[HN Gopher] Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make workin...
___________________________________________________________________
Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for
Linux?
Author : opengears
Score : 155 points
Date : 2023-10-01 17:06 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (old.reddit.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (old.reddit.com)
| 0xDEF wrote:
| A lot of the innovation in the GPU space and competition between
| Nvidia and AMD happens at the driver level.
|
| This could be an
| userbinator wrote:
| I'd rather they force them to release documentation instead,
| documentation which they certainly already have, and which
| hardware manufacturers used to freely provide.
|
| If they're worried about IP, that's what the patent system is
| for.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Of course they could. Will they? Probably not. Should they?
| Maybe. Do I want them to? Hell yeah. Let's light this
| firecracker.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Remember how old electrical appliances used to come with full
| circuit diagrams to help repair them? That's one way to go about
| this is - force hardware manufacturers to provide complete device
| and technical specification (e.g.
| https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/rp2040/rp2040-datasheet.p...
| (PDF)) for every hardware they manufacture. This should enable
| any competent system developers to create the drivers for it, for
| any software system. (After all, realistically, we cannot force
| hardware manufacturers to create drivers for every OS in the
| world).
|
| One major objection we can expect is that sometimes hardware
| manufacturers deliberately cripple their products through their
| drivers. This enables them to sell a cheaper version, that is
| crippled, and a costlier one that isn't. One example of this is
| Intel and AMD manufacturing a quad-core processor, but selling
| the same processor as dual-core and quad-core (remember how AMD
| allowed you to "unlock" extra cores on their processors?). I
| think NVIDIA also limits some of their graphic card with their
| drivers, to sell the same hardware at different prices.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| This is why society is screwed.
|
| All these people don't understand the dangers of socialism.
| History is bound to repeat itself.
|
| The cost of the EU forcing everyone to adopt a standard is that
| next time a new manufacturer need to enter the market, it will
| have to cater to the need of the 1% (of which I am part, I'd love
| to have drivers for linux for everything).
|
| Who is going to benefit from this regulation? The existing
| players who can afford to support linux: it will be peanuts for
| them and it will make or break a new broke manufacturer.
| amelius wrote:
| We can make it so that it only applies to the really big or top
| 5 (say) manufacturers.
| skirge wrote:
| What I want should be a right and someone forced to provide it to
| me? Cool, until I'm the one forced to do something, then it's
| exploitation.
| jandrese wrote:
| More likely they would require companies to publish specs
| suitable for driver authors. I've always thought that companies
| treating their register configuration and I/O offsets as a trade
| secret is ridiculous.
| smoldesu wrote:
| This sounds much more reasonable to me. Banning unnecessary
| hardware DRM and requiring specs to get published would be a
| much more effective way to stimulate the market. Forcing
| manufacturers to publish Linux drivers would probably just end
| up in low-effort support on either side. The last person I want
| writing my Linux drivers is someone who doesn't care.
| jandrese wrote:
| Yeah, you know it would end up with the manufacturers just
| releasing a binary driver for exactly one point release of
| the kernel and calling that box checked. Might even just be
| some NDIS thing where they wrap the Windows driver to get it
| mostly working.
| msm_ wrote:
| This. Linked post is a misconception of how EU actually work.
| They will never "hardcode" something like "linux drivers" into
| the law. But, in theory, they could write a law like "If you
| want to sell your device in the EU, you must publish a freely
| available technical spec with enough level of detail to write a
| functioning driver".
| adrian_b wrote:
| This would not even be something completely new.
|
| It would just revert the market for computer peripherals and
| interfaces to how it was before the launch of MS Windows 95.
|
| In the MS-DOS days everything was provided with detailed
| technical information, so you could write your own device
| drivers, for any operating system.
|
| This ended in 1995, after which most hardware vendors stopped
| providing documentation and replaced it with MS Windows
| device drivers.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Do you realize how much the PC ecosystem sucked back then?
| kichimi wrote:
| Do you have any point of substance to make here? What do
| you mean by it sucked, and how does that relate to
| publishing driver specs?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes, it's a dumb idealistic idea that never worked in
| practice. Geeks spent forever trying to get crappy
| drivers working IRQ conflicts fixed, etc.
|
| It wasn't until Windows 95 and WinHec and "Plug and Play"
| that x86 based PCs became usable for the mass market
| jandrese wrote:
| That was largely hardware issues. In particular without a
| way to negotiate between drivers conflicts were doomed to
| happen regardless of who was writing the driver,
| especially with the relatively small number of resources
| to pull from.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Maybe, but that's a separate matter from publishing specs
| that would let someone write a driver.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| How well did that work in the past when for profit
| companies had a motivation to write good drivers? You
| think it's going to be a seamless mass market experience
| _this time_?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I don't see the connection. Two things appear to be true:
| 1. In the past, it was common to publish actual specs for
| talking to hardware. 2. In the past, drivers often
| sucked. You appear to be claiming that the first thing
| caused the second, but I can't see any reason for that to
| follow. It's not like hardware manufacturers couldn't, or
| indeed didn't, write their own official drivers, and on
| the other hand there's no reason to believe that a 3rd-
| party driver written using proper hardware docs wouldn't
| work well. In fact, it's quite reasonable to suggest that
| the improvement in quality is entirely tied to overall
| architecture improvements, mostly (as cousin comments
| point out) device enumeration standards and possibly OS
| improvements (preemptive multitasking and memory
| protection).
| lostlogin wrote:
| The days spent trying to get drivers to work and deal with
| their bugs and conflicts were seriously grim.
| bubblethink wrote:
| And the ability to use such a driver. Hell, even the spec
| wouldn't be such a strong requirement as people can reverse
| them. The issue is usually the firmware and signature checks.
| bpye wrote:
| This would be my expectation too. Though I'd think you'd need
| to go one further - hardware manuals AND a license to
| redistribute any necessary firmware binaries - the latter has
| been an issue with Nouveau for example.
|
| In fact I think manuals are probably better in a lot of cases,
| OEM drivers are routinely terrible.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Drivers... I don't know if I could sign on for that for the
| following reasons:
|
| 1. The burden it would put on smaller manufacturers and companies
| (every little regulation adds up), especially difficult
| considering the comparative lack of qualified developers
|
| 2. Drivers != Quality, Upstreamable Drivers. Making the
| judgements of Linux maintainers legally binding is a bad idea.
| Case in point: Apple has Linux drivers internally, they're just
| not complete or upstreamable. You would be forced to fight the
| Linux maintainers (and the power trips they already have!) in
| order to legally sell your product.
|
| 3. If we can force companies to support Linux, why not force all
| websites to support Firefox? Why not force all desktop programs
| like Adobe to support Linux? Etc...
|
| 4. What about poor FreeBSD? Serenity OS? That guy who still loves
| OS/2?
