Technology

all hardware is going to EOL at some point, and at that point, it isn't going to keep getting updates

EOLing hardware should be handled in a better way

Both of these are solved by one thing: open platforms. If I can flash OpenWRT on to an older router then it becomes useful again.

This is the correct reaction to old home equipment.

I think there should be a handoff procedure, or whatever you want to call it.

As EOL approaches, work with whatever open router OS maker is available (currently OpenWRT) to make sure it's supported, and configs migrate over nicely. Then drop one last update, designed to do a full OS replacement.

Boom, handoff complete.

EoL of anything should mean open source code. You don't want to open source your code? Then you must keep servicing your products and must keep your servers up

When the users are in control of the software running on their devices then "EOL" is dependent the user community's willingness to work on it themselves.

I can still use a 2003 AMD Opteron with the newest builds of Linux. It's an open standard. As long as the hardware still physically works. The only reason these pieces of hardware are EOL is because they chose to lock them down.

Don't want to get lumbered with a bunch of old stock now, do you?

I would love to know when they stopped selling it compared to the EOL. EOL should be at least 5 years past the last time the models were shipped out, maybe more. So if May 2024 was EOL I sure hope they weren't selling them after 2018.

Be nice?

It must become.law. we want to lower e-waste? Yen if companies stop supporting their products, het must open source all of it

Not going to hold my breath that anything like this will happen in the current political climate, but yeah, that should be mandatory. Even ignoring the exploitive nature towards their customers, it creates a ton of unnecessary waste.

An idea for an app I came up with for a class once was one that let you scan a barcode of a product in like Walmart and get what parent company owns it, like how Nestle doesn't like to put their name on companies they bought (or not in big text anyways).
So if you want to avoid Coca Cola you could scan it and see who it's owned by and if that company matches one of the ones you have blacklisted

Fun fact, 'peace tea' is owned by coca cola

I work for a manufacturer with part catalogues going back to 1921, and while the telegraph codes no longer work, you could absolutely still order up a given part, or request from us the engineering diagram for it to aid in fabricating a replacement. You can also request service manuals, wiring diagrams, etc. Don't all half-decent manufacturers do this?

What you're saying is perfectly reasonable, but also doesn't apply here because they're still selling this router new on the D-link Amazon store.

If you're going to stop supporting a product, you should also stop selling it.

This is why a number of countries have laws saying spare parts must be made available for a number of years past being sold. Well beyond what the warranty is.

How is this significantly different?