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> That wouldn't be an issue if it was a legal requirement because then they would all be subject to the same rule Just because a product is discontinued doesn'

> That wouldn't be an issue if it was a legal requirement because then they would all be subject to the same rule Just because a product is discontinued doesn't mean every component inside of it is also discontinued. Nor does it mean the restrictions on those are based in copyright. They may be restricted by other legal mechanisms other than copyright. > or be unable to market their software because it doesn't satisfy the requirement. > Which is why they should be open source to begin with. If you want to propose making closed source hardware or software illegal, just propose that. What you're effectively arguing for here, is that people own the rights to everything in their entire development stack, which is pretty unreasonable for any modern commercial software/hardware development. Even many prominent and celebrated open source hardware projects would not comply with this. For example: every open-source phone project. Not a single one could even possibly comply with this law because open-source baseband firmware does not exist, and cannot exist due to spectrum licensing requirements.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Just because a product is discontinued doesn't mean every component inside of it is also discontinued. You're assuming the code doesn't have to be released as long as there exists something using it that isn't discontinued, but it can be the other way. As soon as you discontinue something, everything in it has to be released. > Nor does it mean the restrictions on those are based in copyright. They may be restricted by other legal mechanisms other than copyright. The proposal is a consumer protection law that requires source code to be published when a product goes out of support. If the law requires it to be released, you release it or you're in violation of the law. > If you want to propose making closed source hardware or software illegal, just propose that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042
- kube-system 2y ago
  > You're assuming the code doesn't have to be released as long as there exists something using it that isn't discontinued, but it can be the other way. As soon as you discontinue something, everything in it has to be released. No, I'm interpreting this the way you're suggesting. And I'm saying it's insane. If company A sells a component to company B, and uses it in their product, and company B stops supporting it or goes out of business, now it needs to be open sourced? Every vendor has customers that have gone out of business or discontinued a product, so this is effectively a ban of all B2B closed source hardware or software components. > If the law requires it to be released, you release it or you're in violation of the law. So, to comply with your proposed law, companies can no longer sign NDAs with their vendors. They can no longer license patented hardware or software. They can no longer create products which have components with source restricted by trade law or product regulatory law. They can no longer license any closed-source hardware or software from any vendor. Do you realize this is a ban on approximately all commercially available computers, and a ban on many types of radio devices, including cellphones? > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 That's a lot more reasonable argument, although it is unprecedented and unfounded. Copyright doesn't require any other authors of other works to release any foundational sources, and it never has. Authors don't have to release drafts or outlines of their books. Musicians don't have to release the constituent tracks of their final recordings. Artists and photographers don't have to release their PSD files. Patent protection works this way, but copyright never has.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > Every vendor has customers that have gone out of business or discontinued a product, so this is effectively a ban of all B2B closed source hardware or software components. Not exactly. If you don't have to release it until support ends then you could require the licensee to provide support for a specific number of years and carry bankruptcy insurance that would pay for support to continue for that period of time, if you wanted to. It would tend to cause the source code to be released after ten or twenty years, but what are you really protecting at that point? The source code for Windows XP and 3G cellular radios? > Do you realize this is a ban on approximately all commercially available computers, and a ban on many types of radio devices, including cellphones? It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers. > Copyright doesn't require any other authors of other works to release any foundational sources, and it never has. Other media is distributed in a human-readable form rather than compiled into an opaque binary. If you want to make a derivative of Alice in Wonderland you can easily do it from a copy of the book as published without needing any of Lewis Carroll's notes. If you want to fix a firmware bug, doing it without the source code is commonly infeasible.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      > bankruptcy insurance that would pay for support to continue 1. That isn't a thing 2. If your company doesn't exist, it doesn't really matter if you comply with the law anymore. 3. Insurance writes checks, it doesn't conduct business operations > It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers. Except for all of the hardware and software that already exists, all of the patents that already exist, all of the different laws for hardware and software in every other country where closed-source software/hardware exists, and all of the laws here and everywhere else that restrict hardware or software for other reasons. I think it is much more likely that companies will comply with all of the rest of the operational and legal obligations they currently have, and instead, avoid legal nexus in your jurisdiction. > 3G cellular radios? It's not legal to open source a baseband radio in many countries because of the licensing requirements to use the spectrum. If you make this a requirement, and companies want to sell cellphones in other countries (they do) you have banned the manufacture of these devices in your country. > It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers. It's more likely they will conduct operations outside of your jurisdiction, and continue their business as they currently do. > Other media is distributed in a human-readable form rather than compiled into an opaque binary. You don't "read" a piece of software the same way you don't "read" a song on the radio. Software runs on a computer, and songs play on a radio. But even if we do interpret this your way -- copyright doesn't require anything at all to be published. You can create something, put it in a locked safe, and copyright still applies. You can't create a derivative work of my nudes on my phone, because I won't give them to you. They're still protected by copyright, though. Your presumption that it is predicated on sharing is simply not factually correct. Copyright is and has only ever been about protecting creators rights. Only patent law is predicated on sharing.
