose them, and even if they do disclose them, nothing forces them to make especially readable beyond regulatory mandate, and nothing forces them to simplify their hardware interfaces. Exposing hardware interfaces to the competition however may provide very strong incentive to improve not only the hardware, but it's programming interfaces as well.
amelius 3y ago
Yes, and I'd also like hardware and software companies to not have access to my data. E.g. Google should be split into hardware, software, and data companies.
gigatexal 3y ago
What if we allow hardware manufacturers to create software to run their hardware but open the schematics and make the hardware hackable such that others can run software they want? That seems like a decent compromise because there’s very little margin in hardware alone and if you force hardware makers to go that route pretty soon there won’t be any because they’ll all have gone out of business.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  Hardware manufacturers can’t all go out of business. We need hardware at some point. Some might, but what I’m proposing would drive up costs for everyone. Most likely, prices will just go up a little bit. Allowing hardware manufacturers to ship their own software, even if that software must be free, even if the hardware specs must be released, will still allow them to ship crappy hardware interfaces and compensate that with bloated software. I’m also afraid some manufacturer would try to game the system, with, say, tweaking the instruction set of every new GPU so third party drivers can’t really keep up.
  - gigatexal 3y ago
    But if it’s open installing your own, open, on-bloatware software would be easy. That’s not the case now … but it could be. Hardware vendors then that install the vanilla, non-bloatware software will be seen as a feature. You can see this now: Google ships vanilla Android whereas some of the Android phone manufacturers ship it with their own crapware. Or on the other end of the spectrum Apple ships MacOS without advertising garbage but vanilla Windows ships games and ads in the start menu. So I don’t really see how your argument stands.
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      Yeah, the part about gaming the system may not actually apply. Now, bloated software is still bloated software, even if it's open. I guess that with the sources the community can make it better, but there's still a limit to how well they can do: the hardware interface itself. It's a long tradition in hardware design to ship crappy interfaces and just say the software folks will make it nice. But if all you ship is the hardware, the interfaces have to be nice, else it will be harder to program for, and that definitely influences the ultimate success of the platform. See game consoles, I believe those who have a reputation of being hard to program tend to sell less (because they have fewer or worse games).
stainablesteel 3y ago
interesting premise, but i ultimately think this would be worse for the tech by forcing them to play in a limited playing field that doesn't have parallel in other businesses, does it?
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  Oh but it does have parallel in other businesses. Splitting oil companies being one of the oldest examples. Rockefeller reportedly became richer as a result, so it wasn't even a socialist move. Another feature of forbidding vertical integration is that is prevents companies from competing with their own customers.
  - stainablesteel 3y ago
    i don't think your examples are great examples but i immediately disagreed with myself after posting because i don't think hospitals can make their own drugs. or rather, if a drug manufacturer owned a hospital and a health insurance company this might be considered a conflict of interest i still don't think its a great example given this one comes from an ethical basis but this is more apt
    - loup-vaillant 3y ago
      I have yet to really flesh out my proposal, but ethics does come into play. Walled gardens for instance, are in part enabled by hardware/software bundles.
crote 3y ago
This is completely impossible with any hardware made in the last 20 years or so. The problem is that you cannot make a hard distinction between hardware and software. An Intel CPU simply isn't going to run without microcode, and having to get rid of microcode would easily set back chip design by a decade. Even something as trivial as a USB cable isn't pure hardware anymore. It has a programmable eMarker in order to advertise its capabilities, so it is also a combination of hardware and software. Everything but completely trivial chips has some kind of computation embedded in it, requiring some firmware. Chips are complicated and weird. Pretty much nobody writes code which directly interacts with hardware. Even people who write code for embedded microprocessors will use an SDK provided by the chip manufacturer to smooth out the nastiest details. How's that supposed to work when the hardware vendor can no longer provide any software? And then there's the question of what exactly constitutes "firmware". Is code in a separate programmable flash chip okay if they hardwire the Write Protect pin? What if the exact same code is stored in programmable space in the MCU itself? Is it fine to place that code in One-Time-Programmable memory? Bake it into the chip during wafer manufacturing? If anything, being able to update the firmware in the field is better for the consumer when it comes to fixing bugs.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  > The problem is that you cannot make a hard distinction between hardware and software. An Intel CPU simply isn't going to run without microcode, and having to get rid of microcode would easily set back chip design by a decade. Yes you can make the distinction, and no it doesn't require getting rid of the microcode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 Simply put, if the microcode can be updated by the user or remotely by Intel, then it count as "software", and Intel should stop shipping it. But if those update are either impossible or require a factory recall, then it's "hardware", and Intel can happily continue to ship it. The same logic applies to the USB cable, and even FPGA: if the bitstream is locked into the NVCM, that's hardware. If it's merely written in the rewritable SPI flash, that's software. It's not a property of the bitstream itself, it's a property of how it is stored. Obviously the cost of micro-code bugs will sharply increase. That's kind of a feature though: now hardware vendors must be really careful.
