I believe consumers, as a right, should be able to install software of their choosing to any computing device that is owned outright.
This should apply regardless of the computer’s form factor. In addition to traditional computing devices like PCs and laptops, this right should apply to devices like mobile phones, “smart home” appliances, and even industrial equipment like tractors.
In 2025, we’re ultra-connected via a network of devices we do not have full control over. Much of this has to do with how companies lock their devices’ bootloaders, prevent root access, and prohibit installation of software that is not explicitly sanctioned through approval in their own distribution channels.
We should really work on changing that.
↫ Medhir Bhargava
Obviously, this is preaching to the choir here on OSNews. I agree with Bhargava 100%. It should be illegal for any manufacturer of computing devices – with a possible exception for, say, things like medical implants, certain aspects of car control units, and so on – to lock down and/or restrict owners’ ability to install whatever software they want, run whatever code they want, and install whatever operating system they want on the devices that they own. Computers are interwoven into the very fabric of every aspect of our society, and having them under the sole control of the biggest megacorporations in the world is utterly dystopian, and wildly dangerous.
Personally, I would take it a step further: any and all code that runs on products sold must be open. Not necessarily open source, but at the very least open, so that it can be inspected when malice is suspected. This way, society can make sure that the tech billionaire oligarchs giving nazi salutes aren’t in full, black-box control over our devices. Secrecy as a means of corporate control is incredibly dangerous, and forcing all code to be open is the perfect way to combat this. Copyright is more than enough intellectual property protection for code.
The odds of this happening are, of course, slim, especially with the aforementioned tech billionaire oligarchs giving nazi salutes effectively running the most powerful military in human history. Reason is in short supply these days, and I doubt that’s going to change any time soon.
Thom Holwerda,
Yeah, corporations have perverted the notion of ownership. Our reality is such that “owners” are not the real owners when it comes to who controls our devices. This is so extremely dangerous. I think that even die hard fans of the tech giants (apple ranking near the top) are becoming more acutely aware of their power grabs. but I worry we are too little too late because not enough people spoke up when something could have been done about it. Whole branches of government are increasingly acting as extensions of billionaire power. Their priority now is more tax cuts for the billionaires and soon to be trillionaires.
BTW how naive it is that firefox marks trillionaire as a misspelling!
Please note you said soon to be trillionaire does make sense that common dictionaries used by spelling checkers don’t have it yet. Forecasts are not expected that there will not be a trillionaire before 2027 and possible latter. Yes majority of billionaires on track to come trillionaires are also on track to follow Elizabeth Holmes & the Theranos into being penniless. Yes question is what will happen first the billionaire coming a trilliionaire or the house of cards collapsing in on itself as people see their real net-worth is bugger all. Yes there is a funny possibility that the first person comes a Trillionaire the next day they don’t have 100 USD to their name as their house of financial cards collapsed at the same time.
oiaohm
That’s exactly why it’s naive not to define it.
“Five Trillionaires Predicted to Emerge in Next Decade”
https://www.newsweek.com/davos-2025-billionaire-wealth-inequality-oxfam-report-2017526
Not likely. An article I read recently put it this way: they can afford to loose 99% of their wealth and still comfortably be billionaires. That’s how ridiculously skewed the wealth gap is. Unless you are envisioning a complete collapse of capitalism that effects everyone, they will never be penniless. The trump administration is virtually guaranteed to give them more favorable tax cuts and pay for it by defunding education and social benefit programs. There are many who still don’t want to admit it, but the US is becoming an oligarchy and people like Bernie Sanders have been warning about this forever. Alas, there’s no prize for being right.
Elon Musk is calculated to be overvalued not factor of 100 but by a factor of 10000. Alfman we are looking at a memecoin bubble in share prices.
When you look at all the closest billionaries to being trillionaries their value is not based on economics of profit. We do have a major financial bubble here.
Even since we have had financial markets we have always had bubbles form then burst.
There is a scary interesting point the first billionaire in USA system 2 weeks latter was not because the bubble that made them a billionaire burst. The first millionaire in the USA system 2 weeks was not because the bubble that made them a millionaire burst.
Yes first at these major markers normally equals some major upset.
This will not the collapse of capitalism its just that financial system capitalism has natural cycles of bubbles forming and bursting. The closest to trillionaires losing their wealth would not cause that big of damage we have seen worse with the property market failures and the like..
oiaohm,
You shouldn’t be justifying these insane wealth gaps using financial bubbles…every time the bubble pops, we all take the financial hit, the middle class suffers disproportionately, and those at the top get even wealthier.
Alfman I am not justifying.
“””You shouldn’t be justifying these insane wealth gaps using financial bubbles…every time the bubble pops, we all take the financial hit, the middle class suffers disproportionately, and those at the top get even wealthier.”””
What you wrote here is not true. Dot Com bubble bursting and many more it was not the middle class mostly hit. Some countries are better than others at protecting middle class.
