Problem is I imagine a lot of their hardware is under NDA so they’re unable to. I appreciate what they’re trying to do but a lot of hardware companies sadly won’t allow them to publish a lot of things. I do wish there was more open-source hardware (and I say that as a huge open-source advocate)
Comment on Google Will Now Back Right-to-Repair
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Until they publish the drivers for device components for usage in making the device software last as long as possible, those are just empty words. Yeah, sure I can finally replace the broken camera sensor, as I should be able for years, but I must buy whole another phone if I want something slightly different in the OS image.
legios@aussie.zone 8 months ago
Toes@ani.social 8 months ago
We need regulations that prohibits such actions.
We already have patents to protect companies, they don’t need to keep their software and schematics secret.
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Companies like Fairphone would love to open their drivers so distros like PostmarketOS could add support that then mainline Linux can be ported. But they can’t somehow.
I guess Apple would have a much better time in that having their own design and being much bigger in influence.
thoughts3rased@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
You are allowed to unlock the bootloader and install a custom ROM though, so at least once my Pixel 6 Pro is out of support I can flash lineage or graphene onto my phone
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
That’s really basic and not even the minimum for actual long-term support. Remember those ROMs needs to hack together pices of binary blobs and drivers scattered around stock ROM and do many patches. Basically any new Android version is doing the work once again, that LineageOS and other projects automated. And after the end of official updates they are stuck with untouchable firmware package.
What should be done is adding the support to the upstream Linux kernel itself. Like AMD and Intel are doing on desktops, thanks to that we can have almost lifetime updates, multiple choices of OSes and have one image for all devices instead of doing seperate builds. Or at least provide documentation and drivers so the community can do it.
thoughts3rased@sopuli.xyz 8 months ago
Don’t get me wrong it’s not perfect and I 100% agree with what you’re saying, but it is vastly better compared to some other OEMs (Samsung comes to mind) who uses shit like e-fuses to make sure your phone is never able to use a banking app again or the multiple companies that don’t let you unlock the bootloader at all.
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
Recently I read that Xiaomi new “HyperOS” won’t allow bootloader unlock at all unless you have max level of support on their community forums and even then only 3 devices a year🤦
theherk@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Backing the legislation forcing them to do just that isn’t entirely vapid. I mean, I’m not counting on them completely, but it is a step in the right direction.
smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 8 months ago
But I guess it would be really hard to write it into strict law without loopholes.