olliej 3y ago
So your saying apple would have to stop making operating systems? Or are you saying Qualcomm would be required to not provide drivers? This is a super dumb take, like beyond stupid, and I get that it’s directed at apple. Here’s the thing: since day 1 apple has been a hardware company, and what makes hardware good or bad is often the software that drives runs it. That goes for every product apple makes. The idea that you can remove one half of that from the other is beyond stupid.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  The same people who are currently working on hardware for Apple would be working for a new company that makes hardware, and the new Apple Software Co. would continue to work with those people just as closely as they always have. The only difference is that Microsoft Windows, Linux kernel devs, etc. would also be able to work with that hardware company to get their OS working on that hardware. The hardware company would not be allowed to keep secrets between itself and Apple.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  > * So your saying apple would have to stop making operating systems?* No. That's only 1 of 3 alternatives, the other 2 being stop making hardware, or split in 2. > Or are you saying Qualcomm would be required to not provide drivers? Yes. They'd have to provide an actual manual for a change. > This is a super dumb take, like beyond stupid, and I get that it’s directed at apple. It's not. Many more would have to rethink their entire business model.
KirillPanov 3y ago
> Now the complicated part is how to define a company. We don't want a single company to just split itself into 2 legal entities HN routinely seems unaware that this is a totally solved problem in the tax law of virtually every industrialized country. In the US, for example, the phrase is "Common Control": https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.414(c)-2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.414(c)-2 All sorts of modern tax schemes would have truck-sized loopholes without a rigorous definition of Common Control. It's already in the tax code of every industrialized country (possibly under a different name). All you have to do is reference it. The necessary definitions have been in the tax codes since the 1980s. I'm kind of annoyed at how often this "but but but two companies with overlapping owners yadda yadda" comes up. Go ahead try that on the IRS and see how it works out for you.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  I should have thought of those issues, thank you. I’ll look up this "Common Control".
pasabagi 3y ago
It's a cool idea, but where do you draw the line? Where do you place something like microcode? Depending on how you design a computer, you can have software almost all the way down.
- loup-vaillant 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 I draw the line at "can it be updated without returning to the factory?" If microcode can be updated by the user (or remotely by Intel), it’s software. If it’s immutable then its hardware. If an FPGA bitstream (say a RISC-V soft core) is locked into the FPGA’s NVCM, then it can no longer be modified, and it counts as hardware. If however it is merely stored in the SPI flash and can be modified, then it’s software.
doctor_radium 3y ago
An alternate paradigm? 20 years ago I mused over a law called the "Operating System Fairness Act", designed to level the playing field, mostly for smaller OS's. It's nowhere as revolutionary as separating hw development from sw development, but may thus be more realistic. One clause (of maybe six) concerned "Forced licensing of must-have drivers, algorithms, codecs, file formats, etc. to any viable OS, and for a price that market can bear". At the time I was thinking of technologies like the Unisys GIF patent, Flash, various audio and video codecs, and peripheral drivers. If not having a technology makes an OS vitally less useful and appealing to a user then there's potentially a path to developer documentation. Who decides? I think the current system for DMCA exemptions works pretty well (noting that I despise the DMCA), so maybe a branch of the US Copyright Office or another government's similar branch? A viable OS is one with a notable following and which can use the technology. If I write RadiumOS for myself, that doesn't count. Likewise Widevine for the Atari 800 is out. But Linux anything would, the BSD family, and Amiga, BeOS/Haiku, etc. would have a fair shot. Making a free, public developers kit is always better, but offering an NDA to a developer representing each OS family would likely be common. No, it wouldn't be an instantaneous process, yes, there would be paperwork and maybe a lawyer involved, but the burden has to be bearable for each OS/developer. If you're Apple wanting the MS Office file formats, MS is allowed to charge a not insignificant amount, but if you're a free, open source OS, then the cost would be either free or nearly so. Not every vendor in a field would be cracked open. If AMD is very friendly to developers, then Nvidia could keep their video drivers proprietary. With all the OSS available today vs. 20 years ago, something like this is maybe a bit less useful, but IMHO still a significant step forward, and a hedge against companies suddenly taking their specs private.