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Don't forget TempleOS, lest you be religiously intolerant.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > 3. If we can force companies to support Linux, why not force
| all websites to support Firefox? Why not force all desktop
| programs like Adobe to support Linux? Etc...
|
| ...Although I agree that there are questions about required
| effort and breadth of support and burden to smaller companies,
| every one of those sound like wonderful outcomes to me.
| [deleted]
| jraph wrote:
| I don't think the law being Linux-specific would be right.
|
| But making them release comprehensive documentation / specs and
| forbidding them from requiring signed firmware would be
| something.
| exabrial wrote:
| Please no.
|
| The idea is rooted in idealism, but absolute crap will be
| produced in reality.
| noobermin wrote:
| I've swung over the last few years from thinking it's
| manufacturers' fault to realising that most of the fault here
| lies with the linux project itself. They're the ones who have
| normalised constant churn and thus needing to keep drivers for
| hardware, sometimes many years old, up to date year after year or
| even month after month. After seeing the churn mentality affect
| everything mainly spreading from web dev circles to the rest of
| the ecosystem, it's hard not to identify that trend as having
| been the norm in the kernel for decades.
|
| I've only come to realise that blaming manufacturers for failing
| to keep up to date with a constantly moving target was totally
| unfair.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yes, ideology has a price.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I've only come to realise that blaming manufacturers for
| failing to keep up to date with a constantly moving target was
| totally unfair.
|
| The intention of keeping the kernel moving and unstable _at the
| inner layer_ is intentional: it is a negative incentive to make
| people at least publish documentation, if not outright publish
| driver source code, in the open.
|
| The userspace-facing layer of Linux has remained very VERY
| stable over the decades, no matter the consequences [1].
|
| [1]
| https://archive.fosdem.org/2016/schedule/event/design_linux_...
| eep_social wrote:
| Sorry but your claim is that Linux is the driver of churn?!
| That's a wild thought.
|
| Hard for me to imagine how Linux could be more responsible that
| the incentives of capitalism, eg planned obsolescence, the race
| to the bottom, and consumer demand for more and better cameras,
| storage, etc.
| noobermin wrote:
| I didn't claim that it birthed it but that the same issue I
| see in the unsustainability in software today is literally
| the norm in the kernel. If it's bad in one domain, perhaps
| it's reasonable to question its value in the other.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Look at the realtek drivers made by realtek. Reconsider.
| caeser wrote:
| [dead]
| sylware wrote:
| If the hardware is not too insanely complex, until there is a
| maintained and properly written open source driver with public
| hardware programming documentation for some OS, a working linux
| driver will probably follow if this hardware has a pertinent
| meaning.
| gumballindie wrote:
| That would be amasing, and should happen. If you sell hardware
| you should include all documentation, code and support needed to
| use it.
| doikor wrote:
| Why should EU give preference to Linux over any other operating
| system?
|
| A much more EU "style" directive would be to force the companies
| to release enough of the specs so anyone can write the driver if
| they want to.
| mnd999 wrote:
| A much more EU style directive would be to force all operating
| systems to use the Linux 5.1 kernel.
| diego_sandoval wrote:
| A much more EU style directive would be to force all
| operating systems to ask on every boot: Do you consent for
| this OS to store files on your hard drive?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| No, the EU version of that would be requiring OSs to ask
| before using a disk, and certain proprietary OSs deciding
| to spam the user with requests on every boot until they
| consent - at which point suddenly the OS can magically
| remember _that_ preference - and then pretending that the
| law forced them to do that even though it said no such
| thing.
| amelius wrote:
| That's also fine.
| chx wrote:
| _facepalm_
|
| Whoever asked this have not considered for one second what would
| it mean in a way that can be put into legislation to "make
| drivers that work equally in linux, windows and even macOS". This
| is an incredibly, incredibly difficult topic. How would you
| phrase and likely measure "equality" here? I have no clue how to
| answer this even in layman terms. Perhaps someone would need to
| create and maintain a test suite covering all class of
| peripherals covered by the legislation and mandate this test
| suite passes. But even that would not cover performance. Much
| good does it to you if the video card tests pass unaccelerated.
|
| And then the way this question is put forward also shows this
| person is not at all familiar with how the EU works. The EU does
| not have laws in the very first place. It does not. But that
| aside, the amount of study and coordination that goes into
| creating or amending an existing directive is just monumental.
| You would need a strong, compelling need to go through a multi
| year process, costing many millions of euros. In this case, the
| need was crystal clear: "these new obligations will lead to more
| re-use of chargers and will help consumers save up to 250 million
| euro a year on unnecessary charger purchases. Disposed of and
| unused chargers account for about 11 000 tonnes of e-waste
| annually in the EU". How many EU consumers are even affected?
| Because mobile phone chargers, these days, affect everyone (above
| the age of three or some such).
|
| Here's a quote from the relevant USB C legislation:
|
| Stakeholder consultations
|
| The following consultation activities were conducted between May
| 2019 and April 2021 in order to assess potential areas for
| revision and the impacts of the suggested policy option in
| various areas:
|
| - an inception impact assessment (2018-2019) targeted citizens,
| consumer associations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs),
| manufacturers' associations, and individual manufacturers;
|
| - a public consultation (2019) targeted member states, citizens,
| consumer associations, NGOs, manufacturers' associations, and
| individual manufacturers;
|
| - two consumer surveys (2019 and 2021) targeted citizens;
|
| - a stakeholders survey (2020-2021) targeted Member States,
| citizens, consumer associations, and manufacturers;
|
| - targeted interviews (2021) targeted consumer associations,
| environmental associations, market surveillance authorities,
| NGOs, manufacturers' associations, and manufacturers;
|
| - expert group meetings targeted consumer associations, Member
| States, market surveillance authorities, NGOs, manufacturers'
| associations, and manufacturer
|
| And all of that was to survey compelling to use an existing, well
| understood, already ubiquitous standard.
| viktorcode wrote:
| There's absolutely no legal basis for it. EC technically may risk
| it and then lose in court.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| They don't necessarily have to: there's another, more
| comprehensive hammer they (or the US for that matter) could use:
| disallow vertical integration.
|
| Force hardware vendors to _only_ sell hardware. If any software
| that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even
| firmware. Conversely, software vendors can _only_ sell (or freely
| distribute) software. For vendors from abroad, don 't go extra-
| territorial, just force them to chose: either they only sell
| hardware in the EU, or they only sell software. Intel and
| microsoft would have no problem. NVDIA might complain very
| loudly. Apple would likely have to split itself.
|
| Now the complicated part is how to define a company. We don't
| want a single company to just split itself into 2 legal entities
| that work so closely together they might as well be the same
| company.
|
| Do that, and you'll get much better than device drivers for _one_
| free OS. You 'll get the necessary specs required to make it work
| on _all_ OSes. Even better, the user-facing hardware interface
| will start to matter, and there will be some selection pressure
| to drive the more complex ones, or the non-standard ones, out of
| the market. (Won 't be ideal, I can see a particular over-complex
| architecture win out, similar to x86, but at least there won't be
| that many left, so writing a driver for most devices will
| actually be possible).
| osigurdson wrote:
| In practice, what fines would hardware manufacturers be held
| liable for for any bugs in their specifications? How do we
| conclude that, yes, a hardware manufacturer hasn't lived up to
| the regulation? Perhaps the operating system is "using it
| wrong". Do governments have entire departments running tests on
| these devices?
| [deleted]
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| That's in part why I didn't propose that we force
| manufacturers to specify their products, but simply make sure
| that if they don't, nobody would want to use their product.
| Who would buy a CPU they don't know the ISA of?
|
| Forcing the separation between software and hardware
| companies may be more stringent, but it may be simpler to
| enforce, and likely even more effective at making sure the
| hardware is humanely specified than direct regulation would
| be.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Sounds great - there's just one problem: The desktop
| applications will still almost entirely be written for Windows.
| Or MacOS. Or Android.
|
| So yay, you can buy a device... and 99% of people will install
| the same OS on it that it would have originally come with
| anyway. What's the point here?
|
| You'd have to say desktop apps must support all competing
| operating systems. But, hah, good luck with that.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| The hope is that hardware interfaces harmonise to the point
| where writing a new OS becomes actually possible. Right now
| it's not, there simply is too much diversity, and that's
| before we talk about all the quirks in hardware APIs vendors
| currently hide under the software rug. Then maybe, just
| _maybe_ , we could start some real competition on the OS
| space.
|
| Even if that doesn't happen I would be happy with the end of
| vendor lock-in.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You'd have to define "hardware" in a rather interesting way for
| that to have any hope of working.
|
| Consider any sort of user-facing device (say, an electronic
| toy, or a music performance device, or for that matter, even a
| phone). These are all _aggregates_ of hardware made by other
| companies. Yet they are also hardware. Being unable to develop
| such devices along with the firmware that runs them would make
| it more or less impossible to develop them at all. So where
| does "hardware" stop and "device" start?
