The leap I was assuming everyone here would be able to make is that if a device is running broken Open Source software, it can be fixed. If the software on it i

The leap I was assuming everyone here would be able to make is that if a device is running broken Open Source software, it can be fixed. If the software on it is proprietary and the vendor has discontinued support or no longer exists as a company, the device will be broken forever. In the embedded space, a system may run for decades...that's plenty of time for a company to go belly-up, or be acquired, or any of dozens of other outcomes that lead to the source code for the device being lost to the sands of time.