Alfman we need people to be more financially wise.
https://www.suredividend.com/tesla-dividend/
Yes tesla and most of musk companies don’t pay dividend. This means you buy any of the stocks he is in charge of they only way you can make your money back at this time is find some other sucker to buy it from you.
Financial bubbles mostly happen due to the same things. Key thing people not understanding share trading correctly and fomo.
Yes when you buy a share in a company you are a unsecured investor this means if they company goes belly up you can lose 100 percent of what you gave the to buy a share. So what the difference from a financial safety point of view from buying Tesla stock or buying trumps new meme coins the answer is if you are doing risk assessment correctly absolute nothing other than time frame they are both unsecured investment that you are likely to lose your shirt on the Tesla stock you just have a longer time frame.
There are many countries around the world that require small and middle class to use financial advisers .to deal in crypto and shares with those financial advisers forbid by law from allowing small and middle class from buying something like a Tesla share or a meme coin so making the small and middle class in those countries not get mixed up in financial bubbles as badly.. Those countries financial bubbles are a wealthy tax.
Yes this is a regulation thing. Financial bubbles are predictable beasts sign of a financial bubble is always someone being having higher financial value assigned to them their their profit making ability.
General rule of thumb a stable share long term dividend will pay the share price back in 5 to 20 years from the companies yearly profits from products sold/provided a share that cannot do that is mostly likely a financial bubble of some form.
Alfman I am not justify the wealth gap by the financial bubble.
Take Elizabeth Holmes & the Theranos this is a historic example. 99.99999+ percent of her 9 billion dollar valuation was shares in Theranos that had never been bought and sold so paper value. Yes the closest to Trillionaires are also paper value of never sold shares. Yes this is very much like me writing this bit of paper is worth 1 trillion dollars then claiming I am worth 1 trillion dollars this is true as long as I can get someone dumb enough to by that bit of paper for 1 trillion dollars..
What historically happens is the first person to cross one of the aries lines has their financial looked at by other wealthy people who have been paying too much for their shares who stop doing so. Yes the collapse of Theranos was mostly not that their machine did not work but the fact Elizabeth Holmes started bragging about being the first to get wealthy in a particular way. Yes tall poppy syndrome. Yes if the business is truly profitable they live though the tall poppy syndrome caused audit. Yes the first trillionaires are likely to be parties of paper wealth who will successfully go under for being a tall poppy.
This is just how the system works and has for over 1000 years now. Yes schools don’t teach this because if they did the paper rich would not be able to use the low and middle class to allow them to be paper rich..
oiaohm,
Sorry to be the barer of bad news, but it is true and claiming otherwise is wishful thinking.
Investing is always risk, especially if the investment is in a pyramid scheme like crypto. Nevertheless it doesn’t alter the fact that upper class’s share of GDP keeps growing larger and larger at the expense of everyone else who get less and are taxed at higher rates.
With good luck/timing/jobs some middle class workers can work hard and become millionaires and I don’t want to dismiss this fact, but at the same time though being a millionaire isn’t as prestigious as it used to be on account of inflation. Most of their wealth may be locked up in their house due to insane prices. There’s simply no denying that their economic mobility pales in comparison to the insane quantity of wealth horded at the top. Soon we’ll there will be trilionaires who are worth a million times more than millionaires. It’s crazy.
Alfman
“””Investing is always risk, especially if the investment is in a pyramid scheme like crypto. Nevertheless it doesn’t alter the fact that upper class’s share of GDP keeps growing larger and larger at the expense of everyone else who get less and are taxed at higher rates.””””
Upper classes percentage of GDP does not align with the value they are claiming to have on paper. There is a millionaire in the USA that wealth is counted in the 100s of million that has 5 times the GDP of Musk under her control.
“””but at the same time though being a millionaire isn’t as prestigious as it used to be on account of inflation.””””
Not only this the fact you have paper billionaires claiming to more wealthy than should be based on the percentage of GDP they control are makes those who are only claiming millionaires not look as successful as they really are.
Alfman the title of Millionaire/Billionaire currently is not correctly aligned to percentage of GDP those peoples actions are controlling in the USA. USA is in a bubble that over due for correction.
The under 200 Billion dollar billionaires control more GDP than the ones with more than 200 Billion dollars. Yes the USA system is highly distorted because this is the case. 98% of the USA GDP is controlled by those who are under 200 Billion dollars.
Look at the richest people in the USA based on their investments GDP control draws a completely different list of people. Musk does not make it into the top 100000 when you list people this way.
oiaohm,
You can call it whatever you want. but their insane wealth has very real consequences taking away real resources away from the rest of the population, an increasing number of whom live in poverty with insufficient access to housing, healthcare, childcare, education, etc. Go ahead and lie to yourself though, it’s just wealth on paper. Here’s an idea, lets just keep giving them more because it’s only paper wealth anyway. The billionaires are the real poor, practically penniless /sarcasm.
Alfman,
Sorry for jumping in late. However there is a general misconception about wealth in the USA, and that gets amplified in our divided culture.
