On Friday, 4 July 2025 19:31:32 CEST Christian Huitema wrote:
> I also agree with the point about business models, and of the risks of
> the device-cloud-app architecture. Some providers will inevitably go
> bankrupt, or simply decide to not support the cloud part anymore, at
> which point the app will just stop working. I don't believe that the
> solutions here are technical. I could think of non technical solutions,
> such as laws compelling the manufacturers who stop supporting a product
> to open source its communication protocols or allow the consumers to
> reflash their devices. But the moment we say "laws", we step outside of
> the the domain of the IETF.
This is more or less what I wanted to comment about earlier today as well, so yeah, wholeheartedly agreed!
What it reminds me of now, is a European Citizens' Initiative, linked below:
https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home
As well as the reinstatement of discontinued web services, usually for game consoles. Usually what they'd do is what I'd consider to be a "benevolent MiTM attack", tricking the device, game, program, ... into finding its web services elsewhere, be that on the local network or hosted publicly on the Internet. I think what this ECI attempts to do, is to make it so that devices would just do that on their own.
Or, let's say that the OEM of, a given Android phone, decides to stop supporting that device. They have every right to do that, as long as they meet their contractual obligations made at the point of sale. But some of them are kind enough to provide source code (kinda have to, GPL2, hmm), that then the device owners themselves can build upon. To the OEM, that device may no longer provide revenue to justify maintenance, but to the community, they may (and often do) find value in keeping that device relevant and up-to-date. And that, I think, can be done with IoT devices as well. If the OEM loses interest or goes bankrupt, the customers themselves can pick things up from there instead.
--
Met vriendelijke groet,
Michael De Roover
Mail: ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: michael.de.roover.eu.org