gjsman-1000 3y ago

Sounds great - there’s just one problem: The desktop applications will still almost entirely be written for Windows. Or MacOS. Or Android. So yay, you can buy a device… and 99% of people will install the same OS on it that it would have originally come with anyway. What’s the point here? You’d have to say desktop apps must support all competing operating systems. But, hah, good luck with that.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
The hope is that hardware interfaces harmonise to the point where writing a new OS becomes actually possible. Right now it's not, there simply is too much diversity, and that's before we talk about all the quirks in hardware APIs vendors currently hide under the software rug. Then maybe, just maybe, we could start some real competition on the OS space. Even if that doesn't happen I would be happy with the end of vendor lock-in.

askonomm 3y ago

Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration between hardware and software like exists right now outside of the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't want to give this up either just because Linux fanboys want to.

smoldesu 3y ago
> Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs needed? Circumstantially, yes. I am a KDE user though, on GNOME you do have to install a little app for it.
oynqr 3y ago
With those preconditons, it doesn't even work on Apple devices.
- vesrah 3y ago
  What do you mean? This is what Universal Clipboard does.
  - alphager 3y ago
    Pretty sure you had to configure both devices for it to work.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      No, just sign into both of them with your iCloud account
      - abenga 3y ago
        It obviously uses "a program, a hack, or configuration" (taking these from the original reply), just that they are written and pre-installed by Apple, and work seamlessly.

kanbara 3y ago

terrible idea. people buy apple products precisely because of how integrated they are. this idealism and desire to force companies to support everything (as much as i want gaming on mac/linux and drivers for things supported) is the single most dangerous idea that would completely ruin the user experience for millions.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
> this idealism and desire to force companies to support everything I'm sorry, where did I proposed we do that? As far as I am aware my proposal would only force Apples to split itself in 2: a hardware company that sells top notch hardware (so top notch in fact that even the hardware interfaces are as clean and slick as an iPad's case), and a software company that sells a top-notch integrated software suite on whatever hardware they chose to support (and no other hardware). This idea that Apple's hardware is somehow better because they don't publish their spec sounds incoherent to be honest. As is the idea that their software is better because it runs on company hardware. If there's still a company selling good hardware, one can still write good software for that particular hardware. So… forcing hardware companies to support all software? Nope, though publishing their spec does automatically provide some level of support for arbitrary software. Forcing software companies to support all hardware? No more than they do now, possibly even less: hardware vendors will be incentivised to harmonise their respective interfaces to appeal to a maximum number of software vendors, so software vendors will be incentivised to support a relatively limited set of interfaces.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  Why split the company? What does that do?
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    I'm not proposing that we split companies. I proposing that no company that sells hardware be allowed to distribute software, and no company that distributes software be allowed to sell hardware. The Apple split is only a consequence of that. As would be the likely end of locked down game consoles, now that I think of it. What I'm hoping to accomplish with this is: reduced or eliminated vendor lock-in, harmonisation and simplification of ISAs, the ability to support any hardware in any OS, and maybe even the the ability to actually write new OSes and see some real competition in this space. Note one important component I haven't mentioned: ISA patents should be rendered null and void. Anyone should be allowed to design, make, and sell an ARM or x86 CPU without asking anyone's permission. Or a GPU clone, or a network card clone, etc. Without that we'll just strengthen monopolies, or maybe allow new ones to arise.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

rather than "disallow vertical integration", start with "disallow lock-out". By all means, vertically integrate as much as you want but it should not be illegal for someone to take your hardware and use it for another purpose that you have no say in, or write and run software using your hardware without you having a say in that.