Many so called “billionaires” do not have a billion dollars. Some do, some don’t, but rather have assets that are valued highly by other people.
Case in point, this literal shack in the middle of the Google main campus in Mountain View:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1851-Charleston-Rd-Mountain-View-CA-94043/19494359_zpid/
They refuse to sell, or maybe they were never asked. I used to walk by it a lot, it was falling apart. But today it is valued at $12 million.
Does the owner have even a single million? I don’t know, but I would not be surprised if they had only a very meager amount of cash.
(Edit: Looking at tax records, they might have finally sold last year!)
Same with many startup owners who got lucky. Today owners of Theranos, FTX, and others are valued at near zero, or maybe even negative. I’m not sure, but many “rich” from Uber are in the same place.
Today Elon, Zuck, Bezos, or others might be valued in nearly trillions. But it is high unlikely they could sell off their assets fast enough to actually cash out.
Why do I care? I’m not a billionaire. Not even close! (I can’t even spell it correctly without help).
Because many times taxed “aimed” at them hit me personally.
AMT? Was supposed to be a 1% tax. But it is a upper middle class tax in California software engineers. I am unable to live comfortably, however the government thinks I’m ultra rich. I’m a bit lucky, it used to bankrupt people in early 2000s!
All other similar tax attempts would “trickle down” to me. They have spoiled people like Thiel who abuse their IRA by funneling (rumored) 5 billion into their accounts. But the attempt to limit IRA would hit my daughters, not those like him who are already set for the next 7 generations.
So, once again sorry for jumping in. But these kind of discussions need more nuance, and seeing them repeated often (especially after one of those made a very unfortunate hand gesture, deliberate or not), I’m afraid we will pull the ladder under from middle class much faster.
sukru,
I thought it was a given rather than a misconception. A “millionaire” doesn’t have to have a million dollars in the bank, it’s typically tied up in assets: cars, houses, stocks, whatever. This doesn’t make them any less of a millionaire. Many are millionaires because their home values appreciated. In the same sense a billionaire doesn’t have to have a billion dollars in the bank and a trillionaire doesn’t either.
A california tech job income in any other part of the country would be living very comfortably, but the problem is california’s so damn unaffordable for the middle class. I’ve heard of tech workers living out of campers being a significant problem. Even if you don’t read the article, just look at the pictures, haha…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-21/silicon-valley-s-shame-living-in-a-van-in-google-s-backyard
They can invest it in their own space programs, social media platforms, or VR headsets…. it doesn’t really matter they’ll all be fine because even their bad investments barely effect their net worths, much less significantly alter them. Don’t get me wrong, I know it can happen especially where assets appreciated quickly through blind luck, but they are the exception rather than the norm.
Everyone who follows the economics can plainly see that our policies are killing the middle class while subsidizing the billionaires. Our GDP growth has been disproportionately going to the top at everyone else’s expense. Government representatives not only get away with this favoritism, but are even rewarded for it. The US has entered the era of the oligarchy and I don’t even know if it’s possible to recover. Democracy itself may fail.
https://www.britannica.com/news/427558/8bc6051c20adc1bc212cdd8be2578624
I kind of blame the two party system for not providing enough choice and leaving voters compelled to vote in fascists. A rank vote and doing away with the electoral college would enable 3rd parties to be represented fairly and incentivize moderate candidates over such dangerous extremists.
Terms like “millionaire” are country specific, and relate to the local currency.
There have been huge numbers of trillionaires holding zimbabwe dollars for instance.
bert64 To be correct zimbabwe dollars when it was massive devalued they where not using the trillionaire term. Trillion is 10 to 12 power so is million million. zimbabwe dollars
Yes million millionaire has been used a lot in countries with devalued currency. When it a million dollars to buy a loaf of bread you start counting at a million.
Yes just because you have 10 to 12 power in dollars does not mean you have the title trillionaire cecause of the second title million millionaire. Yes in zimbabwe a few people got to what was called billion millionaire yes 10 to 15. Yes we don’t have Quadrillionaire in dictionary either.
Yes a devalued currency does not use the standard aire bits for wealth. Yes you were right that it kind of country specific and currency specific if milllionaire is a person or just a sub designation. Yes millionaire as a sub designation means those countries have not had anyone they would call trillionaires or Quadrillionaires even that public listed bank balances would make you think they had.
oiaohm,
I can guarantee you we will be using the term trillionaire and not “million millionaire”.
News outlets including CNN, newsweek are already using the term and it’s only a matter of time before they all do.
Alfman
“””I can guarantee you we will be using the term trillionaire and not “million millionaire”.
News outlets including CNN, newsweek are already using the term and it’s only a matter of time before they all do.”””
Yes and being the first is why the dictionary is lagging. Lot of people have missed that basically all the people who had trillions of dollars in what ever currency before the current lot did not use trillionaire and that why it does not exist common dictionaries.
