Okay but how can you promise that?
I run Acme Inc making IOT devices. I say 10 year guaranteed support. I go bankrupt next week, the company doesn't exist. Who is keeping the servers running exactly?
I run Acme Inc making IOT devices. I say 10 year guaranteed support. I go bankrupt next week, the company doesn't exist. Who is keeping the servers running exactly?
E.g. Pebble was sold to Fitbit due to insolvency. And the cloud services continued to run for a year.
Bankruptcy does not necessarily mean everything is gone. Deleting everything is actually the _worst_ outcome as it destroys value.
Not having any promise means it will pretty sure be gone. Having a support promise increases the chances of future support, even in case of bankruptcy.
This does give some advantage to established companies but I don't think that is a major problem. If anything it gives companies a reason to build a reputation, which is something that we see a major lack of these days.
And it doesn't make the situation worse. Right now if you buy some Internet of Shit light switch from some effectively anonymous online seller that depends on their HTTP API there is a good chance that it does stop working within a few years. At least now reputable companies that don't go out of businesses do have to start behaving properly.
Feels like your opening up a can of hurt if they're relying on licensed services from someone else, not like they can open source that as well.
Again though given the sub licensing potential I can't see it being very effective. Maybe just a slight improvement.
When selling anything that relies on network services, companies should be forced to provide server and client source code to an authority, which will keep it in escrow indefinitely. The company is then required to renew their "IP lock" every X weeks/months; if they fail to do so, the code is made publicly available (maybe for a small fee, to cover operational costs).
Extra red tape? Maybe. A perfect system? Probably not, as companies would likely fail to upload updates after the initial market debut; and probably someone would occasionally forget to renew locks on products they still sell. Still better than the terrible status quo? For sure.