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| Let's say one wants to make hardware made of 3 pieces of
| hardware that talk to each other. They may need to write
| firmware to do that. At a first approximation, I would say
| one of the following should apply:
|
| Either the firmware can be modified by the user, or remotely,
| in which case it should not be shipped.
|
| Or it is an implementation detail of the communication
| between the 3 pieces of hardware, not reasonably modifiable
| without returning the whole thing to the factory, in which
| case that firmware is actually part of the 3-piece hardware,
| and _can_ be shipped.
| crote wrote:
| But it is often _both_. Just because it is essential for
| proper operation and therefore an implementation detail,
| doesn 't mean it cannot be updated.
|
| Even a device as trivial as a keyboard, mouse, or SSD drive
| has firmware which can be updated. Shipping them without
| firmware would be completely ludicrous, and you'd basically
| buy a fancy brick. Hell, you need to flash firmware onto it
| in the factory to make future updates by the user possible!
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I know no other way to say this. But this idea is just dumb.
| The entire value proposition would be worse for everyone.
| Software and hardware integration is what makes a product
| better.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Software and hardware integration is what makes a product
| better.
|
| ... Except for the times when it makes things worse.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And when would that be?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I suppose I should say _forced_ integration; ex. see the
| recent nonsense with Hue deciding you need an account to
| control your local lightbulbs, which isn 't a problem
| with third party apps. I'm generally skeptical of
| vertical integration because of lock in, but if it's not
| forced it's less obviously bad.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| If only adults had agency to make their own decisions
| about _lightbulbs_ without depending on the government...
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| What decision would those adults make? The vendor changed
| the deal after the sale.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If only adults had the agency to make their own decision
| about how to deal with corporate malfeasance.
|
| Like back in the good old days when lynching was an
| option. /s
| mardifoufs wrote:
| You realize that said lynching was very often
| institutionalized and encouraged by local authorities? Do
| you think corporations were the ones doing the lynching?
|
| Even in the context of the extreme hyperbole of this
| entire comment chain, your analogy is pretty extreme and
| does not make sense. Jim Crow laws weren't stopped by
| regulation, they were stopped by dismantling government
| enforced rules.
|
| And yes, it might sound crazy but individuals can
| actually decide what light bulb to buy or what computer
| to buy. And thinking so isn't even remotely libertarian
| or hyper capitalist. We aren't talking about labor rights
| or healthcare or other very asymmetric power imbalances.
| People just like to buy computers and devices that nerds
| and euh, let's say, activists dislike or ideologically
| disagree with. It doesn't make them sheep, or stupid, or
| ignorant.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yes because choosing which light bulb to use is analogous
| to lynching.
|
| You realize it was the government that enforced Jim Crow
| laws, against miscegenation, and "sodomy" (ie non
| heterosexual sex).
|
| Not to mention the "War on Drugs", civil forfeiture and
| using eminent domain to take away private property to
| give to another company.
|
| I can much easier choose which corporation to use than
| the government.
|
| And looking at some of the ideas on this submission, I
| damn sure don't want some internet geeks deciding what
| products I can use and how they are made.
| Qwertious wrote:
| The lightbulbs were changed _after sale_ , consumer
| choice is irrelevant here.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _either they only sell hardware in the EU, or they only sell
| software. Intel and microsoft would have no problem._
|
| Intel has microcode.
|
| Microsoft has Xbox which I'd guess would have issues getting
| game releases if excluded from a decent-sized market.
|
| Also. My phone (hardware) came with an OS (software) already
| installed. As do other pre-assembled computers.
| chme wrote:
| I get you in principle, but the company should still be allowed
| to sell hardware with some default software installed, because
| if I had to search for someone on the internet that wrote
| software for my specific smart TV, washing machine or whatever
| this becomes much more painful.
|
| I would rather see a 'right to repair' extended to software
| bundled. Any device or software that can connect to a network
| or can be interfaced with in any way is prone to security (or
| any other) bugs, which the customer should have the right to
| fix themselves, because they bought it, and in order to do so,
| the company needs to hand out the source code and documentation
| for all their devices.
|
| Also about vendor writing Linux drivers, you probably don't
| want them too, there are already vendor board support packages
| (BSP) out there that enabled their hardware on Linux, but those
| are overwhelmingly abysmal in quality.
|
| What you rather want is for vendors to upstream their driver
| into the kernel, so that it is properly integrated, doesn't
| break the hardware of others and has a high quality, but that
| process is not something you can regulate and force.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| Of course your hardware would come with software installed!
| That software would simply be _written by_ a separate
| company.
|
| We already do this! HP didn't write Windows, but they sure as
| hell sell laptops with Windows preinstalled.
| vegetablepotpie wrote:
| I like this idea because it's incredibly American. If we're
| going to go full on free-market, we might as well live up to
| those principles.
|
| There is precedent for this idea, in 1948 the Supreme Court
| forced the film studios to give up exhibition (theaters) with
| the paramount decision. This enabled the rise of independent
| film, and audiences benefited from more choice.
|
| If you try to do this legislatively the Apples and the NVidias
| of the world will hire an army of lobbyists and storm Capitol
| Hill. But it might be to their benefit. After the breakup of
| Standard Oil, John Rockefeller became _richer_ because
| competition forced out the less efficient portions of his old
| business from the market.
|
| It's true that it could temporarily degrade the _user
| experience_ of some people, but that's a small price to pay.
| People who give up liberty for safety, deserve neither liberty
| nor safety.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| There are so many flawed analogies here it's hard to know
| where to start. How will it make my everyday experience
| better as an Apple customer without the integration of
| software and hardware between my Mac, iPads Watch, Airpods
| and phone?
|
| Windows laptops are worse in every vector than MacBooks. No
| consumer is asking for this.
|
| So you want to degrade the user experience for "freedom" by
| giving the government more power???
| webmobdev wrote:
| > * How will it make my everyday experience better as an
| Apple customer without the integration of software and
| hardware between my Mac, iPads Watch, Airpods and phone?*
|
| "Open Standards" - There is no reason that your Mac or
| iPhone should _only_ work with other Apple products through
| closed and proprietary standards. With adoption of open
| standards, all devices (irrespective of their manufacturer)
| can offer a decent integrated experience.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Yeah and that works out well with Android and Bluetooth.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yeah, it did. Your point?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You can seamlessly share standard Bluetooth devices
| between 5 devices just by pairing it to one like I do
| with my iPhone, iPad, Watch, MacBook and AppleTV and it
| automatically switches?
| tonoto wrote:
| "seamlessly". I've had trouble between just an Apple-
| branded mobile phone and their branded all-in-one
| computer when it comes to the Apple-branded wireless
| headphones. The ping-pong between active sound
| channel/device had me disable the "seamless" handover, as
| it were a subpar experience for me. Better to manually
| decide which device that actively "owns" the channel.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Yeah. Multipoint connection has been a part of the
| Bluetooth spec since 4.0. Compatible devices will connect
| to anything available nearby and negotiate audio to
| whichever device pressed 'play' last. No iCloud mumbo-
| jumbo required, it was smoother than the Airpods
| experience when I was using it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And how many "multipoint" devices support an unlimited
| number of devices? I currently have 2 AppleTVs, a
| MacBook, iPad, an iPhone and an Apple Watch all paired to
| my AirPods .
|
| What's the pairing process like? Mine is just - sign into
| iCloud and my AirPods show up.
| vetinari wrote:
| I have JBL headphones currently paired with Samsung
| phone, tablet, Intel NUC running Ubuntu and MacBook Pro
| running macOS. No problem, no cloud login necessary.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That's still less than the 6 devices I have..
| happymellon wrote:
| Isn't that literally the point. Crappy drivers and no
| hardware documentation?
| krick wrote:
| It is a great idea, but with a caveat: communism is a
| great idea too, and pretty much in the same sense. I can
| say that about most of the propositions in this thread.
