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A comment on Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working drivers for Linux?. Parent comment

Re:Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working dri... by osigurdson on Sunday October 01, 2023 @03:44PM (#37729803)
In practice, what fines would hardware manufacturers be held liable for for any bugs in their specifications? How do we conclude that, yes, a hardware manufacturer hasn’t lived up to the regulation? Perhaps the operating system is “using it wrong”. Do governments have entire departments running tests on these devices?
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Re:Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working dri... by ClumsyPilot on Sunday October 01, 2023 @04:36PM (#37730420)
> what fines would hardware manufacturers be held liable for for any bugs in their specifications?

What fines are manufacturers held liable for if you buy a part for a car or a plane or a ship and it does not work as specified?

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Re:Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working dri... by loup-vaillant on Sunday October 01, 2023 @04:57PM (#37730676)
That's in part why I didn't propose that we force manufacturers to specify their products, but simply make sure that if they don't, nobody would want to use their product. Who would buy a CPU they don't know the ISA of?

Forcing the separation between software and hardware companies may be more stringent, but it may be simpler to enforce, and likely even more effective at making sure the hardware is humanely specified than direct regulation would be.

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