cassianoleal 3y ago
Yeah, someone on that Reddit thread said it right - force the companies to publish documentation for the interfaces. Let the hackers write the drivers without painful, slow and error-prone reverse engineering.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  I wouldn't even go that far: by all means, don't publish your interfaces, but if someone reverse engineers them: legalize that. And don't offer tax cuts to companies that don't publish their schematics and interfaces.
loup-vaillant 3y ago
It would be more prudent indeed to just force hardware vendors to release the specs, and it would be even more prudent still to just disallow lock-out. I would start there like you suggest. I do suspect however that we'd miss out on many benefits if we don't go all the way the way to disallowing vertical integration eventually. It's also something I rarely see spoken of.
midoridensha 3y ago
[dead]

scarface_74 3y ago

I know no other way to say this. But this idea is just dumb. The entire value proposition would be worse for everyone. Software and hardware integration is what makes a product better.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
> Software and hardware integration is what makes a product better. ... Except for the times when it makes things worse.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  And when would that be?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    I suppose I should say forced integration; ex. see the recent nonsense with Hue deciding you need an account to control your local lightbulbs, which isn't a problem with third party apps. I'm generally skeptical of vertical integration because of lock in, but if it's not forced it's less obviously bad.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      If only adults had agency to make their own decisions about lightbulbs without depending on the government…
      - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        What decision would those adults make? The vendor changed the deal after the sale.
      - ClumsyPilot 3y ago
        If only adults had the agency to make their own decision about how to deal with corporate malfeasance. Like back in the good old days when lynching was an option. /s

unix_fan 3y ago

This would be terrible for specialized hardware, such as assistive technology. Open source software doesn’t really exist for it because there is simply no interest.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
We could carve out exceptions for specific niches. Ugly, but could work. Who says the software has to be open? It would be better for sure, but companies may be interested in selling software for assistive technologies. Interest may go up if the barrier to entry lowers. Undocumented hardware is quite the turn off.
- unix_fan 3y ago
  You can't really sell software for running a braille display on its own, for example. As for interest going up, I doubt that very much, as linux is still lacking good vision accessibility, such as a screen reader that doesn't brake with every update to the gnome desktop. windows and macOS figured that one out years ago, and the only decent open source screen reader is windows only.
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    Braille displays were precisely on my mind: there is a sizeable community of blind programmers out there. And realistically: how hard could it be to operate such a device? The thing is basically a super-low resolution screen with an abysmal refresh rate. A sufficient design could be a serial interface where you send all the pixels in a single packet. Or perhaps we could go fancy with modifying single characters or shifting the display left or right… done right, writing a driver for this thing is nearly trivial, to the point of being possible in user-space. One reason for the blight of the blind here is the ludicrous complexity of the software, much of it comes from the ludicrous complexity and diversity of hardware interfaces, such that there is no competition and everything is terrible. Most people however sharply underestimate the mountain of avoidable complexity we've accreted over the decades. I would situate it between 99% and 99.9% for personal computing. No silver bullet perhaps, but I know almost for a fact that there's enough silver dust around to gather 2 or 3 bullets.

chme 3y ago

I get you in principle, but the company should still be allowed to sell hardware with some default software installed, because if I had to search for someone on the internet that wrote software for my specific smart TV, washing machine or whatever this becomes much more painful. I would rather see a 'right to repair' extended to software bundled. Any device or software that can connect to a network or can be interfaced with in any way is prone to security (or any other) bugs, which the customer should have the right to fix themselves, because they bought it, and in order to do so, the company needs to hand out the source code and documentation for all their devices. Also about vendor writing Linux drivers, you probably don't want them too, there are already vendor board support packages (BSP) out there that enabled their hardware on Linux, but those are overwhelmingly abysmal in quality. What you rather want is for vendors to upstream their driver into the kernel, so that it is properly integrated, doesn't break the hardware of others and has a high quality, but that process is not something you can regulate and force.

thomastjeffery 3y ago
Of course your hardware would come with software installed! That software would simply be written by a separate company. We already do this! HP didn't write Windows, but they sure as hell sell laptops with Windows preinstalled.
- chme 3y ago
  I still don't get how that would solve the issue of having no linux drivers. Lets say I create a new GPU IP core, i give it to a third-party chip manifactorer to produce it, then that delivers it to a fourth-party to burn a privat key into the fuses, then a fifth party signs its firmware with that key, which contains checks that Windows is running in secure boot mode with Microsoft keys. And then it is sold to the end user via a distributor, which did't do any other work on it. How would preventing a 'vertical' integration forbid that? I would rather just regulate that users should be given the full specs and possibility to use their own keys, to allow them to run their own software on/with it without any feature gates to the hardware. This can be argued for as a right to repair or as giving devices a second life and thus reducing electronic waste. Your rule would likely make the work of smaller companies and startups more difficult, if they have to hire a third-party to write the software. A solo dev might has to create two companies in order to create one product, that seems painful. I guess a lot of OSH projects would not be possible with that rule.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

