Doing the right thing. How rare.
this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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once they threatened to abandon it sure. eventually even corporations can be dragged into doing the right thing.
It’s not a corporation anymore if it ceases to exist. Sounds like the engineers are working pro bono on this initiative.
Most companies don't listen, these guys did. Many times when people did the right thing, they had to go through a process first.
It would have been if they did it completely on their own, maybe even designed the system for this possible outcome from the beginning.
But it's the end result that matters. They can release the source or they can not. They chose to release it, and that's great!
And how great of these particular folks for doing the right thing1
This should be a standard requirement for abandoning an internet reliant product (with all IP and internal documentation released and becoming public domain in the event of a bankruptcy, and keys handled by some consumer protection agency capable of facilitating community projects working to unlock them for owners).
But questionable value of the product aside, the fact that they're making the effort to not be assholes and try to do what it takes to give their costumers' products the life they can is better than most, so they deserve credit for that.
Electronic products and software should get a "at least supported until" label on the packaging and legally obligated to keep the servers running until that time.
The company behind this robot is going bankrupt, which is why support ends and they stop working. This law would do nothing in this case because the company seizes to exist.
It should be considered an obligation to be met in the bankruptcy process. If they sell the IP for the product the purchaser should have to meet it. Failing that the users should be given the IP rights (opensource would meet this def to me) then.
In just world at least
*ceases, a cute voice-to-text error
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EU pushed new product liability bill. After it takes effect companies will be responsible for breaking of devices and software.
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OpenSourcing is a good move
What is "trying to" open source though? Make the GitHub repo public, include the database schema, and you're done.
What ever could go wrong with that?
Oh, right. Winamp very recently showed us exactly what could go wrong with that.
Didn't know about that. That's kind of bullshit that they took it down.
They might rely on parts that have non open sourced drivers or firmware. Perhaps different parts of the code were authored by different people and they need everyone approval.
Likely they have proprietary or otherwise private information they want to clean out first, or they want to make it more presentable or documented.
I agree I'm not a fan of the "trying to" phrasing either.
Startups like this aren’t known for their robust infrastructure design.
It’s most likely running on some weird unicorn setups no-one has bothered to document.
With passwords in the code and such.
Fear of embarrassing code is often a factor too. Amazing how coding standards instantly improve across the board the moment you realize people outside of dev might be scrutinizing what you've been shipping to customers.
This is true even for my personal projects lol
I literally added pre commit checks to my personal repos today to lint and format
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This guy codes.
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Probably a lot of stolen code
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Amazon Dash buttons have entered the chat.
Yeah, but everybody knew those were a stupid fucking idea from the start. I didn't and still don't feel much sympathy for the people who deliberately bought one of those solely for its intended purpose and then got the rug pulled out from under them.
Amazon was effectively giving them away for free for a large portion of their lifespan. You'd have deals where you'd pay for them and then get a coupon for actually using them equal to the purchase price. I feel like I even remember a few times where the coupon you got worked out to slightly more than you paid for the button. Basically, saying that someone 'bought' one was usually only partially true.
They did have a few legitimately good uses. Had to have something that needed restocking sporadically but you also didn't think about often and could wait 2-3 days to receive when you realized you were out. A lot of prerequisites there, I used the ones for trash bags and detergent often.
It's mostly just a shame the amount of ewaste produced at this point. I still have a box full somewhere in hopes of finding a use case.
By "everybody" you mean everybody except Amazon. And I had fun hacking those. They were often on sale for like 2 bucks and they came with a battery that was good for like a thousand presses. You had to start the online setup process but not select any products, listen for the button's msg to Amazon which contained a unique ID. You could then have your own server listen for a "pressed" signal from that button and do whatever you want. I keep meaning to find out if there's still a way to initialize brand new ones.
That's pretty cool! What would you use them for?
I had a couple stuck on walls where I always wished I had put light switches. They toggled lights on and off using ESP-01 microcontrollers. Another one was in my daughter's bedroom where I had rehung the door to swing the opposite way so she could leave the door partway open without the hall light shining in her face in bed. As the batteries died I replaced them all with buttons run by newer ESP32s... if any of that makes sense.
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I just don't get it with these proprietary cloud connected devices. Do people just not realize that keeping server infrastructure running for free after a product is sold is not in a company's best profit-seeking interests (maybe they don't even think about how things on the Internet actually work, I dunno)? I thought of this almost fifteen years ago when I started seeing smart thermostats. There should always be an option to go local, even if it requires the consumer to acquire a skillset in IT. Maybe we can start working things like that into right to repair legislation if it isn't already.
I once had a tech support ticket for a computer not turning on. When I checked it out, they had connected a power bar to itself. This 40yr old man genuinely didn't understand why that wouldn't work.
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Most people don't think about how things work. I'd guess that most customers thought all the smart features were internal and the Internet connection was just an arbitrary requirement
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Using some creepy robot with a proprietary algorithm to provide "emotional support" to children sounds like a good thing to go out of business.
IIRC they were designed for kids with autism.
So these robots will be autobots?
I bet the kids feel lied to, so probably decepticons
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