Of course the USA bubble could burst on those who are close to the trillionaire title taking away their paper wealth leaving them no where close to the title as well. Yes if this correction happens we could be 50 to 60 years away from party by proper business development getting there.
oiaohm,
My point wasn’t that countries with other currencies don’t have their own trillionaires, only that the US will soon have them. That is all.
I like things to be kept real. Musk did not give a Nazi salute. Batya Ungar-Sargon, who is not a fan of Musk by a long shot, commented on it: https://x.com/bungarsargon/status/1881439445523775961 Biden sat on a pillow on his chair. Of all things someone may do, that does not bother me. It was made a bigger deal than it should have been just as reading into Musk’s excitement was taken the wrong way.
Regarding open access to what we purchase, yes, we should have access. If we paid money for them, they are ours. At least, we cannot seem to return the products which would imply we are stuck with them.
The only items I would be hesitant to just outright allow would be things that can cause serious injury. For example, what about gas ovens? Perhaps, contain the gas functions in a black box with an open API and the rest can be replaced. It is something to think about.
sean,
A “black box” is not justifiable on safety grounds. Even if you want to argue that some devices shouldn’t be modified by owners for safety reasons, it does not follow that the code can’t be open for others to audit and see what it does. These two concepts are not mutually exclusive.
I actually do not want to argue that case. 🙂 Your idea about having the code open is perfectly acceptable to me. I was attempting to figure out the best balance for that part of it but late at night.
Telling me my eyes are lying, just tells me not to trust you. The dude was high as a kite.
From your insinuation, are you telling me that my eyes, and others’ eyes that are not even fans of Musk, are lying? How about the ADL? https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403
I have no idea if he was high or not, but that is irrelevant. He has Asperger’s Syndrome. The hate against people with disorders has to stop.
Sorry that does not dignify a response other than this. You need help. So does Elon. Please get help.
>>I have no idea if he was high or not, but that is irrelevant. He has Asperger’s Syndrome. The hate against people with disorders has to stop.
Oh fuck off with your concern trolling.
Here you go:
Do Elon’s salute at your job. Do it in public, like the middle of a grocery store or a train station. Tell me how that would work out for you.
But Elon did not do a salute.
cybergorf,
I agree it wasn’t an intentional nazi solute. Still, the fact that the freeze frame does look like one doesn’t have good optics.
Even though trump himself would take the cheap shot, I feel we should do our best to stay focused on more serious matters of policy and corruption. There is a lot to be critical of.
Well – such stupid freeze frames do exist for about almost every politician:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GhxFFNqbAAAmoLY.jpg:large
or even in full motion:
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1881800472081891815
it is ridiculous to expect any person to simply never move the right arm in a certain position, because the bad guys did it once this way …
cybergorf,
I feel you kind of missed my point, which was that we should focus on actual policy and corruption rather than cheap shots like this.
“which was that we should focus on actual policy and corruption rather than cheap shots like this.”
To this I fully agree.
””I believe consumers, as a right, should be able to install software of their choosing to any computing device that is owned outright””
There are dangerous words here. Owned outright how do you define this. You could argue that you bought the device with a 2 year warranty under a rent/buy agreement. Yes the first 2 years while it was under warranty you were renting it so did not have the right to alter it at core levels because to perform warranty actions the provided software had to be installed. Yes you can pay rent for years in advance.
I do believe any hardware that is locked from alteration should have to be unlocked when the device goes end of life.
Lets say I rent a tractor to do some farm work. The machine prevents me from doing basic repairs….. There need to be a duty of care on anyone wanting to do locked systems where they have to be able to justify the locks.
oiaohm,
Common sense would be that hardware faults should be covered under warranty and software faults should not be. But in reality those people who have root access on their own devices end up ceding manufacturer warranty anyway – so that’s not a justifiable reason to withhold root control. I often buy used hardware, which they won’t honor warranties for anyway. It’s really none of their damn business what I do with my hardware, but unfortunately owners often find they don’t get the keys for their own hardware. 🙁
Thom is right, giving owners the keys should be legally mandatory when demanded.
Faults with anything supplied by the original supplier should be under warranty.
Some countries mandate a 10 year warranty on new build houses for example. If the paint supplied with the house starts flaking off then this is covered under the warranty, however if you apply your own paint and it flakes off then that’s not covered. But the fact you applied your own paint doesn’t alter the warranty status of any other part of the house.
When it comes to anything however, modifications should only be performed by someone competent to do so. A majority of people don’t have sufficient technical knowledge to install arbitrary software with root access, just like a majority of people wouldn’t know how to modify a house or a car safely.
So yes everyone should have full access, but only those who know what they’re doing should actually use that access. If they need to make changes and aren’t competent to do it themselves then they should hire someone else to make those changes for them. The same way it is with cars, houses, and pretty much anything.
bert64,
Yeah, I agree with you in principal, but you have to live in a country that strictly protects consumers to be able to rest assured it will be honored. Otherwise you may be left fighting the company on your own. Here in the US unfortunately there are companies that refuse. I report to the department of consumer affairs but they are toothless. You may be able to go to court or forced arbitration, but you’ll likely incur very high costs over a warranty that may not be worth it even assuming you can win.
