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The solution that would not require govt cost or enforcement is a legal change: A company introducing a product that requires a connection to their service MUS
by toss1 2y ago
The solution that would not require govt cost or enforcement is a legal change:
A company introducing a product that requires a connection to their service MUST maintain utility and features at the same or better for at least 7 years after the hardware product is last sold at a retail establishment (equal or expanded features and lower cost).
At whatever time they reduce features or increase cost beyond a faster level of inflation, they are required to release all related current source code, comments, documentation, test suites, etc. required to make usable all product features, into the public domain.
At that point, all parties are also fully permitted to use any measures to reverse engineer or otherwise hack the source code and firmware.
Simple: You maintain it, it's yours as long as you want. You stop maintaining it, everyone else can do it for you.
Let the bean counters trying to cut this month's bottom line costs fight with the IP lawyers trying to hide everything forever.
[edit: typos]
- janalsncm 2y agoI think this gets tricky if their source code uses other proprietary software that can’t be open sourced. So in practice open sourcing would not be an option. I could also imagine a common situation where there was some complex integration with various third party like OpenAI where it wouldn’t be that easy for users to handle themselves.
- toss1 2y agoFor sure, there will be edge cases and such as you describe. That is no reason to not do it. 1) resolve them in favor of the customers/users. If it is required to use it, release it, and anyone is free to hack. If it integrates with some 3rdPty service, they'll pretty quickly update their TOS to prevent such risks to their codebase, so it won't be an option. 2) it'll encourage corporations selling products to use modular and local-first design. If the product works by itself, local-first, and using a software package delivered with the product, and they sell an ADD-ON cloud-based service, they'll have zero problems. They can discontinue the ADD-ON cloud service at will, and people can still use the original product as sold.
- datadrivenangel 2y agoThe classic example is deep use of cloud services. If the whole thing is built on AWS services, you won't have a meaningful app to deploy. Or if they use proprietary assets from somewhere like unity.
- ky_fried_iguana 2y ago[dead]
- stale2002 2y agoThis is a surprisingly good recommendation. I would consider it fair. Why should people be able to hold their products hostage if they aren't even selling or maintaining them anymore? Customers win and the company doesn't really lose anything. They aren't selling or maintaining it anymore!