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Epic celebrates "the end of the Apple Tax" after court win in iOS payments case

(arstechnica.com)
432 points nobody9999 | 4 comments | 12 Dec 25 16:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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codedokode ◴[12 Dec 25 17:38 UTC] No.46246465[source]▶
In my opinion, every manufacturer of a programmable device should not be allowed to prevent the buyer from reprogramming it.
replies(8): >>46247960 #>>46248388 #>>46250102 #>>46250233 #>>46251819 #>>46252140 #>>46252929 #>>46280460 #
1. lostlogin ◴[13 Dec 25 05:01 UTC] No.46252140[source]▶
What about a pacemaker? Or a car?
replies(3): >>46252258 #>>46252398 #>>46252804 #
2. octoberfranklin ◴[13 Dec 25 05:27 UTC] No.46252258[source]▶
Cars were user-reprogrammable for a long time and the sky never fell.

Requiring that the pacemaker be outside a human body in order to reprogram it seems like a very sensible solution.

3. pabs3 ◴[13 Dec 25 05:56 UTC] No.46252398[source]▶
We can have both freedom and safety by requiring re-certification after modification. Like when you heavily physically modify a car then you can still drive it after the authorities decide it is safe.
4. laggyluke ◴[13 Dec 25 07:30 UTC] No.46252804[source]▶
You have a point.

Being able to reprogram a pacemaker isn't enough!

We should require that any devices that our lives depends on, especially devices that go inside our bodies, to be open source: not just reprogrammable, but with source code available for inspection and modification.

I've been working in this industry for too long in order to trust a closed source pacemaker to be bug-free.