Standards could make this a hell of a lot easier, such as how it used to be trivial to boot a live cd/disk to try completely new operating systems without even having to commit to modify the original OS. This was a fantastic way of trying things and it would be very nice if all products had similar standards… but I know it’s just wishful thinking.
“””Common sense would be that hardware faults should be covered under warranty and software faults should not be. “””
Alfman This get harder. Some cases software can instruct hardware with faults to-do actions that destroy the hardware.
https://maker.pro/forums/threads/video-card-damaging-crt-monitor.51727/
There was a historic example with cheap CRT monitors not having protections they should breaking by wrong signals. There are other cases where people putting their own software on systems have broken fuse-able links so altering how the silicon chip functions.
This is why I say the lock should have to be explained. I can understand someone providing a device wanting to lock the device software for the warranty time frame. Yes some cases they should be mandated to allow the device to be unlocked inside the warranty time frame.
Alfman its knowing thing. Maker does need to know if their software is the only software that been used in silicon with fuseable links or not. Silicon who fuseable links have changed while having software that should not have been able to would be a defective batch of silicon.
Remember allowing root access on Linux can allow changing fuse-able links in hardware. There is root access and then there is means to alter the physical hardware and those two things are not cleanly split from each other..
I would say if a maker have locked the boot loader that user cannot replace the software the software should absolutely be under warranty and absolutely the maker should be liable for what ever defects that provided software has. Yes no buck passing they choose the lock the software they should have to pay the price for this. You want not to be 100 percent liable for software faults you must allow modifications and this should the law..
oiaohm,
I agree with bert64 that warranties should be honored when the cause is faulty hardware. Nevertheless most of us who root are already aware that we loose warranty and do so at our own risk. Many devices I buy are used and most manufactures explicitly void warranty coverage regardless of if we root or not.. The point being it’s our risk to take and it is not a legitimate reason to deny root access.
Alfman in countries where companies cannot void warranty.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act
Lot of countries have a Magniuson and Moss ruling. Not all countries enforce it. Alfman you putting own software on device does not void warranty if maker cannot prove that the installing your-software caused the defect.
Lot of that explicitly void warranty coverage is not in fact legal. USA and other places lack a dedicated and proactive consumer protection department so companies get away with breaking the laws on warranty..
I see it as above board for a company to block you from installing you from having root on the device while they are providing full warranty support on that device with software security updates and hardware replacement in case of defect. But once they are not they should be forced to open up.
Alfman companies do want to lock users out root to make it simple to know when something is hardware defect or user screw up. Part way would be company being able to look root access out for 12 months the time frame that most hardware defects show themselves.
Remember it can be very time costly working out of this is a failure caused because user added their own root level software or if this is some real bit of silicon failure in countries that enforce their warranty laws. Countries that enforce their warranty laws is a valid reason for hardware makers while providing warranty to lock you out of root access so that providing warranty is cost effective. I don’t see this reason remaining valid after the warranty is up.
Alfman another thing most of the countries laws on warranty you cannot in fact sign a document saying you wave warranty the warranty is either provided or not as the only two legal options. Alfman you seam to be talking from USA or equal point of view without a party enforcing companies provide warranties.
oiaohm,
We’ve gone over this topic in the past, including Moss Warranty Act. Unfortunately many manufacturers will do what they want and you are left to fight them on your own dime.
Alfman
“””We’ve gone over this topic in the past, including Moss Warranty Act. Unfortunately many manufacturers will do what they want and you are left to fight them on your own dime.”””
That not all countries that it on your own dime.
https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/target-will-address-customer-complaints-about-faulty-playstations
Australia is one of the places where companies don’t get to walk away from their warranty or interfere with third party repair.
Alfman fun having a section of law where enforcement for the customer by a law firm has to be pro-bono. Yes legal costs being taken out of the company that was foolish enough not to keep the Warranty.
Countries where the customer have to use their own dime to go after hardware maker for breaking the law results in more of them deciding to play the game of lets drag the feet out because they will give up or run out of money. Facing government department + freelance law firms who have to take the case pro-bono the same companies better behave.
https://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/279186/subdr176-repair.pdf
Note the date of that 23rd July 2021 this has the Australian farmers getting everything the USA farmers had to fight for and only got 8 Jan 2023 .
There is case after case of this where countries with better consumer protection have companies behave themselves sooner.
The reality here enforcing the existing rules would get everything a long way.
oiaohm,
I don’t take issue with that. If you can acknowledge that warranties aren’t reliable everywhere then we should be able to agree.
“””I don’t take issue with that. If you can acknowledge that warranties aren’t reliable everywhere then we should be able to agree.”””
