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A comment on European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries. Parent comment

Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by robertlagrant on Monday June 19, 2023 @05:58AM (#36389221)
> Anybody could then copy the software, but it's only useful in combination with their hardware

Well, it would also allow compatible hardware to be manufactured. E.g. "IBM compatible".

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Re:European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batt... by AnthonyMouse on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @11:18AM (#36405238)
"IBM compatible" was a result of reverse engineering, not open source.

And it also has no meaning in this context. What is "compatible" with a WiFi chip or a storage controller? They're all already compatible with each other. The driver is the thing that converts from the device-specific operations to the APIs provided by the kernel. The kernel APIs are already public and anyone can implement them for their own hardware.

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