I mean, some of those EOLed nearly a decade ago.
You can argue over what a reasonable EOL is, but all hardware is going to EOL at some point, and at that point, it isn’t going to keep getting updates.
Throw enough money at a vendor, and I’m sure that you can get extended support contracts that will keep it going for however long people are willing to keep chucking money at a vendor – some businesses pay for support on truly ancient hardware – but this is a consumer broadband router. It’s unlikely to make a lot of sense to do so on this – the hardware isn’t worth much, nor is it going to be terribly expensive to replace, and if you’re using the wireless functionality, you probably want newer WiFi standards anyway.
I do think that there’s maybe a good argument that EOLing hardware should be handled in a better way. Like, maybe hardware should ship with an EOL sticker, so that someone can glance at hardware and see if it’s “expired”. Or maybe network hardware should have some sort of way of reporting EOL in response to a network query, so that someone can audit a network for EOLed hardware.
But EOLing hardware is gonna happen.
irotsoma@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I mean this is pretty standard in all industries regardless of whether it’s a software flaw or a physical flaw in any other kind of product. What’s the likelihood of a vacuum manufacturer replacing a part in a 15 year old product that had a 1 year warrantee even if it’s a safety issue?
SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 41 minutes ago
I work for a manufacturer with part catalogues going back to 1921, and while the telegraph codes no longer work, you could absolutely still order up a given part, or request from us the engineering diagram for it to aid in fabricating a replacement. You can also request service manuals, wiring diagrams, etc. Don’t all half-decent manufacturers do this?
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 18 minutes ago
No. That is phenomenally uncommon. To the point it’s almost unheard of.