But you also have to take in account companies have to deal with countries who do have true warranty enforcement.
https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/buying-products-and-services/buying-parallel-imports
Australian directly buys a John Deere item straight from USA the USA company John Deere has to play by Australian consumer protection laws. There are trade agreements allowing this. Yes 23rd July 2021 agreement applied to direct imported John Deere items as well with Australia. Yes USA person and Australian person buys the same item from the same dealer in the USA and one gets all the tools to repair the device and the other does not.
So its not just warranties are not reliable its the self repair tools you get. Yes when a company sells a product they cannot be sure not going to end up in a country where they cannot void the warranty.
Alfman this is the problem. Companies apply policies like locking people out of root to keep costs down in countries where they cannot void warranty and then this also gets applied on countries where they can void warranty. As I say I don’t have a problem being locked out of a device for the time frame that the device has warranty and the company has not voided it because this is cost control to company providing warranty and to make it simpler to id defective silicon and the like by removing a factor.
Just think of this way if a company had provide the information to unlock the device when they void warranty you could see devices with longer warranty and companies wanting to run a walled garden wanting to keep the warranty so they did not have open up their walled garden.
I see this as a give and take thing. If I give up root access the maker need to be giving be a replacement device warranty for the time I am locked out and/or reasonable repair/upgrade cost for the same time frame.
Problem here we have a lot of makers locking you out of device and giving no warranty or cost effective repair so no compensation for being locked out.
Alfman I see that warranty should also be apply in case of software that the maker has stopped the user from being able to repair themselves. Computer systems in car and the like they have a software glitch/security flaw the car maker is legally on the hook. Yes parties like John Deere did not like being told in Australia that slow repair costing a farmer his crop equal John Deere on the hook for the crop losses because they had put a restrictive system in place. If they were putting a restrictive system in place they better be ready to support that hardware and software or be ready to pay out damages to the users for harm their device causes when it does not work right because of their software/hardware they have blocked others from repairing.
My point is if maker have locked you out maker should have legal duty of care to make sure the production works correctly and is secure and failing to do so they are 100 percent legally liable for the damages their product causes. This would cause a lot who are locking people out of root and the like to really seriously think about what they are doing…
oiaohm,
Even in countries that protect warranty rights, I remain skeptical of your position that companies wouldn’t be allowed to place conditions on the warranty around proper use versus uses that would void the warranty. I even found examples that demonstrate this point where warranties weren’t honored (because of user damage).
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255200069
So even in europe I don’t think warranties are as iron clad as you are suggesting…and it may invalidate your premise. For this reason I’d ask that you provide proof that manufactures are legally required to honor warranties for rooted devices.
https://www.apple.com/au/legal/statutory-warranty/au/
Alfman in Australia it want warranty you claim under if you have the water damage argument or not.
Australian consumer law the device has to be fit for purpose for at least 24 months. This is not a warranty apple can simple void just because some moisture sensors have changed so resulting them them having to make a detail report how you broke it if they don’t want to fix it. That detail report better not prove the device is not fit for purpose.
Alfman this is one of many examples of countries with warranties companies have to provide because the law says the company will provide this Warranty and highly restricts how they can void..
Yes I have had a person have apple tell them in Australia that it was water damaged and they would not fix and the say should I take this to shop where it was bought and magically it gets fixed for free as the apple person wakes up they have not done the correct report to void and without that report the ACCC is going to rip them a new one and the defect they have does not meet the requirement of the law to write the report. Yes false report on this is both fraud and consumer protection law fines so rip them a even bigger new one..
“””I remain skeptical of your position that companies wouldn’t be allowed to place conditions on the warranty around proper use versus uses that would void the warranty. “””
The only party who can place terms in the “Australian consumer law” warranty is the Australian government. Yes there is allowance for company getting out of this warranty if the device is used in way that it not fit for purpose and this results in the damage.
Yes fit for purpose the device under the “Australian consumer law” has to be able to accept the wear of general usage. for reasonable time frame for something like a phone this is 2 years other devices can be longer. Yes a phone/laptop should be able to tolerate slight water damage by law because general usage include user being caught in the rain for a phone or laptop if it cannot the device sold was not fit for purpose so user due full refund and compensation for time lost with a production not fit for purpose.
Alfman there is the warranty that the company decides to provide and the warranty that a countries government mandates that companies serving their population must provide. Way less trickery in the government mandated warranties to many companies hate because there is none of this writing if use item X way it not covered in the government mandated warranties instead companies have to do reports on how the device was miss used..
Yes remember in Australia the ACCC will check any “Australian consumer law” warranty interaction free of charge to the consumer that it was legal and above board.
Alfman I guess you have never been in a Country with a legally by government mandated product Warranty with the terms set by the Government that companies just have to obey be not allowed to sell products in the country directly and if consumers parallel import product have done trade agreements so that can enforce that government warranty in most countries of origin..
