Mastodawn

EvilEyeShawn Jan 8

Jan Wildeboer 😷

I tip my hat to #Bose for giving owners of soon-to-be End of Life/support speakers the garantuee that the devices will continue to function and giving them the information needed to collectively build new tools to do even more with them. Thank you, Bose!

https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-life

Jan Wildeboer 😷

In before the first „they should make all firmware and schematics open source!1!!“ replies ;)

Jan Wildeboer 😷

When a company announces End of Life (EOL) of a product, there should be a law or regulation that demands that latest at the day of the EOL all service manuals are made available for free to at least the owners of said product, better though to the general public.

@jwildeboer release source code, too

Michael McCune ☮️Jan 8

@jwildeboer totally agree.

this initiative had a lot of press early last year, and while it is specifically focused on computer games, i think the effort is worth it to push this thinking forward.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

Stop Killing Games

lobingera Jan 8

@jwildeboer I'm not 100% sure, but i think aviation has a regulation like this - not publishing, but available on request.

(as a student i worked in a company doing parts for airplanes)

Travis F W Jan 8

@lobingera @jwildeboer precedent like that could be a real boon to an effort to push new regulation!

@jwildeboer And drivers

@jwildeboer The law should require to open up all required infromation for repairability and continued usage
OR
buyback at full retail price

So they have an option ;-)

Jakob Thoböll - R.I.P. Natenom Jan 9

@asltf
Nitpicky interpretation:

If your product doesn't work anymore after EOL, you wäre never the complete owner, since the company had still parts of the control over the device. This means, they never sold it to you, so the original contract could be revoked....
@jwildeboer

Also the servers become public property and the community gets to take them to keep them online @jwildeboer

@jwildeboer Agree but I'd go a bit further: A product is not allowed to enter the market unless there is proof that all manuals, schematics, source code, etc. have been uploaded to a state-mandated archiving server. This needs to happen with each new update to or revision of the product.

In case of product EOL or bankruptcy without a subsequent owner or whatever other shenanigans may happen to a company, the archive can be released to the public.

Jakob Thoböll - R.I.P. Natenom Jan 9

@jwildeboer
- standardized parts and spare parts for 10 Years,
- full access at EOL

Not following this rule should be threated as violation of the original selling contract and by that give the customer the right to ask back the whole original price.

Saupreiss #Präparat500 🗽Jan 10

Service Manual:
1.) Check if broken
2.) Check if you can blame the Customer.
3.) Trash it
4.) Send replacement, Book on cost Center 452144271.

Michael Richardson Jan 10

@jwildeboer https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dangeerblackhat2014.htm

Dan Geer - Cybersecurity as Realpolitik: Black Hat USA Conference Keynote Address (text-video)

danimrich Jan 8

@jwildeboer This is better than nothing, but I would appreciate it if companies open-sourced stuff like this at the start of the products' lifecycle, instead of at the end.

@danimrich @jwildeboer While I agree with you, I see why they won't. Unique features are the lifeblood of products like Bose and Sonos. Open-sourcing the features as it comes out is handing lots of R&D to their competitors.

Personally, once a product is EoLed and has external dependencies, companies should be required by law to release API specs so the devices can be maintained.

danimrich Jan 8

@hydrian I agree with the EOL law demand.
I see Bose and Sonos primarily as hardware manufacturers. I think in the history of tech, there are quite a few cases in which the more open, less restrictive hardware has had more success in the market (including licensing/patents).
I get that they would like to milk their customer base a bit more - but for me, possible vendor lock-in makes products less attractive.

@jwildeboer Maybe they learned from the "recycling mode" debacle Sonos had a bunch of years back when they asked people to brick their fully functional speakers to get a discount on a new purchase. EDIT: misremembered, it was SONOS what did that

@jwildeboer No wait that was Sonos!

tuban_muzuru Jan 8

This is how it's done, right. These days, anything which can be migrated out of the Cloud, should be - just work with the people affected by the migration.

That sounds nice ..

I inherited a Bose Soundtouch from my father, and that's at least a halfway positive outcome for a cloud solution. Normally, it's a case of unplugging the server and leaving the customer to figure out what to do with the electronic waste.

UkeleleEric Jan 8

@jwildeboer Yes; it proves that other companies can do the same. We need to legislate to make sure they do. The documentation could be uploaded at time of production to a locked database, that unlocks automatically if the producer goes into liquidation or is bought out. Too many good products are deliberately sabotaged by the manufacturer at the end-of-life to get people to buy new replacements. I'm not under the impression that Bose have done this for any reason other than good PR, though.

Stewart X Addison Jan 8

@jwildeboer Hmmm so not too many existing features will stop working ... I guess that means the second market won't be flooded with devices that only techies like us will want. Damn 🙂
But in all seriousness, this is a great approach from #bose. Full marks (even if, as per your other comment, the firmware isn't equally open!)

flatplanet Jan 8

@jwildeboer It's a big improvement, but should have been done like this from the start. The people working on #soundcork working on reverse engineering the server features already.
https://github.com/deborahgu/soundcork

GitHub - deborahgu/soundcork: Intercept API for Bose SoundTouch after they turn off the servers

Intercept API for Bose SoundTouch after they turn off the servers - deborahgu/soundcork

GitHub

sentientsponge Jan 8

@jwildeboer I wish more tech would do this. Actually, I'd like legislation requiring it. There are so many devices that went under in the "smart" era, leaving their owners with expensive paperweights. I'd especially love to see Logitech's Harmony remote system get opened up like this, since I still use mine.

ARGVMI~1.PIF Jan 8

@sentientsponge

I wonder how many of those gadgets have other uses besides the one their vendors sold them for.

I'm reminded of the CueCat. Its intended application was rather questionable, but it was repurposed as a general-purpose barcode scanner by enterprising programmers, and *that* was useful.

sentientsponge Jan 8

@argv_minus_one @jwildeboer There were so many kickstarters and whatnot trying to survive that it's hard to keep any track. I used to cover things like "smart" thermostats and doorbells and mobile tech as a tech journalist, so most I saw were pretty single-purpose. I'd say almost every company I knew that wasn't already a giant either failed outright or got bought up (and then usually got discontinued). I'm sure there are notable exceptions, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Khleedril Jan 8

@jwildeboer This activity should be enshrined in law. Not to do it would have meant they sold a not-fit-for-purpose product.

@jwildeboer More of these please

schrotthaufen Jan 8

@jwildeboer @tankgrrl Looks like they learned from Sonos’ repeated mistakes 😅

@jwildeboer It's definitely nice that they're doing this voluntarily, but it really needs to be required by law. Particularly for medical devices. Maybe have a national or international library that holds all proprietary source code in escrow in case a company goes out of business or EOLs a product, at which point that code enters the public domain and is automatically published.

Sybren A. Stüvel Jan 9

@jwildeboer just in time! My SoundTouch just died, and I need a good service manual to figure out how to repair it.