If anyone had the sense to make a law forcing the modem processor and peripherals to be fully documented with all registers, protocols, API, architecture, and a reproducible toolchain for compiling the software, we might just have a sustainable future. Governments and large corporations already require this level of accountability for what they purchase and use. Anything less than this level of support and transparency is exploitive theft of ownership. Retaining any digital rights for any products sold is criminal theft.
That’s not the disadvantage you may think it is. These laws are all focused on making competition and aftermarket repairs possible. They’re described vaguely, to be interpreted by a judge in case a company thinks they may have found a loophole.
If you specify a list of things that need to be accessible, companies will design their hardware to be excluded from that list. Fixing the loopholes takes another decade or two, and then the design standards change again.
The reasonably vague approach works much better. The battery law says that users have to be able to replace the batteries themselves without proprietary tools. No mention of battery type, battery safety systems, specific screw driver sizes, just “make sure the consumer can replace the battery”.
If the EU wanted, they could force companies to make all specs available, but they don’t. Such laws would hinder the competitive advantage of European companies and that’s obviously not something they’d want to happen.
Dear Citizen, we will require all manufacturers to comply with non-essential guidelines, but all important stuff are subject to the fact that you are our bitch and need to vow to your benefactor, the “government” which is Groupon for corpos.
Pretty sure some of the stuff he’s talking about are consumer issues too…fully documenting all the hardware lets people other than the original manufacturer provide support to the hardware without the use of reverse engineering.
Plus there’s a lot of non-essential stuff the government makes companies do already, because if they didn’t the companies would just exploit people. Food and Drugs being two big ones.
If anyone had the sense to make a law forcing the modem processor and peripherals to be fully documented with all registers, protocols, API, architecture, and a reproducible toolchain for compiling the software, we might just have a sustainable future. Governments and large corporations already require this level of accountability for what they purchase and use. Anything less than this level of support and transparency is exploitive theft of ownership. Retaining any digital rights for any products sold is criminal theft.
Lol, as if any of those people have an idea of what these words even mean.
Sure they do. “This is theft. We don’t like theft. Stop theft by doing what we demand.”
I was referring to the first part of your post regarding the law enforcing doxumentation.
That’s not the disadvantage you may think it is. These laws are all focused on making competition and aftermarket repairs possible. They’re described vaguely, to be interpreted by a judge in case a company thinks they may have found a loophole.
If you specify a list of things that need to be accessible, companies will design their hardware to be excluded from that list. Fixing the loopholes takes another decade or two, and then the design standards change again.
The reasonably vague approach works much better. The battery law says that users have to be able to replace the batteries themselves without proprietary tools. No mention of battery type, battery safety systems, specific screw driver sizes, just “make sure the consumer can replace the battery”.
If the EU wanted, they could force companies to make all specs available, but they don’t. Such laws would hinder the competitive advantage of European companies and that’s obviously not something they’d want to happen.
Sure they do. “This is theft. We don’t like theft. Stop theft by doing what we demand.”
Dear Citizen, we will require all manufacturers to comply with non-essential guidelines, but all important stuff are subject to the fact that you are our bitch and need to vow to your benefactor, the “government” which is Groupon for corpos.
Pretty sure some of the stuff he’s talking about are consumer issues too…fully documenting all the hardware lets people other than the original manufacturer provide support to the hardware without the use of reverse engineering.
Plus there’s a lot of non-essential stuff the government makes companies do already, because if they didn’t the companies would just exploit people. Food and Drugs being two big ones.