Yes Australia have a lot of companies making products having nightmares when they work out there is no way to avoid this beast and laws of Australia don’t allow the normal Warranty slide of hand. . More countries should have min Warranty terms and timeframes written by government that companies cannot change including the all important fit for purpose bit..
oiaohm,
It’s one thing to talk about how you think things ought to work, but the problem is that the real world doesn’t always work the way we want and sometimes even written laws get ignored in practice. From my link earlier it seems like US customers aren’t alone in the negative experiences surrounding apple’s business practice of converting warranty repairs into up-sells for vulnerable customers. A legitimate warranty case might turn into several hundred or even thousand dollar invoice.
This difference between theory and the real world is why I find it important to look at what actually happens and not just speculate about what should happen.
“””It’s one thing to talk about how you think things ought to work, but the problem is that the real world doesn’t always work the way we want and sometimes even written laws get ignored in practice. From my link earlier it seems like US customers aren’t alone in the negative experiences surrounding apple’s business practice of converting warranty repairs into up-sells for vulnerable customers. A legitimate warranty case might turn into several hundred or even thousand dollar invoice.”””
Alfman places like Australia apple does not pull half their crap. Do note Australia did not just write laws.
https://www.accc.gov.au/
There is pure Australian government department with 1 job. To make sure consumers are being treated correctly by companies. Their budget depends on finding companies not doing the right thing and fining them. Yes these fines keep on scaling as long as the company is not doing the right thing. Its in ACCC vested interest to be absolutely proactive. And they have to be trying to beat Australian law firms to the punch. Remember Australian law firm beats accc to punch the accc gets nothing.
Australia has a very good system for protecting consumers from most of the underhanded things. Yes I would like to see Australian law to have a class added to say once warranty is up that root of device has to be allowed.
What ever rule you put on root access have to allow for countries like Australia were companies absolutely cannot cancel warranty no matter how much they want to.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-17/accc-mobil-false-claims-fuel-sold-regional-queensland/104736708
Yes Accc found 4 service stations not providing fuel as descripded say hello to court.
Accc has taking a car maker to court over a single car. Accc has taking laptop vendor to court over a single laptop. This party is highly proactive because their employment depends on it.
Alfman the US customers are not alone in Apple bad treatment. Apple in places like Australia, Dubai and other places with government mandated and enforced warranties manage to behave themselves after a few fines that have to payments for emotional stress and other things caused by their poor service. USA has most of the laws you don’t have a serous department who job is to enforce those laws with their jobs on the line if they don’t.
oiaohm,
It’s not that I take issue with your opinions on the matter, or even your observation that astrallia doesn’t let companies get away with as much. However very often you use hand waiving when trying to claim something as fact, but that’s not sufficient to establish it. You’re link “ACCC alleges Mobil made false claims about fuel sold in Queensland” is about a company advertising false claims, not a company denying a warranty. You can’t just hand wave away the completely different circumstances. Find one about warranty denial after user modifications and then we can discuss.
If I were dictator of the EU, I’d create a 100% sales tax on all products that do not give the buyer root access. The receipts from that tax will then be given to fund FOSS projects.
Why do that and provide a window for some manufacturers to sell their devices as status symbols? It’s like that silly system in the EU that allows car manufacturers to skirt average fuel economy regulations as long as they buy “carbon credits” from some other car manufacturer.
Problem is, root access is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing in regulatory circles. As I’ve said below, some banks consider lack of root access to be a good thing and prevent their banking apps from running on “rooted” Android phones. And they are allowed to do it despite banking being a highly regulated industry. So, I’d be more worried about the EU banning root access in mainstream OSes in the name of protecting users from rootkits installed from trojans/warez.
My opinion is that root access should be available but well-hidden from average users, much like the disabling of driver signature verification in Windows. It’s there, but you can’t ship a product that relies on disabling driver verification as a manufacturer because it’s reasonably well-hidden. Similarly, average users shouldn’t be able to click “yes” on a UAC or sudo prompt and give crappy apps root access willy-nilly, so that commercial apps can’t rely on it.
Problem is, root access is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing = Problem is, lack of root access is not necessarily viewed as a bad thing (apologies)
kurkosdr,
You brought cars, and that is also a very valid point.
The average car has about 1000 computers. Yes, a thousand separate computers communicating on the CAN bus.
None of them are open source. Nor even the dashboard or the entertainment center.
We are very selective on which devices we want access. I actually want more access to my car computers. But for most it is not even an afterthought.
(For a very generous definition of “computer” of course. If you were to count only high level ones, maybe 5-10 of them).
My point is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the EU passed regulations dictating that manufacturers should give you less access to your car computers than what they give you now (so you can’t re-program the ECU to mess with emissions or make the digital cluster play TV for example).
kurkosdr,
This is one of the aspects I worry about. Corporations depriving owners over control eventually leads to government control over our devices as well. This is why I can’t condone restrictions on consumer electronics…years from now they’ll ask why we allowed it to happen and the answer will be a disappointing one: we needed to secure owners from themselves. Ugh.
On the topic of emissions standards, I think this is crucial and it’s so frustrating to see the US leave the paris accords at such a critical time. It’s so sad that political leaders are bent on taking us down a path that will virtually guarantee more suffering.
