Wouldn't the result of that, be that phones that get anywhere even close to being unmaintained would stop dead (or close to it), so Google doesn't get exposed to a problem?

To me, that doesn't sound better than the situation you're trying to fix.

As long as there is also a minimum support window, say 3+ years, and full specs and source are community released, then why not?

The important part could easily be ensuring that older hardware can be accessed. We need an end to binary blobs, or, to force long term blob support and updates.

I imagine a scenario where you pay $20 per year for support and updates for your old device, to a third party.

Or of course, there could be foundations, compile it yourself, etc too.

But if the environment is the reason, why not share the load?

Manufacturers publishing code, sources, and docs is not trivial in of itself.

I know that's the case for lots of open-source software, but since we're coming to that topic, Google's open-source policy that produces software that is either tightly aligned with their own interest (Chrome) or barely usable without their proprietary ecosystem (Android) is shameful. Quite frankly, I would much rather see open-source communities work on linux phones, no matter how useless that may be.

Another reason I'm not a fan of it is that if Google is allowed to transfer their responsibility to a community, I'm willing to bet that their initial support duration will drop even more, and that any issue will be blamed on open-source maintainers, log4j-style.

> But if the environment is the reason, why not share the load?

Does Google share the profits? Is their Android business barely profitable to justify getting free labour?

Forcing 3+ year support in law, plus forced code release at the end, gives a massive change, and some important bits.

It is part 1.

Also, my 3 years support is after last sale... not release date.

is probably sufficient motivation. There's no way Apple would be willing to do that. Google might be, but they might have a lot of resistance from Qualcomm and possibly mobile carriers and other partners.

Comparatively, it's much easier to make a law targeting the stores that's hard to avoid.

It is likely that Google would stand to make more money by offering longer service duration for their OS, and by demanding phonemakers to maintain their firmware.

I guess the info we need to see whether this would be a good decision or not is how much money Google makes from selling apps to phones 3 year and older.

My bet would be on Google successfully lobbying to kill the bill in the first place, or to cripple it and make it irrelevant (for instance with a long grace period that always gets extended).

Depends on what the law makers actually want. Enough legislation is passed just do they can tell their voters "look, we did something" without actually hurting their corporate buddies.