You'd have to define "hardware" in a rather interesting way for that to have any hope of working. Consider any sort of user-facing device (say, an electronic toy, or a music performance device, or for that matter, even a phone). These are all aggregates of hardware made by other companies. Yet they are also hardware. Being unable to develop such devices along with the firmware that runs them would make it more or less impossible to develop them at all. So where does "hardware" stop and "device" start?

loup-vaillant 3y ago
Let's say one wants to make hardware made of 3 pieces of hardware that talk to each other. They may need to write firmware to do that. At a first approximation, I would say one of the following should apply: Either the firmware can be modified by the user, or remotely, in which case it should not be shipped. Or it is an implementation detail of the communication between the 3 pieces of hardware, not reasonably modifiable without returning the whole thing to the factory, in which case that firmware is actually part of the 3-piece hardware, and can be shipped.
- crote 3y ago
  But it is often both. Just because it is essential for proper operation and therefore an implementation detail, doesn't mean it cannot be updated. Even a device as trivial as a keyboard, mouse, or SSD drive has firmware which can be updated. Shipping them without firmware would be completely ludicrous, and you'd basically buy a fancy brick. Hell, you need to flash firmware onto it in the factory to make future updates by the user possible!
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    The prudent manufacturer makes sure that some of the firmware is truly immutable, to prevent bricking the device if some firmware version is botched enough. I'm not proposing that no hardware ships with firmware. I'm proposing the hardware manufacturer choses: enable updates and don't ship the parts that can be updated, or disable updates entirely.

vegetablepotpie 3y ago

I like this idea because it’s incredibly American. If we’re going to go full on free-market, we might as well live up to those principles. There is precedent for this idea, in 1948 the Supreme Court forced the film studios to give up exhibition (theaters) with the paramount decision. This enabled the rise of independent film, and audiences benefited from more choice. If you try to do this legislatively the Apples and the NVidias of the world will hire an army of lobbyists and storm Capitol Hill. But it might be to their benefit. After the breakup of Standard Oil, John Rockefeller became richer because competition forced out the less efficient portions of his old business from the market. It’s true that it could temporarily degrade the user experience of some people, but that’s a small price to pay. People who give up liberty for safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

scarface_74 3y ago
There are so many flawed analogies here it’s hard to know where to start. How will it make my everyday experience better as an Apple customer without the integration of software and hardware between my Mac, iPads Watch, Airpods and phone? Windows laptops are worse in every vector than MacBooks. No consumer is asking for this. So you want to degrade the user experience for “freedom” by giving the government more power???
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  > Windows laptops are worse in every vector than MacBooks. Plainly not true. Some are better hardware/quality wise. All are better when it comes to freedom with what you can actually do with the device.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Is there one Windows laptop that can get 14 hours of battery life, fanless and that runs at a decent speed?
    - PrimeMcFly 3y ago

thomastjeffery 3y ago

We live with such an extreme amount of vertical integration today that people actually believe it is benefiting them. Every time I see an Amazon delivery truck, part of me dies inside.

osigurdson 3y ago

In practice, what fines would hardware manufacturers be held liable for for any bugs in their specifications? How do we conclude that, yes, a hardware manufacturer hasn’t lived up to the regulation? Perhaps the operating system is “using it wrong”. Do governments have entire departments running tests on these devices?

deleted 3y ago
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loup-vaillant 3y ago
That's in part why I didn't propose that we force manufacturers to specify their products, but simply make sure that if they don't, nobody would want to use their product. Who would buy a CPU they don't know the ISA of? Forcing the separation between software and hardware companies may be more stringent, but it may be simpler to enforce, and likely even more effective at making sure the hardware is humanely specified than direct regulation would be.

jacquesm 3y ago

I really like this. Other than an upvote I would very much like to express my support for this idea and I hope someone with connections to the halls of power passes it on, there is a lot of merit to this. It would immediately result in hardware manufacturers having to document each and every input and output of their hardware if they expect any sales at all and it would also do an end run around various monopolies. Check out the idiocy around Broadcomm's WiFi/Bluetooth drivers on the Mac, it's absolute insanity, there are so many of them that to install Linux on one of the machines with such a chipset you need to copy your drivers from the Mac operating system (if you still have it installed...) in order to give Linux the ability to load firmware onto the devices so that they can work. Three different files iirc.