Alfman,
They actually did that with social networks. When they realized there were levers for moderating the content, they took reigns of it.
Now, US shows why it is a very bad idea. We had two parties with opposing views taking over those controls over free speech in succession.
The issue is always: “what happens if the other guy you don’t like is in charge of the new powers you enacted?”
The same could very well happen for EU. If they insist on, for example, stricter control of auto ECU and maybe even remove “kill switches”, can they ensure “good guys” will be in power for… forever?
sukru,
This is why I strongly oppose government taking control. Whatever “benefits” one hopes to bring by censorship and/or regulation of otherwise legal services, it is gravely outweighed by the risk of those same levers ending up in the hands of real tyrants aiming to crush political dissidents. I worry this is going to bite us big time. I suspect our laws on freedom of speech may be put to the test by a party who’s alliance is to their leader rather than to the constitution or the people.
More than a decade ago a big named company that liked to “exploit” Linux was frustrated by end users that would “unlock” and/or “enhance” their systems. In particular, their storage subsystems. For them the root cause was old school shell based init and so they needed a way to get rid of that. A userland owner of all that would better support an “all closed” style of operation.
This “problem” has been fixed.
If I had a time machine, I’d go back to year 2001 (or whatever year you consider the height of Steve Ballmer’s war against open-source), find Richard Stallman, and inform him that Windows still offers root access to users in year 2025 while the Linux-based OSes that most people use don’t (Android and IoT devices). Then I’d leave before he has the chance to go on a rant about GNU plus Linux.
This is not because Microsoft cares about the user of course (Windows Phone also had locked-down root access) but because of legacy. Still, it showcases how the “Four Freedoms” have been subverted to be enjoyed by device manufacturers, not users.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any proposal on how this could change (say in a hypothetical GPLv4) other than the OS vendor protecting their trademark (which is up to the OS vendor, not the source code authors). Sure, GPLv3 bans locked bootloaders, but manufacturers can still subvert community ROM efforts by making their hardware slightly incompatible with the norm (and requiring binary blobs for it to work). I have personally experienced this, with my HTC U11+ having a “3D sound recording” functionality that makes the audio volume fluctuate during recording when a generic camera app is used, you have to use HTC’s camera app to record video at a constant audio level.
Also, the fact Windows laptops are technically “rooted” devices showcases that banks preventing their banking apps from running on “rooted” Android devices is complete BS, but that’s another rant for another day.
Microsoft has plenty of locked down devices – see the bios on any given MS laptop, or XBox, and I’m sure I’m missing plenty else.
Yes, I mentioned that Windows Phone had locked-down root. And of course the Xbox fits the bill too. But what’s wrong with MS laptops? Have they locked the ability to disable Secure Boot or something? And are we talking x86 or ARM? Also, even that way, you still get the ability to have OS-level root for Secure Boot-enabled OSes, which is much better than the average Android phone.
But anyway, my point is, the “Four Freedoms” were meant to provide a way out of these restrictions, but they have been subverted to be enjoyed by device manufacturers, not users.
What I meant is that the bios/firmware on those devices is still proprietary, and I’m guessing locked down in some way (or at least, there’s not wide effort to provide open source versions of any of that). It’s not unique to MS laptops though, fair call out. HP laptops have horrendous bios implementations that make it impossible to even get basic features like sleep and hibernate working on non-MS operating systems. That’s beyond just locked private keys for “secure boot”. The point is, there is plenty of locked bits of software we can’t easily replaced in the MS ecosystem.
In the United States, you are allowed to completely build your own car, register it, and run it all over the road. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to do the same with your software. There should be no exceptions.
There may be reasons for an end user to only accept signed binaries for something they deem important, to verify a relationship they deem important. There’s no reason anyone with the interest should not be allowed to do whatever they want with their own hardware AND software. Signed binaries are fine – as long as you can opt out or in.
A side note: the fact I can’t run whatever I want on a PlayStation, is why I don’t have a PlayStation 5.
I think root on everything encompasses a few key points:
1) Give users full control of what their device does.
2) Ensure they can choose any application can run on their hardware.
3) Ensure that the security sensitive parts are securely written
4) Ensure that any source code given matches whats running on the device.
I don’t think its incompatible with those principles to compromise with companies to ensure their investment in developing the hardware still makes sense. So I would be willing to compromise on the following.
1) An additional reasonable charge to provide those facilities instantly
or
2) A timeout lock, after two years of being locked the device automatically unlocks itself allowing for all the previous features.
I think that would be fair to all parties.
Thom, you need a better news source, if you actually think Elon was giving a Nazi salute. I bet you never even listened to the last 10 seconds of that speech with the sound on. If you did, you’d understand he was just gesturing retardedly like he always does while saying “My heart goes out to YOU.” However, you’ve always been a left wing communist idiot and it doesn’t surprise me at all you’d peddle such bullshit. BTW, did you know that UNIX and TCP/IP were both invented in the USA? Just thought I’d throw that out there for you to chew on, “Comrade”