LVFS Exploring Alternate, Open-Source Firmware For Capable End-Of-Life Devices

[agd5f]

The other thing is vendor corporate social responsibility (CSR) -- if they can do something which provides excellent PR without affecting future sales then it's win:win. It's not like someone who is buying a 3rd hand X220 on ebay is going to give Lenovo $2000 for a new ThinkPad. This initiative would also be almost zero work for them, with almost zero risk, which is the most important two things they care about.

I think where they would have concerns would be on quality control. What guarantees would they have that the new firmware was bug free and didn't cause some percentage of users PCs to catch fire or overheat? That can negatively affect their image and it's largely out of their control unless they stepped up to support the new firmware, but at that point, they would be assuming support for an entirely new software component on an EOL product.

Realistically, I don't really see this actually happening in most cases. While it's a nice idea, who is going to step up and support all of these old platforms in the first place? Even if there was a baseline coreboot image for a particular platform, it's still a lot of work to maintain them.

[hughsie]

If this requires the vendors' blessing this idea is dead in the water.

It's not just copyright and patent law that we have to consider; there is also trademark law to think about. It's not always 100% clear what's fair use and what's not.

The other thing is vendor corporate social responsibility (CSR) -- if they can do something which provides excellent PR without affecting future sales then it's win:win. It's not like someone who is buying a 3rd hand X220 on ebay is going to give Lenovo $2000 for a new ThinkPad. This initiative would also be almost zero work for them, with almost zero risk, which is the most important two things they care about.

[Anux]

Yes please, that is amazing, an automatic coreboot installer. Don't even wait for EOL, just make it opt in and inform the user about warranty/functionallity loss and other dangers.

[skeevy420]

Ive got the impression they want to make you suffer trying to fix your washingmachine for 50€ instead of buying a new one for 10x the price.

ROFL. I totally messed up when I bought a new dryer instead of fixing the hand me down from the 90s for the 3rd or 4th time. It wasn't until the 3rd dryer swap during the last Labor Day sale that I finally accepted that every new dryer sucks and take will take at least 3 70 minute runs to dry a load of towels. Eco friendly my ass.

[phoron]

Support for multiple generations of products requires resources that could be used for innovation. Designing products to support "right-to-repair" requires resources that could be used to innovate along different paths.

Innovation is good for the vendor because he will know better the new products than the customers. Vendors often innovate in ways to deceive the user. But why should the customer want innovation? I want good products, quality and honesty for a good price. If the vendor gets that through innovation or through well known traditional methods I don't care. I only know that if the product I can buy this year is the same I bought last year it could be as good or bad, so I have some basis to decide. If it's new I'm blind to what I'm buying. Of course they can still lie and sell a new product under an old labelling, but still.

I'm not against innovation, but I think resisting the urge to get the newest shiniest thing is something we need to culturally work towards. Innovation can bring good things or bad things, but knowledge about what you're using can only carry good things. And I only know 2 ways to have knowledge on what you use: more transparency (free software, open hardware, etc.) and less innovation and diversification (more time to write drivers, see benchmarks, develop and criticize standards, etc.).

[phoron]

+1 to all the ecological and Right to Repair comments saying you should be able to load your firmware when the vendor does not provide upgrades. I'd say you should have the right to do so even before the vendor stops pushing upgrades, even.

What I'm not getting from this story is why should LVFS even care. It should be configurable with the repository the user wants, and whoever publishes firmware (coreboot, libreboot, etc.) should just put up a compatible repository and serve their work to whoever configured the URL in their systems. I see no reason for it to be different than apt. Differnet distros can use the same package manager software.

There's not going to be a signle answer to whether a version of some firmware is kosher for a system. Different users should be able to choose different projects with different criteria to provide updates. Some users may not want to install updates from projects which might have updated their project but didn't have the hardware, time or infrastructure it to test it on their particular model. Others might want to take the risk and fill bugs (depending on how easy to unbrick they have it), etc. etc.
Institutions may want to run their own upgrade servers for their devices...

[jochendemuth]

Please note note 100 percent dead in the water. There are coreboot support on different hardware were the vendor did provide it near or at the end of life.

Not all vendors are jackass when hardware go end of life.

Support for multiple generations of products requires resources that could be used for innovation. Designing products to support "right-to-repair" requires resources that could be used to innovate along different paths.
At this point we start seeing a split of vendors - the ones that build obsolescence into their products (e.g. by locking them down) slightly veiled with hinting at increased security and the ones that see the right-to-repair as a competitive differentiator to the first class.
The success of the second class of vendors will depend on customer choices (voting with wallets).

I hope this discussion/initiative opens up a viable path for vendors to compete based on rights-to-repair. I'll be watching this space...

[Slartifartblast]

If you stop providing updates to software and firmware for a device then I think as others have said it's a great idea that you forfeit any copyright or patent control over that said device however I'd expect all sorts of legal trickery to subvert this by claiming portions of the code are still used in other devices. Tough luck I say, reduce landfill.

[CochainComplex]

Not all vendors are jackass when hardware go end of life.

true but pricing pressure forces a lot of the competitors to be one.

[CochainComplex]

.....And a rant about yearly car models -- why the fuck do we need a new Camaro or Accord or Ram every year?

Thats why EU has initiated this: (google translated)
https://www-stvo-de.translate.goog/7..._x_tr_pto=wapp
https://www-handwerksblatt-de.transl..._x_tr_pto=wapp


But Replacementpart quality and price! is the next upcoming issue. e.g. Siemens (washing machine) now shows a sparepartshop on their website. Lists all available spareparts for the queried model but they make it rather difficult to find a service manual. Just explosion drawings - but obviously excerpts of service manuals. And prices are quite "highish".

Ive got the impression they want to make you suffer trying to fix your washingmachine for 50€ instead of buying a new one for 10x the price.

But its heading in a good direction.


Btw...I don't want to sound offensive - but after watching a couple of episodes of Louis Rossman in hearings spreading the word, it is mostly republicans chipping in for Big Tech. Its quite a baffling paradox that the same Farmers suffering under John Dears scheme will never vote for democrats because its "socialism". Almost splendid how the GOP is keeping this fear alive...however.