> So vendors are going to have to take insurance policies out on each of their customers? They don't have to, but they can in any case they want to do business

> So vendors are going to have to take insurance policies out on each of their customers? They don't have to, but they can in any case they want to do business with a company they fear is at significant risk of insolvency. > Pay who? Money is not source code. Money can't hire people to work at a company that doesn't exist. Money can pay the people who used to work at the company, or some entirely different people, to continue to support the hardware for a defined period of time even if the company fails to secure any new customers or revenue. Contracts or escrow ahead of time ensures that those people have access to what they need to do it. > 47 C.F.R. § 15.5, Prevention of Harmful Interference. Manufacturers must design devices in a way that reasonably prevent their users from operating the device outside of allowable criteria. 47 C.F.R. § 15.5: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/15.5 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/15.5 It appears to say you're not allowed to operate a device that causes harmful interference. I don't see anything in it that says manufacturers are required to prevent the user from modifying the device. 47 U.S.C. § 302a is the generic grant of authority by Congress to the FCC to make this category of rules, not a specific rule. 47 CFR § 2.803 is a multi-part section but I don't see anything in it about manufacturers having an obligation to prevent modification, and it references subpart J which contains 47 CFR § 2.909 "Responsible Party" and seems to imply the opposite, i.e. that if an independent third party modifies the device they're taking the compliance burden onto themselves. What am I missing? > Devices are certified and tested before they're released, so the timelines are unlikely to line up. Wouldn't that imply the source code could be released by the manufacturer or someone else after the certification to the same effect? > I'm not sure what the FCC would do if this did happen, I'm not sure it ever has, but would be interesting to know. I'd bet it would depend on the severity of the problem. There have been WiFi chips with open source firmware, e.g. Atheros pre-Qualcomm. I'm not aware of any current ones but also not aware of any serious problems occurring when those chips were current. What is someone even supposed to do that they couldn't still do with hardware modifications or SDR anyway?