- numpad0 2y ago
  So you make a laptop, sell it, discontinue it, now Microsoft is legally required to open source Windows 12. That makes sense, right?
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    They have to open source the code which is so old that the laptop it originally came with is discontinued. Yes, that makes sense. Things shouldn't be discontinued four hours after they're released and if you want to do that there can be a cost to it.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      Maybe there should be a cost, but you've picked an insane cost to ascribe here. If some fly-by-night PC integrator sells a PC today, then goes out of business tomorrow, no, Microsoft absolutely shouldn't be required to open source their operating system. Many thousands of businesses close their doors every day, and when they do, punishing their vendor is silly, illogical, and wrong.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > If some fly-by-night PC integrator sells a PC today, then goes out of business tomorrow, no, Microsoft absolutely shouldn't be required to open source their operating system. There is another reasonable solution for Microsoft here. The premise is that the device either has to be supported or open sourced (and therefore supportable by the community). If the OEM is gone the firmware has to be open sourced because the company is no longer supporting it. But my point earlier was that you shouldn't get out of having to release the source for something just because that component is still supported on other devices. It has to be still supported on this device. But as long as a current version of Windows is still supported on the device by Microsoft, that implies that once the firmware source is released the entire device is still supported. So then all Microsoft would have to do is make sure they're licensing Windows to run on hardware they're willing to have Windows continue to support for as long as they want to keep the source code unpublished. Which is already their longstanding practice, Windows 11 TPM kerfuffle notwithstanding. Currently supported versions of Windows support hardware going back more than 20 years.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> Just because a product is discontinued doesn't mean every component inside of it is also discontinued. You're assuming the code doesn't have to be released as long as there exists something using it that isn't discontinued, but it can be the other way. As soon as you discontinue something, everything in it has to be released. > Nor does it mean the restrictions on those are based in copyright. They may be restricted by other legal mechanisms other than copyright. The proposal is a consumer protection law that requires source code to be published when a product goes out of support. If the law requires it to be released, you release it or you're in violation of the law. > If you want to propose making closed source hardware or software illegal, just propose that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042

kube-system 2y ago
> You're assuming the code doesn't have to be released as long as there exists something using it that isn't discontinued, but it can be the other way. As soon as you discontinue something, everything in it has to be released. No, I'm interpreting this the way you're suggesting. And I'm saying it's insane. If company A sells a component to company B, and uses it in their product, and company B stops supporting it or goes out of business, now it needs to be open sourced? Every vendor has customers that have gone out of business or discontinued a product, so this is effectively a ban of all B2B closed source hardware or software components. > If the law requires it to be released, you release it or you're in violation of the law. So, to comply with your proposed law, companies can no longer sign NDAs with their vendors. They can no longer license patented hardware or software. They can no longer create products which have components with source restricted by trade law or product regulatory law. They can no longer license any closed-source hardware or software from any vendor. Do you realize this is a ban on approximately all commercially available computers, and a ban on many types of radio devices, including cellphones? > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42443042 That's a lot more reasonable argument, although it is unprecedented and unfounded. Copyright doesn't require any other authors of other works to release any foundational sources, and it never has. Authors don't have to release drafts or outlines of their books. Musicians don't have to release the constituent tracks of their final recordings. Artists and photographers don't have to release their PSD files. Patent protection works this way, but copyright never has.