|
| I, as a user (and a vim-user, may I add), would like it
| very much if all the software and hardware in the world
| would be fully open, customizable, community-maintained.
| I, as a manufacturer, am less keen on that idea. So, to
| make it happen, every manufacturer has to be _forced_ to
| make that happen. So, literally, we are stepping farther
| from the open market and killing some personal freedom
| under a promise of a bright happy future.
|
| And the realness of that promise is as questionable, as
| the means necessary to achieve the goal. As I've said,
| personally, I'm very excited about that promise. But it
| really is just a promise, and if it can be fulfilled is a
| very, very big question.
|
| Ultimately, nobody really sells hardware or software.
| Everybody sells user-experience. It is very obvious in
| Apple's case, but it is always true. It's easy to forget
| that when you are choosing the cheapest light bulbs on
| the market, because the user-experience of having
| electric light in your house has been sold to you so long
| ago, there are so many basically identical products that
| the only apparent difference to you is the price. Now you
| perceive GPUs (or bluetooth, or whatever) as light bulbs.
| But at some point selling a GPU or a light bulb was quite
| similar to selling a novel iSomething. The seller had to
| explain to you, not so much what iSomething is, but _how_
| iSomething makes your life better. And if the technology
| that makes this promise of the user-experience a reality
| is hardware, software or just exceptional marketing --
| really is just details.
|
| So, as much as I hate that my fitness-watch is basically
| a spying device and I don't even own the data it produces
| (and I mean, I really hate that), I don't feel like
| forcing Garmin to open-source the firmware is the right
| thing to do. Maybe I would support some more forceful
| moves to make the generated data my property, but even
| here the line is blurry. But forcing them (and better
| think: you, as a manufacturer) to make _something other_
| than you wanted to make -- ...why the fuck should I? Who
| decides what is that common standard I don 't want in my
| product, but I have to, to be legally allowed to sell
| that? I think, I just like the idea of personal freedom a
| bit too much to support that. I'd much prefer Garmin just
| losing to competition that chooses open firmware, than
| legally forcing them to produce anything they didn't want
| to produce.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _How will it make my everyday experience better as an
| Apple customer without the integration of software and
| hardware between my Mac, iPads Watch, Airpods and phone?_
|
| Perhaps that's the wrong question. Perhaps "making my
| everyday experience better as a customer" is not the be all
| end all.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Thinking you know better than customers is a classic.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So now you want the government to pass laws that make
| consumer experience worse?
|
| Maybe _that_ will cause the "Year of Linux on the
| Desktop" to happen.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Mandating open standards is not the same thing as 'making
| consumer experience worse'.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So everything that any company designs should go through
| a committee before it's introduced and become parts of a
| standards body?
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > How will it make my everyday experience better as an
| Apple customer without the integration
|
| Perhaps you should ask the inverse - how good would your
| experience with Apple be, if there were no open standards
| paid for by someone else, and fought for by someone else?
|
| You wouldn't even have GPS and navigation. You would not
| have HTML or the open web. Before we fought for video
| codecs compatibility you could not even get a video that
| was recorded on a Device A to reliably play on Device B.
| The phone would be almost useless.
|
| The people that argue this, they only take from the commons
| and never give back.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I think you should look up the history of h.264 and see
| who is in the patent pool...
| vetinari wrote:
| You should go even further and check the video playback
| experience on apple machines, when divx was all the rage
| and apple had just a sorrenson video 3. And yeah, full-
| screen playback was a qt pro feature, paid extra.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Or you can go even further back when Microsoft was caught
| stealing QT code because they couldn't do video
| competently themselves and Apple could (circa 1995).
|
| And every Mac geek knew how to work around it either via
| free third party software or just using AppleScript
|
| https://osxdaily.com/2007/01/30/play-quicktime-movies-
| full-s...
| fooker wrote:
| What if by letting this anti-competitive monopolies
| survive, we are getting future better 'everyday
| experiences' killed in their cribs?
|
| Large companies routinely buy out startups, kill their
| products, and absorbs the teams.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well, we have three examples of well resourced companies
| that weren't able to compete in the smart phone market -
| Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.
|
| You really think a little startup is going to be able to
| do hardware at scale?
|
| Was it big bad Apple that killed all of those phones or
| maybe it is just consumers made a choice using their own
| free will?
|
| You really think that the startups didn't have "being
| bought by a big company" as an exit strategy in the first
| place?
|
| Out of all the companies that YC has funded (1000+) only
| six have ever gone public.
|
| Were all the little companies that Apple acquired to
| integrate into their phone in an alternate universe going
| to create a phone?
| gigatexal wrote:
| What if we allow hardware manufacturers to create software to
| run their hardware but open the schematics and make the
| hardware hackable such that others can run software they want?
| That seems like a decent compromise because there's very little
| margin in hardware alone and if you force hardware makers to go
| that route pretty soon there won't be any because they'll all
| have gone out of business.
| [deleted]
| unix_fan wrote:
| This would be terrible for specialized hardware, such as
| assistive technology. Open source software doesn't really exist
| for it because there is simply no interest.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| We could carve out exceptions for specific niches. Ugly, but
| could work.
|
| Who says the software has to be open? It would be better for
| sure, but companies may be interested in selling software for
| assistive technologies.
|
| Interest may go up if the barrier to entry lowers.
| Undocumented hardware is quite the turn off.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| rather than "disallow vertical integration", start with
| "disallow lock-out". By all means, vertically integrate as much
| as you want but it should not be illegal for someone to take
| your hardware and use it for another purpose that you have no
| say in, or write and run software using your hardware without
| you having a say in that.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Yeah, someone on that Reddit thread said it right - force the
| companies to publish documentation for the interfaces. Let
| the hackers write the drivers without painful, slow and
| error-prone reverse engineering.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| It would be more prudent indeed to just force hardware
| vendors to release the specs, and it would be even more
| prudent still to just disallow lock-out. I would start there
| like you suggest.
|
| I do suspect however that we'd miss out on many benefits if
| we don't go all the way the way to disallowing vertical
| integration eventually. It's also something I rarely see
| spoken of.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| We live with such an extreme amount of vertical integration
| today that people actually believe it is benefiting them.
|
| Every time I see an Amazon delivery truck, part of me dies
| inside.
| askonomm wrote:
| Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible integration
| between hardware and software like exists right now outside of
| the Apple world. Case in point: can you copy text on your
| phone, and paste in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly
| as if it were the same device, without any configuration, hacks
| or programs needed? Things like that are amazing and I'd never
| give up. And I'm sure most people wouldn't want to give this up
| either just because Linux fanboys want to.
| ta8903 wrote:
| KDEConnect lets you sync your phone keyboard, even with
| Windows. And Apple could let you sync your clipboard to non-
| iOS devices too, they just block arbitrary features unless
| you buy into their entire ecosystem.
| askonomm wrote:
| I did mention without installing a program, and without any
| configuration.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| What is KDE Connect? Which incidentally runs equally well on
| other desktops and even windows.
|
| https://userbase.kde.org/KDEConnect
|
| Also gsconnect can provide integration with gnome.
|
| https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect/
|
| KDE Connect is a project that enables all your devices to
| communicate with each other. Here are a few things KDE
| Connect can do: Receive your phone
| notifications on your desktop computer and reply to messages
| Control music playing on your desktop from your phone
| Use your phone as a remote control for your desktop
| Run predefined commands on your PC from connected devices.
| See the list of example commands for more details.
| Check your phones battery level from the desktop
| Ring your phone to help finding it Share files
| and links between devices Browse your phone from
| the desktop Control the desktop's volume from
| the phone
|
| Also you can read and reply to messages on your Android phone
| by navigating to messages.google.com without installing
| anything
|
| Firefox and I presume chrome let you push tabs from one
| machine to the other or with forefox simply pull up a list of
| tabs currently open on the other device.