tbrownaw 3y ago

> either they only sell hardware in the EU, or they only sell software. Intel and microsoft would have no problem. Intel has microcode. Microsoft has Xbox which I'd guess would have issues getting game releases if excluded from a decent-sized market. Also. My phone (hardware) came with an OS (software) already installed. As do other pre-assembled computers.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
Microcode can be non-configurable. I'm willing to sacrifice the business model of game consoles. I hate OEM deals, it just propagates the current monopolies and oligopolies. I'm okay with forcing everyone to buy their phone or laptop separately from the OS.
- tbrownaw 3y ago
  > Microcode can be non-configurable. Some of the Spectre bugs were patched via microcode. That seems like a rather useful ability to have.
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    It is a useful ability, and I’m still willing to sacrifice it. I’m afraid that allowing updatable firmware to be part of the hardware will just allow hardware companies to get sloppy, not to mention the freedom we could lose if that firmware is proprietary. If hardware is (by law) immutable, then it’s pretty clear it’d better work from day one. No last minute patch, it has to work, or it won’t sell. This will drive up the costs, as well as the selling price, but if it means hardware will work out of the box more often than it does now I’m willing to pay that cost.

deleted 3y ago

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Someone 3y ago

> Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely distribute) software. So, I would go buy a smartphone at a shop, and then buy an OS to run on it at another shop? Or would it be allowed for a third party to integrate the two and sell me a working phone? Also, would “any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits” mean Intel/Samsung/… couldn’t sell CPUs with microcode installed, or even write microcode? It may be hard to legally define where the border between “software that’s part of the hardware” and “software.” lies. > You'll get the necessary specs required to make it work on all OSes I don’t see how that follows. Software company C could pay hardware company H to build hardware according to specs they give, with the specs under NDA, possibly even forbidding H to sell that hardware design to others than C. I think banning trade secrets (https://www.wipo.int/tradesecrets/en/tradesecrets_faqs.html https://www.wipo.int/tradesecrets/en/tradesecrets_faqs.html) on the interface between software and hardware, rather than splitting companies into hardware and software parts is the way to achieve your goals.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
> So, I would go buy a smartphone at a shop, and then buy an OS to run on it at another shop? Good point, by default you would. Perhaps allowing some third party to bundle the two could be a nice convenience, but then we must make absolutely sure that they never sell the bundle for less than the separate parts, that would be anti-competitive. Also, I'm sick of paying for a Windows copy I never use. I'd very much like to see the OEM deals Microsoft make with laptop vendors just die. > Also, would “any software that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits” mean Intel/Samsung/… couldn’t sell CPUs with microcode installed, or even write microcode? Depends whether that microcode can be changed by the user or remotely, or if doing so basically means returning the CPU to the factory. If it can conveniently be changed, that's software, and the actual interface to the CPU is not the final ISA, but how to encode that micro-code to make the final ISA. If however the microcode is etched or locked, then it's part of the hardware. Another example would be an FPGA implementation of a RISC-V core: if the bitstream is locked into the NVCM it can no longer be modified, and thus counts as hardware. But if it's in the easily rewritable SPI flash, then it's software, and it can't be bundled with the FPGA itself. While I'm not absolutely certain my border is the right one, I believe it's at least one that can be fairly easily delimited. > Software company C could pay hardware company H to build hardware according to specs they give, with the specs under NDA, possibly even forbidding H to sell that hardware design to others than C. Correct, some trade secrets need to be banned. Even further, I would void all ISA related patents and copyright. Specifically, cloning the functionality of any piece of hardware should be allowed, similar to how the IBM PC was cloned. Note thought that splitting the activities is still worth it: when software is bundled with the hardware, we still need exploitable specs. Banning trade secrets doesn't force vendors to disclose them, and even if they do disclose them, nothing forces them to make especially readable beyond regulatory mandate, and nothing forces them to simplify their hardware interfaces. Exposing hardware interfaces to the competition however may provide very strong incentive to improve not only the hardware, but it's programming interfaces as well.

amelius 3y ago

Yes, and I'd also like hardware and software companies to not have access to my data. E.g. Google should be split into hardware, software, and data companies.

