Mastodawn

Neil Brown Jan 6, 2024

You know what would be nice?

An "open firmware" project, where people produce and share FOSS firmware for common household devices, replacing the manufacturer's firmware with a decrapified version.

A smart TV? Reflash it with FOSS firmware, which removes tracking, calls to the manufacturer's servers, and any Internet-connected services that you don't want?

A printer? It's now yours. No ink subscription, or need for an app to print remotely.

And so on.

A man can dream, eh.

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William Leech Jan 6, 2024

@neil That lack of 3rd party firmware and open source 2d printers has always surprised me a bit, for smart TVs as long as there is an HDMI port there is a reasonableish workaround, but really not so much for printers. Maybe we just don't 2d print enough to care any more?

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Joe Oswald

@WilliamLeech @neil My guess is that the "boring" task of moving paper (a complicated organic material) through a cheap plastic machine and squirting microscopic drops of ink is actually technically extremely difficult and full of patents. The annoying parts of the software are not modularized to allow you to keep the technical part, and you need the vendor ink cartridges to print anyhow.