Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

circuitbored.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 80 posts

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#61

Post by winternett »

bluGill wrote: post #44
ailideex wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody works for free. I get your beef but the problem is we buy things and want to pay once, if you were willing to pay for your router every month, well heck you could actually just buy a new one every year about already. fancy that.

I want to pay once for something that works as advertised. If I buy a car and the airbags are bad they will fix it. If I buy a device and the software fails I expect it is fixed too. I'm not asking for features, I'm asking for bug fixes, which if you had a perfect text plan would already be fixed.

At the bare minimum, products should be engineered so they can function at a reasonable level "manually" independent of software systems. These devices should also allow owners to take themselves off the network any time they want in order to ensure REAL OWNERSHIP. That maybe is the happy medium that can get you home if the network goes down?

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#62

Post by commandersaki »

> Hardware now (storage, memory, and processing power) are finite in devices like most mobile phones, eventually due to storage, and processing power, they slow down and eventually need to be retired.

Pet peeve. Hardware if ever slows down. It's the software that gets worse.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#63

Post by safety-third »

nicolaslem wrote: post #12

As time passes the more I think that Stallman was right: Today there is no way I'm buying a device that a company can turn into a paperweight by flipping a switch. Tomorrow I won't probably buy anything where I'm not controlling the software.

Sony literally bricked my PS1&2 compatible PS3 with an update and offered me something like a $20 gift certificate for Sony products for my troubles. I haven't bought anything Sony since.

The real issue is that courts hesitate to turn the screws on the companies that get caught doing this. If Sony was forced to pay 5x original cost in penalties, the cost-benefit analysis wouldn't have been in their favor.

I am today about to replace my Android because I can no longer update because the install gets bigger every year and I have run out of space. I am seriously considering going to a flip phone and using a small laptop or something else linux powered for my previous smart phone usage.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#64

Post by winternett »

tluyben2 wrote: post #38
Swizec wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seatbelts too. And airbags. Afaik you're supposed to replace those every 10 years or so. Most people of course don't. Another good one most people forget: Hard drives last about 5 years. CD-Rs are rated for 10 years. A flash drive can go for 10 years. SSD holds data for about 2 years. The electronics themselves in many modern consumer devices are basically kaput after 4 to 5 years. Point is you are likely overestimat…

Hard drives 5 years; yeah it happens but then usually fast after active use: if they do not fail fast then they usually keep going. I have 100s of HD's here from 25 to a few years ago and most of them work fine. Especially the 90s/00s then-expensive scsi discs do not seem to fail. But cheap internal and external HD's from that time are also still all working. If they get beyond 5 years (and by far most do), they get…

Don't worry, all the other peripherals will lose driver support, and your processor will crack long before 5 years anyway... Hah.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#65

Post by safety-third »

commandersaki wrote: post #62

> Hardware now (storage, memory, and processing power) are finite in devices like most mobile phones, eventually due to storage, and processing power, they slow down and eventually need to be retired. Pet peeve. Hardware if ever slows down. It's the software that gets worse.

Always on accident of course. There is no way a hardware manufacturer would intentionally sabotage their products to boost sales.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#66

Post by taeric »

oneplane wrote: post #59
taeric wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. There is literally precedent in this regard. TeX is stable. Very stable. Has it been extended? Yes. And some extensions can be seen as borderline required. But I'm not unconvinced that one of the biggest factors in this is that he tried to make it stable. And showed great restraint in what requirements to go after.

Which TeX? Over the last 10 years, over 20 serious and critical vulnerabilities have been found in various TeX implementations. They were all fixed via... maintenance.

How many of those were extensions? Pdftex, as an example, is not TeX. There have been roughly, what, eight releases in TeX since version 3? Hence we are now at 3.14159265.

This is not to say things couldn't have been done better. But I love that all of my documents still compile just fine. Modern practices? Nope.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#67

Post by bosswipe »

LeftHandPath wrote: post #27
winternett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some instances of software truly need the Internet to run, E.G. Facebook or GTA Online. Many software tools don't need that connection to run, but are heavily embedded with connection dependencies like a calculator app (stable technology). Many of these apps and devices become totally useless if an active connection is not available. This is a bad move companies make all the time to encourage our dependence. The same…

I’ve been harassing my dad for ages over his purchase of a WiFi-enabled LG fridge. Neither of us know why it’s connected - but it is, and it proudly displays a WiFi icon with a backlit LED right above the water dispenser. The only thing you can possibly gain from a WiFi-enabled fridge (it has no voice commands, no screen, etc) is just being monitored and/or hacked. There is literally no benefit to the consumer from h…

There's an app that let's you do a few things like remotely tell it to make extra ice or notify you if the door was left open.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#68

Post by alkaline9 »

viklove wrote: post #28
alkaline9 wrote: post #3

Perishable software is a huge problem - things keep operating only in dynamic equilibrium, such that they would fall apart as soon as we stop putting energy into fixing flaws. I have been thinking for years that as a society, we need 100-year products. It would be a global good to counteract the local incentives for producing perishable software. However, over time I have realized that there are legitimately unforese…

> such that they would fall apart as soon as we stop putting energy into fixing flaws This is not true. The only reason software needs constant updates is because new features are constantly being added to stay competitive. If you stop adding features, in theory you will eventually run out of bugs to fix as well. The problem is feature creep. Software doesn't "decay," and thus does not need infinite maintenance.

Perhaps I should amend my statement: "such that they would fall apart as soon as we stop putting energy into maintaining hardware and software dependencies"

Software assumes that there exists specific hardware, operating systems, and services underlying it to keep operating. If you try to turn on a 5-year old android phone, you will find that your apps probably don't work (because of service changes for example), but also can't be upgraded because the latest versions don't work with your old version of android, and your android can't be upgraded because the latest versions don't have device drivers for your phone hardware. You're SOL.

So, to have a 100-year software, you need commodity components from the top down, that continue to be maintained for the same length of time. And it all probably needs to be 100% open source. Otherwise, you have perishable software.

Re: Software-dependent devices: do they now need expiration dates?

#70

Post by robocat »

alkaline9 wrote: post #3

Perishable software is a huge problem - things keep operating only in dynamic equilibrium, such that they would fall apart as soon as we stop putting energy into fixing flaws. I have been thinking for years that as a society, we need 100-year products. It would be a global good to counteract the local incentives for producing perishable software. However, over time I have realized that there are legitimately unforese…

> as a society, we need 100-year products

A 28kbaud modem, analogue phone, consumer film camera or virtually any electronic good that uses valves: if they were designed to last 100 years surely you agree that would that be a waste of resources?

Think of 50 technological objects in the home from say 75 years ago. Now look at the models or brands that were then designed to be still useful now. Was the extra cost worthwhile or did the object become obsolete for a good reason? What would the maintenance costs for those objects be? Go to a estate sale of someone that bought quality technology items and kept them: review how many of them would be obsolete (because they are just not useful, not maintainable, inefficient, time wasting, irrelevant, dangerous, or otherwise useless for fair reasons).

Even worse, expensive well designed goods (e.g. jackets) that while still useful are thrown away because no one wants them... Human capriciousness needs to be part of the compromises we make when designing goods.

Post reply on HN