gigatexal 3y ago

What if we allow hardware manufacturers to create software to run their hardware but open the schematics and make the hardware hackable such that others can run software they want? That seems like a decent compromise because there’s very little margin in hardware alone and if you force hardware makers to go that route pretty soon there won’t be any because they’ll all have gone out of business.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
Hardware manufacturers can’t all go out of business. We need hardware at some point. Some might, but what I’m proposing would drive up costs for everyone. Most likely, prices will just go up a little bit. Allowing hardware manufacturers to ship their own software, even if that software must be free, even if the hardware specs must be released, will still allow them to ship crappy hardware interfaces and compensate that with bloated software. I’m also afraid some manufacturer would try to game the system, with, say, tweaking the instruction set of every new GPU so third party drivers can’t really keep up.
- gigatexal 3y ago
  But if it’s open installing your own, open, on-bloatware software would be easy. That’s not the case now … but it could be. Hardware vendors then that install the vanilla, non-bloatware software will be seen as a feature. You can see this now: Google ships vanilla Android whereas some of the Android phone manufacturers ship it with their own crapware. Or on the other end of the spectrum Apple ships MacOS without advertising garbage but vanilla Windows ships games and ads in the start menu. So I don’t really see how your argument stands.
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    Yeah, the part about gaming the system may not actually apply. Now, bloated software is still bloated software, even if it's open. I guess that with the sources the community can make it better, but there's still a limit to how well they can do: the hardware interface itself. It's a long tradition in hardware design to ship crappy interfaces and just say the software folks will make it nice. But if all you ship is the hardware, the interfaces have to be nice, else it will be harder to program for, and that definitely influences the ultimate success of the platform. See game consoles, I believe those who have a reputation of being hard to program tend to sell less (because they have fewer or worse games).

stainablesteel 3y ago

interesting premise, but i ultimately think this would be worse for the tech by forcing them to play in a limited playing field that doesn't have parallel in other businesses, does it?

loup-vaillant 3y ago
Oh but it does have parallel in other businesses. Splitting oil companies being one of the oldest examples. Rockefeller reportedly became richer as a result, so it wasn't even a socialist move. Another feature of forbidding vertical integration is that is prevents companies from competing with their own customers.
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  i don't think your examples are great examples but i immediately disagreed with myself after posting because i don't think hospitals can make their own drugs. or rather, if a drug manufacturer owned a hospital and a health insurance company this might be considered a conflict of interest i still don't think its a great example given this one comes from an ethical basis but this is more apt
  - loup-vaillant 3y ago
    I have yet to really flesh out my proposal, but ethics does come into play. Walled gardens for instance, are in part enabled by hardware/software bundles.

crote 3y ago

This is completely impossible with any hardware made in the last 20 years or so. The problem is that you cannot make a hard distinction between hardware and software. An Intel CPU simply isn't going to run without microcode, and having to get rid of microcode would easily set back chip design by a decade. Even something as trivial as a USB cable isn't pure hardware anymore. It has a programmable eMarker in order to advertise its capabilities, so it is also a combination of hardware and software. Everything but completely trivial chips has some kind of computation embedded in it, requiring some firmware. Chips are complicated and weird. Pretty much nobody writes code which directly interacts with hardware. Even people who write code for embedded microprocessors will use an SDK provided by the chip manufacturer to smooth out the nastiest details. How's that supposed to work when the hardware vendor can no longer provide any software? And then there's the question of what exactly constitutes "firmware". Is code in a separate programmable flash chip okay if they hardwire the Write Protect pin? What if the exact same code is stored in programmable space in the MCU itself? Is it fine to place that code in One-Time-Programmable memory? Bake it into the chip during wafer manufacturing? If anything, being able to update the firmware in the field is better for the consumer when it comes to fixing bugs.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
> The problem is that you cannot make a hard distinction between hardware and software. An Intel CPU simply isn't going to run without microcode, and having to get rid of microcode would easily set back chip design by a decade. Yes you can make the distinction, and no it doesn't require getting rid of the microcode: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 Simply put, if the microcode can be updated by the user or remotely by Intel, then it count as "software", and Intel should stop shipping it. But if those update are either impossible or require a factory recall, then it's "hardware", and Intel can happily continue to ship it. The same logic applies to the USB cable, and even FPGA: if the bitstream is locked into the NVCM, that's hardware. If it's merely written in the rewritable SPI flash, that's software. It's not a property of the bitstream itself, it's a property of how it is stored. Obviously the cost of micro-code bugs will sharply increase. That's kind of a feature though: now hardware vendors must be really careful.