|
| Unified remote also gives you a great remote for our
| multimedia pc.
|
| Basically every email service abd chat app has good
| integration between desktop and phone.
|
| Mpd and mafa lets me easily listen to my music
|
| Calibre and calibre companion let's me easily sync my books
|
| I doubt one person making these things would make them better
| ggreer wrote:
| KDE Connect requires both devices to be connected to the
| same network, which means you have to connect your devices
| to the same VPN if you're on a wifi network with client
| isolation (most public wifi). If you're away from wifi,
| you'll have to configure one of the devices to be an access
| point and join everything else to that device.
|
| Apple's clipboard/handoff/continuity automatically works as
| long as the devices are within wifi/bluetooth range.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| This is a good point and a good reason to propose an
| improvement to KDE Connect but users point was that
| integration would be awful if not done by the same party
| and it seems to my eyes to be pretty good despite one
| being created by a party with literally a billionth of
| the resources of the other.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Really your example serves as disproving your point, without
| the hardware walled garden there could be nothing to prevent
| apple to distribute the software to copy-paste from-to
| multiple devices
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Ah just forgot to add to the point, its possible to copy
| paste from mobile/desktop with kconnect that is open
| source, its not that bit of a deal that requires special
| hardware
| tincholio wrote:
| Not only copy/paste, but have notifications shared both ways,
| use your computer as a phone laptop, use the phone as a
| trackpad/mouse, and much more. It just works.
| [deleted]
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Yes, that works if I want it to, e.g by running KDE Connect
| (which works outside of KDE). Works on Linux, Android,
| Windows and even on Apple-things in case you need to escape
| the walled garden...
| askonomm wrote:
| Sounds like it needs a special program and configuration,
| which is not needed on Apple devices. Also, KDE Connect
| needs both devices to be in the same network - which is not
| needed for Apple devices. My phone can be on 5G, and my Mac
| can be on wifi. Or they don't have to connected to a
| network at all.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > Sounds like it needs a special program and
| configuration, which is not needed on Apple devices
|
| How else would it work across different devices? Apple
| devices can not connect to e.g. Android devices without a
| 'special program and configuration' nor can they do so
| with Linux or Windows or whatever other devices.
|
| > Also, KDE Connect needs both devices to be in the same
| network - which is not needed for Apple devices
|
| KDE Connect and other similar tools work fine over a VPN
| which is the preferred solution for such setups. You can
| choose which VPN you want to use, OpenVPN and Wireguard
| are two popular choices. Here again that VPN can be used
| to connect disparate devices - Linux, Windows, Android,
| Apple-things, whatever. Apple devices only talk to other
| Apple devices which is far more restrictive.
|
| If you are a happy camper in the walled garden then
| things are good for you. I prefer the freedom of camping
| in the wild even if that means I may have to build my own
| fire and cook my own food since it enables me to go where
| I please without being held back by that wall and without
| having to pay the ferryman. To each his own I guess?
| askonomm wrote:
| > How else would it work across different devices? Apple
| devices can not connect to e.g. Android devices
|
| I was talking about Mac and iPhone having seamless
| integration - something I have not noticed of any other
| ecosystem. I have not been able to share clipboards with
| an android and a PC (Win and Linux) without installing an
| app, or doing some other hacky things. The integration,
| while possible, doesn't exist by default. It's not
| seamless. It doesn't _just work_.
|
| > KDE Connect and other similar tools work fine over a
| VPN
|
| I don't want to use a VPN? I want to use my regular home
| wifi or phone network, like a normal person.
| jksk61 wrote:
| Literally never needed to copy text from smartphone to pc (or
| viceversa). At best anyone needs to sync between photos, docs
| or stuff like that. For that you just need a sync on the
| cloud like Dropbox, Drive, Box, and so on (also never heard
| of bluetooth for small files?)
|
| moreover, apple's software is generally very buggy.
| phumberdroz wrote:
| Never typed a 2FA code from the phone to the computer?
|
| Just copying them on the iPhone and pasting them on the mac
| is super convenient.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| On android you can view your sms messages at
| messages.google.com allowing you to easily copy and paste
| it
| askonomm wrote:
| Yeah, can also view email on both phone and computer
| since forever ago - this is not even remotely similar to
| the shared clipboard of an iPhone and Mac, where you
| don't need to open any links or programs, install
| anything, configure anything - you just copy on
| phone/computer and then instantly are able to paste on
| phone/computer.
| beebeepka wrote:
| I never felt like syncing my devices besides steam cloud
| saves. Too much convenience makes me uncomfortable.
| Especially if it means mixing corporate and personal
| stuff.
| monocasa wrote:
| Why would this be an issue? Under the proposed model, the
| vendor for phone software can be the same vendor for desktop
| software.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Well that world would suck immensely, with horrible
| integration between hardware and software like exists right
| now outside of the Apple world.
|
| Why? The hardware people at companies like NVIDIA or Apple
| already _have to_ write detailed documentation for their
| stuff anyway so that the software people can do their side.
|
| Assuming they do a good enough job at writing documentation
| and testing their hardware, it should not be a problem for
| Linux developers to write appropriate drivers. Hell there are
| a very few select people able to write high quality drivers
| even with zero documentation (see Asahi Linux).
|
| The only ones in trouble would be the vendors of crap SoCs
| who ship extremely buggy hardware and make up for the lack of
| QA in software quirks instead.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Every year, Apple releases new hardware and software in
| tandem. How long does it take Android manufacturers and
| Windows manufacturers to take advantage of the latest OS
| features?
|
| How are those Android updates working out compared to
| iPhones?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > How long does it take Android manufacturers
|
| Way way too long, but to be fair a huge part of the issue
| are carriers and their insistence to pack the phones full
| of bloatware that needs to be tested against each update.
|
| > and Windows manufacturers to take advantage of the
| latest OS features?
|
| Windows device manufacturers tend to do what Microsoft
| demands of them.
|
| > How are those Android updates working out compared to
| iPhones?
|
| Samsung is fairly decent, although I'd be happier if
| they'd ... consolidate their lineup a bit and instead
| offer longer availability for spare parts.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Fairly decent? The iPhone 5s from 2013 just got an update
| and it's the carriers is a poor excuse. Apple runs on the
| same carriers.
|
| Google's first party phones don't have third party bloat
| ware and still have a piss poor history of updates
| mschuster91 wrote:
| And guess why? Because ~3-ish years used to be what the
| SoC vendors provided as BSP support timeframe, and there
| was no mandate that they open up their specifications.
| Most don't even care about following the legal minimum
| aka provide the kernel and bootloader source code,
| especially not all these fly-by-night gongkai "brands".
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So it's what happens when hardware and software is not
| integrated...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| No, it's what happens when there is no competition in the
| SoC vendor area. Apple and Samsung don't sell to external
| customers, NVIDIA doesn't do much with Tegra outside of
| the Switch and automotive, Broadcom doesn't do much in
| mobile SoCs (and from what the Raspberry Pi community
| learned hard, their chips are utter dogshit which is how
| RPi got started after all - they used surplus crap that
| Broadcom wasn't able to sell), which leaves Qualcomm as a
| sole supplier for the "high end" and Mediatek/Rockchip
| for bottom-of-the-barrel crap. There used to be Annapurna
| Labs as well, QNAP used their SoCs for a while, but I
| think they stopped selling to externals as well as they
| were bought up by Amazon and now only do Graviton which
| are Amazon exclusives.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| And yet Apple uses Qualcomm chips and manages to update
| 10 year old phones.
|
| It couldn't possibly be your premise is flawed could it?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > And yet Apple uses Qualcomm chips and manages to update
| 10 year old phones.
|
| For modems, yes, but only because there's _even less_
| competition in that area (which is why they bought Intel
| 's mobile modem business, but failed to produce a viable
| design in all the years since).
