181–190 of 416 posts
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I'm not even sure what you're complaining about here.
Everyone here thinks that everyone="all hacking-experienced people", where I mean everyone is the whole world. MOST people are not going to hack their device.
This is how "end of support" should be handled. Instead of turning devices into e-waste, open-source them and let the community extend their life. Kudos to Bose for setting a good example. More companies should follow this approach - especially as right-to-repair becomes a bigger issue.
This is not open sourcing any actual software or hardware it is “open-sourcing the API documentation for its SoundTouch smart speakers”. You might be able to point them at an alternative back-end¹ if you want the cloud features, but that will need to be written from scratch rather than being forked from code provided by Sonos. > When cloud support ends, an update to the SoundTouch app will add local controls to retai…
One thing nobody is touching on: since it's not actually open source, when this thing is found to have dozens of security holes (or any bugs), they are not going to be patched. ( Their announcement: https://www.bose.com/soundtouch-end-of-life The API doc: https://assets.bosecreative.com/m/496577402d128874/original/... )
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A better way to say that is "This will boost the second-hand value of older Bose speakers". Budget-aware folks will buy these second-hand, neophiles will buy new, confident that long term solutions will exist even after "long term support" is over. Heck, even knowing there's a second-hand market makes me more likely to buy Bose new.
Many companies miss how important this is, too: they get caught up in "but if they buy it second-hand, they're not buying our new stuff!". When people buy the stuff second-hand, though, they become Bose fans — that means when the second-hand Bose stuff dies, they're more likely to replace it with new Bose stuff. That's particularly true with audio equipment, where people become attached not only to how something work…
The most amusing anti-example of this was the Switch generation: $60 for a cartridge, or $60 for a digital license. Guess which is actually more valuable? Guess which you were more likely to find discounted, even if only by a marginal amount, by some store desperate to move stock out of the way?
By contrast, I'm not worried about the fact I can't resell my copy of Game X I got on Steam when I only paid $5 for it in the first place.
This is how "end of support" should be handled. Instead of turning devices into e-waste, open-source them and let the community extend their life. Kudos to Bose for setting a good example. More companies should follow this approach - especially as right-to-repair becomes a bigger issue.
This this also good marketing, if other companies I currently buy speakers from follow their footsteps I'll keep supporting them, but I might otherwise just move towards Bose in the future. I wish Apple would do this for their ultra legacy stuff, Microsoft does it for their legacy stuff. Not sure if we'll ever get a fully open sourced legacy version of Windows (ignoring the source code leak) but it would be cool to o…
This is how "end of support" should be handled. Instead of turning devices into e-waste, open-source them and let the community extend their life. Kudos to Bose for setting a good example. More companies should follow this approach - especially as right-to-repair becomes a bigger issue.
> More companies should follow this approach No, the law must mandate that. You either provide active support, or if you end it you must open-source all tools necessary to perform maintenance. It's one of those things that has to be mandated by law to provide a uniform floor on all companies and manufacturers, like food safety laws, fire codes, or accessibility for the physically disabled.
Has anyone read the API documentation EULA and can comment on if it really meets some recognizable standard for "open source?"
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> But sound quality in general is absolutely objectively measurable. Sound quality is not the same as music quality. To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not the same as Pleasant Music To be even more specific, Signal Reproduction is not the same as "Pleasant Sounds* The goal of music is not always high fidelity of reproduction; if it were, over-driven valve amps would never have been a thing. The only…
> To be more specific, Sound Reproduction Fidelity is not the same as Pleasant Music If a speaker reproduces some music with 100% accuracy and the result is unpleasant, doesn’t that just mean the original music—as created by the artist—is unpleasant? Where possible, I’d prefer a speaker that respects the artist’s decisions instead of inserting itself into the creative process.
IMHO, people place too much importance on "accuracy". While accuracy might be objectively measured, it means nothing when it comes to individual taste.