An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 17:10 UTC (Wed) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459)
In reply to: An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners by Subsentient
Parent article: An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Exactly my feeling too. My first reaction was "well if you're stupid enough to put your NAS on Internet", but then I realized I know nothing about cars and I don't have to check before buying one that the constructor remembered to put breaks on it, that they are properly sized and of good quality. That they're not lying to me when they say I can safely go on the highway with it.

Maybe there should me similar regulations in the IoT world as there is in the car industry, to ensure that constructors don't have irresponsible behaviour?

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An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 17:27 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

Dan Geer had some good ideas in one of his talks (that I can't remember or find right now). Basically, any code released in a product publicly is put into escrow and if support is dropped (possibly within some timeframe), the escrow is opened to anyone to offer support. Being FOSS or otherwise freely modifiable relieves one of such conditions (since the world is now your escrow). I'm almost certainly dumbing it down here as I remember watching it years ago.

An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 19:56 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (4 responses)

Even in the automotive world, there are limits on how long manufacturers are required to continue supporting their products after they go out of production. I have recently started to experience this with my car, which is old enough that it's no longer easy to get parts. I agree that electronics manufacturers ought to be held to a higher standard than they currently are, but the biggest thing is they should be required both to support products for a given amount of time and to publicly advertise when support is likely to end.

An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 20:22 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

In Europe I believe it's ten years.

But what's wrong with saying that, once YOU are no longer interested in supporting your products, you are *obliged* to *make*it*easy* for someone else to do so, if they think it's economic.

It may not be worth it for a big mass-production company, but there's a lot of small engineering firms that could easily knock panels and stuff out in small quantities, if only they could get hold of designs, blueprints etc.

And same here with firmware or whatever it is (mobile lhones?), even if it's under NDA and all that, if someone wants to support it you give them the ability.

Cheers,
Wol

An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 20:53 UTC (Wed) by cpitrat (subscriber, #116459) [Link] (1 responses)

> once YOU are no longer interested in supporting your products, you are *obliged* to *make*it*easy* for someone else to do so, if they think it's economic.

You get my vote sir!

An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 22:26 UTC (Wed) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronics_right_to_repair

An unpleasant surprise for My Book Live owners

Posted Jun 30, 2021 21:27 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

But what's wrong with saying that, once YOU are no longer interested in supporting your products, you are *obliged* to *make*it*easy* for someone else to do so, if they think it's economic.

There is actually a robust market for non-OEM car parts. Some parts are highly standardized, so there's no problem getting them. A lot of other parts are made by subcontractors, who IIRC are allowed to keep making them for the aftermarket if the manufacturer gives up on them. In the USA, there is even a law saying owners who are still within their warranty period may substitute aftermarket parts during repairs without voiding their warranty.

But there are plenty of important parts that don't fail often enough to make it economical for anyone to bother making them at scale. For a mechanical parts, custom machining is often a reasonable option. But for a lot of the electrical parts, it simply isn't practical for a shop to try making them custom, at which point you're stuck scouring junkyards for the part you're after. A friend of mine is probably going to have to replace her car because she simply can't get the wiring harness she needs to have it repaired for love or money.