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Comment by latexr | Hacker News Reader

Sounds like a good intention with bad consequences. It would incentivise operating systems to become subscriptions too. Plus, it would never happen. If a company goes bankrupt they can’t buy back the devices.

I’d rather they were forced to release their software to the public, making it a requirement without which bankruptcy or sales would be refused by regulatory agencies. That way hobbyists could still get them to work, perhaps even launch a new company to revive the old devices (reducing e-waste). Additionally, we could detect if they had been doing anything shady with the data.

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I think going bankrupt can be grounds for making the software open source or at least free to make the users whole. Think of it like a liability, when bankrupt the stakeholders can choose to refund customers or make the software available - whichever suits them.

That might also have bad consequences (not because the idea is bad, but because corps will try to route around it). It'll start with pieces of the software not being able to be released because they were licensed from a third party, and end with software development teams being organized into contract shops that own the code and thus (oh! How sad!) are regrettably unable to supply any code after the bankruptcy of the main entity. Would need very careful rules from regulators to try and anticipate tricks like this.

> because they were licensed from a third party

*or they were violating open source licenses like some startups just do.

But in either case a reasonable fine could be appropriate.

I agree it should be carefully designed but let's be honest, all those outs can be solved if lawmakers are willing.

That is far better; this 'blahblah' that, after bankruptcy legal reasons prevent from passing out the source should not be allowed as excuse.

> If a company goes bankrupt they can’t buy back the devices.

Yes, but in this specific scenario the purchasing entity is far from bankrupt at least financially.

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