Comment on Campaigners urge EU to mandate 15 years of OS updates
JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 8 hours agoI think I’d prefer if there was a minimum updates guarantee that OS sellers would have to disclose, but even then I’m more in favour of other companies being able to pick up the work by making sure devices have their bootloader unlockable after they don’t get any more updates for X amount of time, rather than add burden to OS makers, because forcing people to support a project for Y amount of years would really harm indie developers releasing Linux distros and the like
Buffalox@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It’s not a burden for the OS maker, except when the OS is the product, and in that case it’s only fair.
With Android the phone maker adapt the OS to their phones and flavor of Android, if they can’t handle maintaining it, they can use vanilla. Google is the OS maker, and I think they can handle the burden.
ell1e@leminal.space 6 hours ago
The EU has been so far bad at making sure FOSS isn’t seen as a paid product for regulation, even in cases where it’s clearly unpaid, see here. They can’t be trusted to get this differentiation right.
Therefore, unlockable bootloader seems like the better idea. Get people to Linux and open Android variants if the closed-source companies won’t serve them.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I have no idea what I’m supposed to see from you link, I don’t see any particular knowledge, or description of any particular legal consequences.
Obviously software provided for free “as is”, cannot be required to be maintained. And 9if it is owned by the public which is the case with FOSS, there is no “owner” who can be made responsible.
ell1e@leminal.space 3 hours ago
If you read the post in detail, it should answer your questions. The “owner” always exists and is typically the maintainer, if in doubt that’s the person with repository write access.