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Few companies write 100% of the software that runs on their hardware. If some insulin pump uses proprietary firmware licensed from Johnson & Johnson for some pa

Few companies write 100% of the software that runs on their hardware. If some insulin pump uses proprietary firmware licensed from Johnson & Johnson for some part of its operation, does Johnson & Johnson lose its entire firmware licensing business as soon as one customer goes bankrupt? Or are they forced to become a B2C company and manage and sell licenses to millions of people it had no relationship with before? Is it weaponizable: pick a competitor, get them to license some software to a shell company of yours that makes a token device with it, fold the shell company, and now the competitor is required to give away their firmware to the public (and you)?

HeralFacker 2y ago
Exactly. Proprietary software and software patents need to end. In the case of medical devices, such restrictions violate the ADA by blocking access to reasonable accomodations.
- bruce511 2y ago
  >> Proprietary software and software patents need to end. I'm with you on software patents. On copyright (from which proprietary software is derived) I'm less convinced. My argument is two-fold; Firstly, copyright law is the only thing that allows Open Source and Free Software to exist. Copyright is the mechanism that grants an author control of their work, and is the mechanism that forces people building on OSS/Free Software to release code. You talk about "ending proprietary software", which in turn means effectively removing copyright, since it removes the authors control over their source code. Secondly, and from a completely different direction, killing proprietary software basically kills all the software people use. Sure OSS is great at infrastructure. But it has performed poorly in becoming the software people care about. Without proprietary software there's no Chrome, Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, MS office, Dropbox, AWS, et al. In infrastructure there's no iOS, Windows, Macs, Google services (aka Android as we know it) etc. To argue that OSS has clones or replacements of this stuff is o miss the point that proprietary software created these products and markets. And for all the clones that may be out there most have < 10% market share, actually most have < 1% market share, because most clones are either poor refections or simply get their feature list from the proprietary work.
  - HeralFacker 2y ago
    No, ending proprietary software does not end copyright. Even after reading your arguments, I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. You argued quite the opposite, in fact, by claiming copyright (and not license terms) ensures open source software. It is entirely possible to ban proprietary software in cases of human rights and public interest (e.g., open source medical firmware, to use the OP case) while maintaining copyright law even as it exists now.
zulban 2y ago
Have you completely misunderstood the concept here? This isn't some IP virus that infects anyone that touches it. J&J keeps the IP that it owns, in all cases, obviously. The bankrupt company must release the IP that the bankrupt company owns, unless someone like J&J wants to acquire it and keep things running. Obviously a company that fails wouldn't destroy the IP of another company. Obviously the failed company only impacts the failed company IP. I think you may be trying too hard to find flaws in this idea, instead of trying to make it work.
- dangrossman 2y ago
  Maybe I have? Could you explain your understanding of it? If it doesn't extend past the software the hardware vendor directly wrote, then it doesn't result in hardware owners being able to continue running the hardware after the manufacturer goes bankrupt, which was the purpose of the proposed "fantasy law".
  - z3phyr 2y ago
    Maybe allow others to replace the firmware with their own?
  - Sankozi 2y ago
    If closed source solution of bankrupt company used closed source solution of a non-bankrupt company then you just need a new licence. If non-bankrupt company is not issuing new licences then it is not supporting its software -> it needs to open source it. You can apply this rule recursively. The only problem I see is the licence cost (or should it cost anything for existing licence owners of bankrupt company).

HeralFacker 2y ago

Exactly. Proprietary software and software patents need to end. In the case of medical devices, such restrictions violate the ADA by blocking access to reasonable accomodations.

bruce511 2y ago
>> Proprietary software and software patents need to end. I'm with you on software patents. On copyright (from which proprietary software is derived) I'm less convinced. My argument is two-fold; Firstly, copyright law is the only thing that allows Open Source and Free Software to exist. Copyright is the mechanism that grants an author control of their work, and is the mechanism that forces people building on OSS/Free Software to release code. You talk about "ending proprietary software", which in turn means effectively removing copyright, since it removes the authors control over their source code. Secondly, and from a completely different direction, killing proprietary software basically kills all the software people use. Sure OSS is great at infrastructure. But it has performed poorly in becoming the software people care about. Without proprietary software there's no Chrome, Google Search, Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, Netflix, MS office, Dropbox, AWS, et al. In infrastructure there's no iOS, Windows, Macs, Google services (aka Android as we know it) etc. To argue that OSS has clones or replacements of this stuff is o miss the point that proprietary software created these products and markets. And for all the clones that may be out there most have < 10% market share, actually most have < 1% market share, because most clones are either poor refections or simply get their feature list from the proprietary work.
- HeralFacker 2y ago
  No, ending proprietary software does not end copyright. Even after reading your arguments, I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. You argued quite the opposite, in fact, by claiming copyright (and not license terms) ensures open source software. It is entirely possible to ban proprietary software in cases of human rights and public interest (e.g., open source medical firmware, to use the OP case) while maintaining copyright law even as it exists now.

zulban 2y ago

Have you completely misunderstood the concept here? This isn't some IP virus that infects anyone that touches it. J&J keeps the IP that it owns, in all cases, obviously. The bankrupt company must release the IP that the bankrupt company owns, unless someone like J&J wants to acquire it and keep things running. Obviously a company that fails wouldn't destroy the IP of another company. Obviously the failed company only impacts the failed company IP. I think you may be trying too hard to find flaws in this idea, instead of trying to make it work.

dangrossman 2y ago
Maybe I have? Could you explain your understanding of it? If it doesn't extend past the software the hardware vendor directly wrote, then it doesn't result in hardware owners being able to continue running the hardware after the manufacturer goes bankrupt, which was the purpose of the proposed "fantasy law".
- z3phyr 2y ago
  Maybe allow others to replace the firmware with their own?
- Sankozi 2y ago
  If closed source solution of bankrupt company used closed source solution of a non-bankrupt company then you just need a new licence. If non-bankrupt company is not issuing new licences then it is not supporting its software -> it needs to open source it. You can apply this rule recursively. The only problem I see is the licence cost (or should it cost anything for existing licence owners of bankrupt company).