|
| They've been running their own SoC designs since the
| iPhone 4 era in 2010.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So now it's the severe lack of competition that allows
| Apple to support phones for a decade but stops Android
| manufacturers?
| nani8ot wrote:
| Apple has an interest in keeping their devices alive,
| since they can make money of the store and services.
| Android manufactures want you to throw the phone away and
| buy a new one.
|
| Since manufacturers didn't demand long support, Qualcomm
| didn't provide updates for their SoCs. This meant
| Fairphone couldn't support their phones even if they
| wanted to, which is why they used am automotive chip in
| their new phone -- which is nearly the same as a phone
| chip except the 13 years of updates.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > Apple has an interest in keeping their devices alive,
| since they can make money of the store and services
|
| Isn't that the free market working the way it should
| without government interference?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem with an unregulated free market is that
| eventually one or two companies get so dominant that it
| is virtually impossible to challenge them as a
| competition, especially in fields that require immense
| amounts of money to break into. One might even argue that
| the end game of capitalism is to acquire a monopoly,
| which one can then use to extract rents as one feels free
| to do, or just keep milking locked-in customers (like IBM
| and Oracle are).
|
| It took _Apple_ , flush with cash from iPhones and iPods,
| a decade worth of work to create a SoC able to throw
| punches at eye level with Intel and AMD, which themselves
| grew to the unholy duopoly over decades. Chipmakers have
| it even worse: TSMC has all the cards, Samsung and Intel
| have completely fallen behind with no chance in sight
| that they'll match TSMC any time soon. All the other
| competition has gone bankrupt or stopped at lesser nodes
| because they couldn't keep up the pace.
|
| There's no disrupting that, not even if you are an actual
| nation state.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So guess what happened when the EU forced browser choice
| in Windows? It had no long term affect on the market
| share.
|
| Geeks just always hate when normal people make their own
| choices using their own free will.
|
| Every failure that you cited were well funded companies
| who failed to execute. Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft
| failed trying to introduce phones.
|
| The market worked as it should - poor execution led to
| failure.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Lame excuses, Google could do the same as Microsoft with
| PC standards and OEM legal obligations.
|
| They have chosen not to.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Agreed. Google has gone down the drains just as well on
| all fronts... the thing is, once again, there is no
| viable competition left since Microsoft gave up. The
| various Linux phone projects are extremely niche stuff,
| Blackberry and Symbian are long gone, and Google seems to
| be happy coasting along on mediocrity and billions of
| dollars in Play Store revenue.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| That wouldn't change at all. The newly separated software
| company would get appropriate hardware specs and
| prototypes during the same timeline they do today (as a
| vertically integrated branch of Apple).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So instead of working together , the software team would
| work in isolation and then when they are finished they
| deliver to the hardware company and keep going back and
| forth? Yeah that's going to work out real well. Let's
| just look how well it work for Android.
| pandaman wrote:
| Have you wrote drivers? Writing a driver off documentation
| is: a) very hard, how do you debug anything without JTAG
| ports and simulators? and b) not correct on principle
| because the documentation is not the hardware, there are
| errata in the hardware so what documentation says is not
| always what the hardware does and there are mistakes in the
| documentation for the same outcome.
|
| >The only ones in trouble would be the vendors of crap SoCs
| who ship extremely buggy hardware and make up for the lack
| of QA in software quirks instead.
|
| I.e. the every single vendor currently on the market...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Writing a driver off documentation is: a) very hard,
| how do you debug anything without JTAG ports and
| simulators? and b) not correct on principle because the
| documentation is not the hardware, there are errata in
| the hardware so what documentation says is not always
| what the hardware does and there are mistakes in the
| documentation for the same outcome.
|
| I agree with you, no system (particularly not something
| as complex as an entire SoC) is free of bugs.
|
| > I.e. the every single vendor currently on the market...
|
| And yet, we have Apple, whose hardware quality alone is
| good enough for a dedicated team to reverse engineer and
| write drivers for, with _almost zero_ documentation
| available.
|
| The problem, as I expanded below, is the complete lack of
| competition in the SoC space. Everyone gets away with
| mediocrity because the largest players in town (Apple and
| Samsung) refuse to sell their chips to externals. The
| result is that the mobile ecosystem _as a whole_ suffers,
| because that is what happens in markets where entities
| get too large.
| pandaman wrote:
| >And yet, we have Apple, whose hardware quality alone is
| good enough for a dedicated team to reverse engineer and
| write drivers for, with almost zero documentation
| available.
|
| Apple own software is pretty janky, my current MacBook
| cannot bring up GPU after sleep about once a month and
| needs a reboot to begin drawing GUI correctly again, used
| to be dying completely waking up before it was fixed
| couple OS updates back. My previous MacBook could not
| stay on WiFi for more than a couple hours straight, never
| had been fixed.
|
| Also, reversing an existing working driver is different
| from writing a driver from scratch. In one case you just
| need to repeat the functionality, produce the same
| outputs for the same inputs, the quality of hardware is
| orthogonal here since it's already worked around in the
| existing driver. It's orders of magnitude easier than
| writing the thing from scratch.
| pca006132 wrote:
| 1. Hardware companies need some software to test their
| product, so this will be wasting their effort.
|
| 2. Good documentation and testing is probably not as common
| as you think.
|
| 3. It takes a huge amount of effort to write high quality
| drivers by reverse engineering. The thing about Asahi Linux
| is that the hardware does not have many variants, but there
| are a lot more different hardware for PCs.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > 2. Good documentation and testing is probably not as
| common as you think.
|
| Not to mention that documentation != the actual behavior
| of the card. both nvidia and AMD release a ton of day-one
| driver fixes for new games being released that provide
| stability and sometimes double-digit performance gains
| over a pre-patched driver. The only way this works in a
| disintegrated ecosystem is if game devs become pros at
| creating driver bug workarounds.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > The only way this works in a disintegrated ecosystem is
| if game devs become pros at creating driver bug
| workarounds.
|
| They _already are_ , they have to because that is the
| reality on mobile games. IIRC the devs of Real Racing (or
| another Android car race game) made a blog post on that.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 1. Hardware companies need some software to test their
| product, so this will be wasting their effort.
|
| They can also open source their testing bench code. The
| only ones who have to be afraid are those who don't care
| about quality. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" also
| applies here - I'd really like to be able as a consumer
| to choose the product that demonstrates the better
| engineering!
|
| > 2. Good documentation and testing is probably not as
| common as you think.
|
| Oh, I'm aware of that, and the consequences of that are
| becoming more and more dire as electronic waste from
| defunct companies or unsupported and unsecure devices
| piles up, together with hacked IoT devices causing mayhem
| on the wide Internet in botnets.
|
| It's high time for that to stop.
|
| > 3. It takes a huge amount of effort to write high
| quality drivers by reverse engineering. The thing about
| Asahi Linux is that the hardware does not have many
| variants, but there are a lot more different hardware for
| PCs.
|
| So what? Ordinary PC hardware at its core still conforms
| to decades old standards that can be used as a fallback.
| Given a sufficient supply of beers, coffee and pizza,
| every CS student worth their money can throw up a basic
| graphical OS that runs on any mainstream (i.e. non-
| embedded) x86 system. Input, output (video, serial,
| audio, keyboard, mice, accessories) and storage _all_
| have standardized interfaces - the only thing that does
| not is networking.
|
| There is no reason at all to say that the ARM world can't
| standardize on basic components or at least interfaces.
| Apple can - their UART implementation, according to
| rumors, dates back to the early iPod/iPhone days, while
| Samsung has something like five or six completely
| different implementation, and Mediatek and all the other
| SoC vendors run their completely own stuff.
| gray_-_wolf wrote:
| > Well that world would suck immensely
|
| Maybe.
|
| > Case in point
|
| But this does not really support your statement no? What you
| described seems to me SW only functionality no? And if in
| requires any special HW (BT? I have no idea how it works
| under the hood), why does it need tight integration? I do not
| see a technical reason why Android and Windows could not
| provide the same feature out of the box, despite neither the
| Google nor Microsoft making the HW.