olliej 3y ago

So your saying apple would have to stop making operating systems? Or are you saying Qualcomm would be required to not provide drivers? This is a super dumb take, like beyond stupid, and I get that it’s directed at apple. Here’s the thing: since day 1 apple has been a hardware company, and what makes hardware good or bad is often the software that drives runs it. That goes for every product apple makes. The idea that you can remove one half of that from the other is beyond stupid.

thomastjeffery 3y ago
The same people who are currently working on hardware for Apple would be working for a new company that makes hardware, and the new Apple Software Co. would continue to work with those people just as closely as they always have. The only difference is that Microsoft Windows, Linux kernel devs, etc. would also be able to work with that hardware company to get their OS working on that hardware. The hardware company would not be allowed to keep secrets between itself and Apple.
loup-vaillant 3y ago
> * So your saying apple would have to stop making operating systems?* No. That's only 1 of 3 alternatives, the other 2 being stop making hardware, or split in 2. > Or are you saying Qualcomm would be required to not provide drivers? Yes. They'd have to provide an actual manual for a change. > This is a super dumb take, like beyond stupid, and I get that it’s directed at apple. It's not. Many more would have to rethink their entire business model.

KirillPanov 3y ago

> Now the complicated part is how to define a company. We don't want a single company to just split itself into 2 legal entities HN routinely seems unaware that this is a totally solved problem in the tax law of virtually every industrialized country. In the US, for example, the phrase is "Common Control": https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.414(c)-2 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.414(c)-2 All sorts of modern tax schemes would have truck-sized loopholes without a rigorous definition of Common Control. It's already in the tax code of every industrialized country (possibly under a different name). All you have to do is reference it. The necessary definitions have been in the tax codes since the 1980s. I'm kind of annoyed at how often this "but but but two companies with overlapping owners yadda yadda" comes up. Go ahead try that on the IRS and see how it works out for you.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
I should have thought of those issues, thank you. I’ll look up this "Common Control".

pasabagi 3y ago

It's a cool idea, but where do you draw the line? Where do you place something like microcode? Depending on how you design a computer, you can have software almost all the way down.

loup-vaillant 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37731829 I draw the line at "can it be updated without returning to the factory?" If microcode can be updated by the user (or remotely by Intel), it’s software. If it’s immutable then its hardware. If an FPGA bitstream (say a RISC-V soft core) is locked into the FPGA’s NVCM, then it can no longer be modified, and it counts as hardware. If however it is merely stored in the SPI flash and can be modified, then it’s software.

doctor_radium 3y ago

An alternate paradigm? 20 years ago I mused over a law called the "Operating System Fairness Act", designed to level the playing field, mostly for smaller OS's. It's nowhere as revolutionary as separating hw development from sw development, but may thus be more realistic. One clause (of maybe six) concerned "Forced licensing of must-have drivers, algorithms, codecs, file formats, etc. to any viable OS, and for a price that market can bear". At the time I was thinking of technologies like the Unisys GIF patent, Flash, various audio and video codecs, and peripheral drivers. If not having a technology makes an OS vitally less useful and appealing to a user then there's potentially a path to developer documentation. Who decides? I think the current system for DMCA exemptions works pretty well (noting that I despise the DMCA), so maybe a branch of the US Copyright Office or another government's similar branch? A viable OS is one with a notable following and which can use the technology. If I write RadiumOS for myself, that doesn't count. Likewise Widevine for the Atari 800 is out. But Linux anything would, the BSD family, and Amiga, BeOS/Haiku, etc. would have a fair shot. Making a free, public developers kit is always better, but offering an NDA to a developer representing each OS family would likely be common. No, it wouldn't be an instantaneous process, yes, there would be paperwork and maybe a lawyer involved, but the burden has to be bearable for each OS/developer. If you're Apple wanting the MS Office file formats, MS is allowed to charge a not insignificant amount, but if you're a free, open source OS, then the cost would be either free or nearly so. Not every vendor in a field would be cracked open. If AMD is very friendly to developers, then Nvidia could keep their video drivers proprietary. With all the OSS available today vs. 20 years ago, something like this is maybe a bit less useful, but IMHO still a significant step forward, and a hedge against companies suddenly taking their specs private.