If your "implantable pacemaker" records a bunch of vital information about my heart for years, then it is not a simple "implantable pacemaker", it is an informa

If your "implantable pacemaker" records a bunch of vital information about my heart for years, then it is not a simple "implantable pacemaker", it is an information processing device, and the sensitive information it produce and store is my own, and allowing you full control on it is a danger of potential alienation that must be mitigated. As we do not currently have a better way[1] to ensure there will be no misuse of the power brought to you by controlling the way this information is generated, processed and stored, I would much prefer this heavy responsibility to be split between three different providers (information producer, processor, storage) communicating together according to open formats. If your pacemaker is a piece of hardware with no sensitive information stored and not connected to the outside world, then I would not consider its "software driver" to be an information processing system (ie "real" software), and there would be no need to split responsibilities in this case. This should also answer to the "micro-wave" objections in other answers. And yes, I change the definition of "software" a little bit, so it do not include single-minded commodities drivers. Actually, "software" is too wide on one side, and too narrow on another. A big company like Google should be understood as a software company. For me, they do not cross the line if they build their own servers for internal usage. They do cross the line, however, when they buy Motorola. The gray area would be the Nexus line and Chromebooks, which is ok to me if these products can be considered as real-life experiment for new software concepts, but not ok if they become mainstream products sold by the million of unit and if Google installs itself in a long term hardware producing activity, in parallel with its enormous presence as the software gorilla. [1] In the same sense that "democracy is the worst regime, except for all other"