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Every vendor has customers that have gone out of business or discontinued a product, so this is effectively a ban of all B2B closed source hardware or software components. Not exactly. If you don't have to release it until support ends then you could require the licensee to provide support for a specific number of years and carry bankruptcy insurance that would pay for support to continue for that period of time, if you wanted to. It would tend to cause the source code to be released after ten or twenty years, but what are you really protecting at that point? The source code for Windows XP and 3G cellular radios? > Do you realize this is a ban on approximately all commercially available computers, and a ban on many types of radio devices, including cellphones? It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers. > Copyright doesn't require any other authors of other works to release any foundational sources, and it never has. Other media is distributed in a human-readable form rather than compiled into an opaque binary. If you want to make a derivative of Alice in Wonderland you can easily do it from a copy of the book as published without needing any of Lewis Carroll's notes. If you want to fix a firmware bug, doing it without the source code is commonly infeasible.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    > bankruptcy insurance that would pay for support to continue 1. That isn't a thing 2. If your company doesn't exist, it doesn't really matter if you comply with the law anymore. 3. Insurance writes checks, it doesn't conduct business operations > It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers. Except for all of the hardware and software that already exists, all of the patents that already exist, all of the different laws for hardware and software in every other country where closed-source software/hardware exists, and all of the laws here and everywhere else that restrict hardware or software for other reasons. I think it is much more likely that companies will comply with all of the rest of the operational and legal obligations they currently have, and instead, avoid legal nexus in your jurisdiction. > 3G cellular radios? It's not legal to open source a baseband radio in many countries because of the licensing requirements to use the spectrum. If you make this a requirement, and companies want to sell cellphones in other countries (they do) you have banned the manufacture of these devices in your country. > It seems pretty likely that the vendors would choose to license the code under terms that would allow the source code to be published in that circumstance, since otherwise they have no customers. It's more likely they will conduct operations outside of your jurisdiction, and continue their business as they currently do. > Other media is distributed in a human-readable form rather than compiled into an opaque binary. You don't "read" a piece of software the same way you don't "read" a song on the radio. Software runs on a computer, and songs play on a radio. But even if we do interpret this your way -- copyright doesn't require anything at all to be published. You can create something, put it in a locked safe, and copyright still applies. You can't create a derivative work of my nudes on my phone, because I won't give them to you. They're still protected by copyright, though. Your presumption that it is predicated on sharing is simply not factually correct. Copyright is and has only ever been about protecting creators rights. Only patent law is predicated on sharing.
numpad0 2y ago
So you make a laptop, sell it, discontinue it, now Microsoft is legally required to open source Windows 12. That makes sense, right?
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  They have to open source the code which is so old that the laptop it originally came with is discontinued. Yes, that makes sense. Things shouldn't be discontinued four hours after they're released and if you want to do that there can be a cost to it.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    Maybe there should be a cost, but you've picked an insane cost to ascribe here. If some fly-by-night PC integrator sells a PC today, then goes out of business tomorrow, no, Microsoft absolutely shouldn't be required to open source their operating system. Many thousands of businesses close their doors every day, and when they do, punishing their vendor is silly, illogical, and wrong.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > If some fly-by-night PC integrator sells a PC today, then goes out of business tomorrow, no, Microsoft absolutely shouldn't be required to open source their operating system. There is another reasonable solution for Microsoft here. The premise is that the device either has to be supported or open sourced (and therefore supportable by the community). If the OEM is gone the firmware has to be open sourced because the company is no longer supporting it. But my point earlier was that you shouldn't get out of having to release the source for something just because that component is still supported on other devices. It has to be still supported on this device. But as long as a current version of Windows is still supported on the device by Microsoft, that implies that once the firmware source is released the entire device is still supported. So then all Microsoft would have to do is make sure they're licensing Windows to run on hardware they're willing to have Windows continue to support for as long as they want to keep the source code unpublished. Which is already their longstanding practice, Windows 11 TPM kerfuffle notwithstanding. Currently supported versions of Windows support hardware going back more than 20 years.