| slim wrote:
| the most probable cause is patents
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Sounds like we clear abuse of patent law.
|
| > Non-obvious is a requirement for patent protection that
| literally means your invention is not obvious to someone
| who is in the same industry. A new invention needs to be
| unexpected or surprising and cannot be anticipated by
| looking at the existing technology or prior art.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste
| in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were
| the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs
| needed?
|
| Circumstantially, yes. I am a KDE user though, on GNOME you
| _do_ have to install a little app for it.
| oynqr wrote:
| With those preconditons, it doesn't even work on Apple
| devices.
| vesrah wrote:
| What do you mean? This is what Universal Clipboard does.
| alphager wrote:
| Pretty sure you had to configure both devices for it to
| work.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| No, just sign into both of them with your iCloud account
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > Case in point: can you copy text on your phone, and paste
| in your computer (and vice versa), seamlessly as if it were
| the same device, without any configuration, hacks or programs
| needed?
|
| I am guessing that AirDrop, Sidecar, etc have absolutely
| nothing to do with hardware-software integration, and have >=
| Layer 3 implementations. KDE Connect and Microsoft My Phone
| are competitors.
| vanviegen wrote:
| Exactly. Apple could have made this work across other
| platforms (Windows, Android, Linux), but chose not to. KDE
| Connect, for example, runs on quite a few platform,
| including all popular ones.
| https://kdeconnect.kde.org/download.html
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Why should Apple be forced to write software for
| competing platforms?
| webmobdev wrote:
| It doesn't - it only needs to support open standards.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So does that mean Apple can't release anything until it
| goes through a standards body?
| hooooopa wrote:
| Scarface, Apple doesn't love you back.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well neither does the government. At least Apple doesn't
| have _guns_ to force me to do what it wants.
|
| How hard is it for you not to use Apple products? Are you
| incapable of using your own free will?
|
| Between Apple and the government, guess which one has the
| power to take away your free will?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| What open standard covers shared clipboards across
| devices?
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| I suppose that loops back to the premise of the linked
| article (which is IMO absurd).
| howinteresting wrote:
| I generally think any company with a >10 billion (2023
| US) dollar valuation should be forced to do things that
| may not directly benefit them but benefit society. Having
| to publish open specifications for all their proprietary
| integrations is a pretty easy, relatively low-cost
| example.
|
| How to make this work in practice is a really interesting
| question. Community and employee representatives on the
| board would be a good start. But I think just having the
| requirement that open specifications be made available,
| and writing that into legislation, would be great.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Oh god, talking about design by committee. Why not just
| cut out the middle man and let the government take it
| over and come up with "5 year plans"
| howinteresting wrote:
| If a company doesn't want at least some element of that,
| the solution is very simple: drop below a USD $10B
| valuation by spinning off parts of the company. Note that
| I said TEN BILLION DOLLARS. A "decacorn". That is an
| _unfathomable_ amount of money. If you 've created a
| company worth that much you've won at capitalism.
|
| If governments had a good track record I'd advocate for
| that. No need for strawmen like five year plans, I think
| competition is a wonderful thing.
|
| My underlying, strong belief is that corporations are
| legal fictions created primarily to benefit society,
| Milton Friedman's philosophy notwithstanding.
| kanbara wrote:
| terrible idea.
|
| people buy apple products precisely because of how integrated
| they are. this idealism and desire to force companies to
| support everything (as much as i want gaming on mac/linux and
| drivers for things supported) is the single most dangerous idea
| that would completely ruin the user experience for millions.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > people buy apple products
|
| People used to buy cocaine toothache drops and give them to
| children to get them to shut up. People used to send babies
| by post. Just because people like something doesn't mean it
| doesn't have terrible effects. [1]
|
| > single most dangerous idea
|
| I mean, sure after guns, drugs, superbugs, global nuclear
| war, climate change, super-plague produced by synthetic
| biology...
|
| 1 - https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-
| family/coca...
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _this idealism and desire to force companies to support
| everything_
|
| I'm sorry, where did I proposed we do that? As far as I am
| aware my proposal would only force Apples to split itself in
| 2: a hardware company that sells top notch hardware (so top
| notch in fact that even the hardware interfaces are as clean
| and slick as an iPad's case), and a software company that
| sells a top-notch integrated software suite on whatever
| hardware they chose to support (and no other hardware).
|
| This idea that Apple's hardware is somehow better because
| they don't publish their spec sounds incoherent to be honest.
| As is the idea that their software is better because it runs
| on company hardware. If there's still a company selling good
| hardware, one can still write good software for that
| particular hardware.
|
| So... forcing hardware companies to support all software?
| Nope, though publishing their spec does automatically provide
| some level of support for arbitrary software. Forcing
| software companies to support all hardware? No more than they
| do now, possibly even _less_ : hardware vendors will be
| incentivised to harmonise their respective interfaces to
| appeal to a maximum number of software vendors, so software
| vendors will be incentivised to support a relatively limited
| set of interfaces.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Why split the company? What does that do?
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| I'm not proposing that we split companies. I proposing
| that no company that sells hardware be allowed to
| distribute software, and no company that distributes
| software be allowed to sell hardware. The Apple split is
| only a consequence of that. As would be the likely end of
| locked down game consoles, now that I think of it.
|
| What I'm hoping to accomplish with this is: reduced or
| eliminated vendor lock-in, harmonisation and
| simplification of ISAs, the ability to support any
| hardware in any OS, and maybe even the the ability to
| actually write new OSes and see some real competition in
| this space.
|
| Note one important component I haven't mentioned: ISA
| patents should be rendered null and void. Anyone should
| be allowed to design, make, and sell an ARM or x86 CPU
| without asking anyone's permission. Or a GPU clone, or a
| network card clone, etc. Without that we'll just
| strengthen monopolies, or maybe allow new ones to arise.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| This is a rather amazing comment, I'm astonished by the
| bald-faced lie that you open your first paragraph with:
|
| > I'm not proposing that we split companies.
|
| Also you, only a couple comments up:
|
| > As far as I am aware my proposal would only force
| Apples to split itself in 2: a hardware company that
| sells top notch hardware (so top notch in fact that even
| the hardware interfaces are as clean and slick as an
| iPad's case), and a software company that sells a top-
| notch integrated software suite on whatever hardware they
| chose to support (and no other hardware).
|
| Which is it, split companies or don't split companies?
| You can't have it both ways. If you aren't proposing that
| we split companies then you can't propose we split Apple
| unless you want to be a pedantic twit and point out that
| that's just _one_ company and not compan _ies_.
| crote wrote:
| This is completely impossible with any hardware made in the
| last 20 years or so.
|
| The problem is that you cannot make a hard distinction between
| hardware and software. An Intel CPU simply isn't going to run
| without microcode, and having to get rid of microcode would
| easily set back chip design by a decade.
|
| Even something as trivial as a _USB cable_ isn 't pure hardware
| anymore. It has a programmable eMarker in order to advertise
| its capabilities, so it is also a combination of hardware and
| software. Everything but completely trivial chips has some kind
| of computation embedded in it, requiring _some_ firmware.
|
| Chips are complicated and weird. Pretty much nobody writes code
| which _directly_ interacts with hardware. Even people who write
| code for embedded microprocessors will use an SDK provided by
| the chip manufacturer to smooth out the nastiest details. How
| 's that supposed to work when the hardware vendor can no longer
| provide any software?
|
| And then there's the question of what exactly constitutes
| "firmware". Is code in a separate programmable flash chip okay
| if they hardwire the Write Protect pin? What if the exact same
| code is stored in programmable space in the MCU itself? Is it
| fine to place that code in One-Time-Programmable memory? Bake
| it into the chip during wafer manufacturing? If anything, being
| able to update the firmware in the field is better for the
| consumer when it comes to fixing bugs.
