Personally, I feel passionately about being held back from innovating due to legal and corporate anti-competitive barriers. I feel that these artificial barriers contribute to a less competitive environment and increases the problem of e-waste.
# The barriers put in place by companies to prevent their hardware from being tinkered with
Locked bootloaders and the absence of hardware documentation to base the development of drivers on is an example of this.
This prevents the community from taking over when a device reaches end of life or expanding a device to be more useful/open than the company originally intended.
Examples of this are:
- Apple's M-series Macs/MacBooks. While the hardware is remarkable, Apple's anti-competitive practices manifest in MacOS holding the devices back from their potential. Asahi Linux is an indicator of demand and its success is remarkable given what they are up against. If Apple was compelled to provide reference documentation of their hardware sufficient for driver development then the resulting alternative operating systems introduces competition to an otherwise stagnant market.
- Microsoft's Surface laptops and broadly the new X-Elite hardware lineup shares the same criticism as Apple's platform
- Mobile phones. Imagine an iPhone running Android. Imagine a Galaxy, Pixel, etc running Linux where Android apps are executed within Waydroid containers? Not going to happen because we are either blocked by bootloaders or blocked by a lack of drivers (deliberately hidden by manufacturers)
- Better health trackers. Imagine buying a FitBit, installing an community maintained operating system that has no subscription fees and handles health inference through transparent algorithms that can be contributed to by academics around the world.
# No "right to repair" software as it's practically illegal
It's virtually illegal to repair software. Decompiling software and fixing it, even if it's end of life, can land you in court.
There are so many software projects out there that I would personally love to revive. Think of games like Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Anyway, I've been ranting too much on this topic but you get the idea. I wish governments would grant people protection to tinker/improve hardware AND software and compel corporations to provide sufficient documentation to practically enable that.
# The barriers put in place by companies to prevent their hardware from being tinkered with
Locked bootloaders and the absence of hardware documentation to base the development of drivers on is an example of this.
This prevents the community from taking over when a device reaches end of life or expanding a device to be more useful/open than the company originally intended.
Examples of this are:
- Apple's M-series Macs/MacBooks. While the hardware is remarkable, Apple's anti-competitive practices manifest in MacOS holding the devices back from their potential. Asahi Linux is an indicator of demand and its success is remarkable given what they are up against. If Apple was compelled to provide reference documentation of their hardware sufficient for driver development then the resulting alternative operating systems introduces competition to an otherwise stagnant market.
- Microsoft's Surface laptops and broadly the new X-Elite hardware lineup shares the same criticism as Apple's platform
- Mobile phones. Imagine an iPhone running Android. Imagine a Galaxy, Pixel, etc running Linux where Android apps are executed within Waydroid containers? Not going to happen because we are either blocked by bootloaders or blocked by a lack of drivers (deliberately hidden by manufacturers)
- Better health trackers. Imagine buying a FitBit, installing an community maintained operating system that has no subscription fees and handles health inference through transparent algorithms that can be contributed to by academics around the world.
# No "right to repair" software as it's practically illegal
It's virtually illegal to repair software. Decompiling software and fixing it, even if it's end of life, can land you in court.
There are so many software projects out there that I would personally love to revive. Think of games like Heroes of Might and Magic 3
Anyway, I've been ranting too much on this topic but you get the idea. I wish governments would grant people protection to tinker/improve hardware AND software and compel corporations to provide sufficient documentation to practically enable that.