4 ms·

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

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to run on hardware they're willing to have Windows continue to support for as long as they want to keep the source code unpublished.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.
- kube-system 2y ago
  > 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. Alright, lets say we do that. And let's say it's my PC OEM, and I'm completing my chapter 7 filings today, and I am going to ignore your law to open source my firmware. What are you going to do about it?
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    Why would it be different than ignoring any other law? The plaintiffs get an injunction and if the defendants ignore it they're held in contempt or get whatever criminal penalties are imposed for violating the law. If the concern is that the source code is going to be lost in dying companies, some people have suggested escrow requirements, e.g. you file the source code with the copyright office on the release date, not to be published until you discontinue support. You might conceivably file gibberish and not be discovered until the publication date but then we're back to personal liability for willful criminal acts, e.g. falsifying official documents.
    - kube-system 2y ago
      As a product regulatory issue, you're right, it probably wouldn't be any different than other product regulatory law. They're mainly civil, (especially in terms of product warranty). In a chapter 7 case, civil penalties typically don't even get priority to creditors. But who cares?! The company is gone anyway. > If the concern is that the source code is going to be lost in dying companies, some people have suggested escrow requirements, e.g. you file the source code with the copyright office on the release date, not to be published until you discontinue support. You might conceivably file gibberish and not be discovered until the publication date but then we're back to personal liability for willful criminal acts, e.g. falsifying official documents. Even if you do convince Congress to approve the new billion dollar data center they'll need, I'm not sure the entire world really wants to put this in their build pipeline. It's an interesting thought experiment. I don't really think the public cares about source code as much as you do. And really, if they did, this wouldn't be a discussion.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > As a product regulatory issue, you're right, it probably wouldn't be any different than other product regulatory law. They're mainly civil, (especially in terms of product warranty). In a chapter 7 case, civil penalties typically don't even get priority to creditors. But who cares?! The company is gone anyway. Even if the company is bankrupt, that doesn't mean they don't still have the source code. In general it would be on their computers which in bankruptcy would end up in the possession of the bankruptcy trustee, who would be ordered by the court to release it in accordance with the law. If instead someone walked off with it or something like that, now the bankrupt company isn't the issue and you're dealing with some kind of theft case. > Even if you do convince Congress to approve the new billion dollar data center they'll need, I'm not sure the entire world really wants to put this in their build pipeline. Source code generally isn't that big compared to other forms of media, compresses well and diffs well against variants. People regularly download the entire git history of a project by accident when they only want the latest version and don't even notice. Billion dollar data center seems like a stretch. > I don't really think the public cares about source code as much as you do. It's one of those things where people don't care about something because they don't understand it, not because it doesn't affect them. People care about things like "I have to buy a new phone for no good reason because the old one stopped getting updates" but if you ask them how that relates to open source they don't know the answer.

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.

kube-system 2y ago
> 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. Alright, lets say we do that. And let's say it's my PC OEM, and I'm completing my chapter 7 filings today, and I am going to ignore your law to open source my firmware. What are you going to do about it?
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  Why would it be different than ignoring any other law? The plaintiffs get an injunction and if the defendants ignore it they're held in contempt or get whatever criminal penalties are imposed for violating the law. If the concern is that the source code is going to be lost in dying companies, some people have suggested escrow requirements, e.g. you file the source code with the copyright office on the release date, not to be published until you discontinue support. You might conceivably file gibberish and not be discovered until the publication date but then we're back to personal liability for willful criminal acts, e.g. falsifying official documents.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    As a product regulatory issue, you're right, it probably wouldn't be any different than other product regulatory law. They're mainly civil, (especially in terms of product warranty). In a chapter 7 case, civil penalties typically don't even get priority to creditors. But who cares?! The company is gone anyway. > If the concern is that the source code is going to be lost in dying companies, some people have suggested escrow requirements, e.g. you file the source code with the copyright office on the release date, not to be published until you discontinue support. You might conceivably file gibberish and not be discovered until the publication date but then we're back to personal liability for willful criminal acts, e.g. falsifying official documents. Even if you do convince Congress to approve the new billion dollar data center they'll need, I'm not sure the entire world really wants to put this in their build pipeline. It's an interesting thought experiment. I don't really think the public cares about source code as much as you do. And really, if they did, this wouldn't be a discussion.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > As a product regulatory issue, you're right, it probably wouldn't be any different than other product regulatory law. They're mainly civil, (especially in terms of product warranty). In a chapter 7 case, civil penalties typically don't even get priority to creditors. But who cares?! The company is gone anyway. Even if the company is bankrupt, that doesn't mean they don't still have the source code. In general it would be on their computers which in bankruptcy would end up in the possession of the bankruptcy trustee, who would be ordered by the court to release it in accordance with the law. If instead someone walked off with it or something like that, now the bankrupt company isn't the issue and you're dealing with some kind of theft case. > Even if you do convince Congress to approve the new billion dollar data center they'll need, I'm not sure the entire world really wants to put this in their build pipeline. Source code generally isn't that big compared to other forms of media, compresses well and diffs well against variants. People regularly download the entire git history of a project by accident when they only want the latest version and don't even notice. Billion dollar data center seems like a stretch. > I don't really think the public cares about source code as much as you do. It's one of those things where people don't care about something because they don't understand it, not because it doesn't affect them. People care about things like "I have to buy a new phone for no good reason because the old one stopped getting updates" but if you ask them how that relates to open source they don't know the answer.