| Someone wrote:
| > Force hardware vendors to only sell hardware. If any software
| that can be changed remotely or by the user is off limits. Even
| firmware. Conversely, software vendors can only sell (or freely
| distribute) software.
|
| So, I would go buy a smartphone at a shop, and then buy an OS
| to run on it at another shop? Or would it be allowed for a
| third party to integrate the two and sell me a working phone?
|
| Also, would "any software that can be changed remotely or by
| the user is off limits" mean Intel/Samsung/... couldn't sell
| CPUs with microcode installed, or even write microcode? It may
| be hard to legally define where the border between "software
| that's part of the hardware" and "software." lies.
|
| > You'll get the necessary specs required to make it work on
| all OSes
|
| I don't see how that follows. Software company C could pay
| hardware company H to build hardware according to specs they
| give, with the specs under NDA, possibly even forbidding H to
| sell that hardware design to others than C.
|
| I think banning trade secrets
| (https://www.wipo.int/tradesecrets/en/tradesecrets_faqs.html)
| on the interface between software and hardware, rather than
| splitting companies into hardware and software parts is the way
| to achieve your goals.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _So, I would go buy a smartphone at a shop, and then buy an
| OS to run on it at another shop?_
|
| Good point, by default you would. Perhaps allowing some third
| party to bundle the two could be a nice convenience, but then
| we must make absolutely sure that they never sell the bundle
| for less than the separate parts, that would be anti-
| competitive.
|
| Also, I'm sick of paying for a Windows copy I never use. I'd
| very much like to see the OEM deals Microsoft make with
| laptop vendors just die.
|
| > _Also, would "any software that can be changed remotely or
| by the user is off limits" mean Intel /Samsung/... couldn't
| sell CPUs with microcode installed, or even write microcode?_
|
| Depends whether that microcode can be changed by the user or
| remotely, or if doing so basically means returning the CPU to
| the factory. If it can conveniently be changed, that's
| software, and the actual interface to the CPU is not the
| final ISA, but how to encode that micro-code to _make_ the
| final ISA. If however the microcode is etched or locked, then
| it 's part of the hardware.
|
| Another example would be an FPGA implementation of a RISC-V
| core: if the bitstream is locked into the NVCM it can no
| longer be modified, and thus counts as hardware. But if it's
| in the easily rewritable SPI flash, then it's software, and
| it can't be bundled with the FPGA itself.
|
| While I'm not absolutely certain my border is the right one,
| I believe it's at least one that can be fairly easily
| delimited.
|
| > _Software company C could pay hardware company H to build
| hardware according to specs they give, with the specs under
| NDA, possibly even forbidding H to sell that hardware design
| to others than C._
|
| Correct, some trade secrets need to be banned. Even further,
| I would void all ISA related patents and copyright.
| Specifically, cloning the functionality of any piece of
| hardware should be allowed, similar to how the IBM PC was
| cloned.
|
| Note thought that splitting the activities is still worth it:
| when software is bundled with the hardware, we still need
| exploitable specs. Banning trade secrets doesn't force
| vendors to disclose them, and even if they do disclose them,
| nothing forces them to make especially readable beyond
| regulatory mandate, and nothing forces them to simplify their
| hardware interfaces. Exposing hardware interfaces to the
| competition however may provide very strong incentive to
| improve not only the hardware, but it's programming
| interfaces as well.
| olliej wrote:
| So your saying apple would have to stop making operating
| systems?
|
| Or are you saying Qualcomm would be required to not provide
| drivers?
|
| This is a super dumb take, like beyond stupid, and I get that
| it's directed at apple.
|
| Here's the thing: since day 1 apple has been a hardware
| company, and what makes hardware good or bad is often the
| software that drives runs it. That goes for every product apple
| makes.
|
| The idea that you can remove one half of that from the other is
| beyond stupid.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, and I'd also like hardware and software companies to not
| have access to my data. E.g. Google should be split into
| hardware, software, and data companies.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I _really_ like this. Other than an upvote I would very much
| like to express my support for this idea and I hope someone
| with connections to the halls of power passes it on, there is a
| lot of merit to this. It would immediately result in hardware
| manufacturers having to document each and every input and
| output of their hardware if they expect any sales at all and it
| would also do an end run around various monopolies.
|
| Check out the idiocy around Broadcomm's WiFi/Bluetooth drivers
| on the Mac, it's absolute insanity, there are so many of them
| that to install Linux on one of the machines with such a
| chipset you need to copy your drivers from the Mac operating
| system (if you still have it installed...) in order to give
| Linux the ability to load firmware onto the devices so that
| they can work. Three different files iirc.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| interesting premise, but i ultimately think this would be worse
| for the tech by forcing them to play in a limited playing field
| that doesn't have parallel in other businesses, does it?
| danielEM wrote:
| Any "vendor lock in" practices should be considered as monopoly
| practices. And anti-monopoly laws are already here in EU. Just a
| matter of interpretation of what falls to monopoly.
| almatabata wrote:
| As others have pointed out why single out linux? Why not BSD? And
| second which linux? 4.14? 5.10? 6.2? Can they release it for
| linux 2.7 and call it a day afterwards? Supporting linux requires
| effort and money. How would you go about defining "reasonable
| effort" at supporting linux. If it breaks every month? every
| year? Enforcing this simply would turn out to become a nightmare.
| I think a better approach would look like what jandrese said in
| this thread. Force them to publish the specs so other companies
| or individuals can write open source drivers for the hardware.
| the_biot wrote:
| > being forced to make drivers that work equally in linux,
| windows and even macOS
|
| That is almost a recipe for drivers built on hardware abstraction
| layers (HALs), so vendors can use literally the same code on
| every platform. That, of course, results in a bunch of
| unnecessary HAL code being added -- unnecessary from the OS point
| of view, which already has perfectly good hooks for all the stuff
| a driver needs. That's the reason Linux does not accept HALs into
| the mainline kernel.
|
| What often happens on Linux is vendors will then move their HAL
| and drivers into userspace, interfacing with the kernel via a
| shim instead. This has the side effect of no longer needing to
| open-source the driver code at all, since it's not linked into
| the kernel. Look how that works out!
|
| In case of Android, it was literally Google that did the HAL/shim
| work, giving vendors a pass on open sourcing or mainlining their
| drivers.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > What often happens on Linux is vendors will then move their
| HAL and drivers into userspace, interfacing with the kernel via
| a shim instead. This has the side effect of no longer needing
| to open-source the driver code at all, since it's not linked
| into the kernel. Look how that works out!
|
| It doesn't stop anyone else from writing better drivers (i.e.
| the thing they already do) but decouples things so that people
| can at least update their kernel while keeping their drivers.
| So, win-win.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers
| for Linux?
|
| > Why are these companies like intel, Razer, nvidia or AMD..
|
| The question makes no sense. As one of the Reddit comment says:
| Intel and AMD are among the biggest contributors to the Linux
| kernel.
|
| The real-world is pretty much powered by millions of Linux
| machines running on Intel or AMD hardware (for the most part).
| Try replacing that with Windows servers and their "working
| drivers" and then we talk.
| nextos wrote:
| What could work well is forcing manufacturers to release
| hardware documentation that is sufficiently detailed to allow
| developing drivers without reverse engineering.
|
| Perhaps forcing them to do so a couple of years after hardware
| release, so that it does not interfere too much with trade
| secrets.
|
| This would avoid perfectly functional hardware to go to the
| landfill because of no further software support, and it would
| also prevent incredibly time-consuming reverse engineering
| efforts.
| Vilian wrote:
| what about releasing the source code of drivers/firmware
| after the official support ended
| pjmlp wrote:
| Azure, and all the games being emulated on Proton as means to
| make SteamDeck a viable product.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-10-01 23:01 UTC)