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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 crote on Sunday October 01, 2023 @06:06PM (#37731375)
But it is often both. Just because it is essential for proper operation and therefore an implementation detail, doesn't mean it cannot be updated.

Even a device as trivial as a keyboard, mouse, or SSD drive has firmware which can be updated. Shipping them without firmware would be completely ludicrous, and you'd basically buy a fancy brick. Hell, you need to flash firmware onto it in the factory to make future updates by the user possible!

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Re:Could EU force hardware manufacturers to make working dri... by loup-vaillant on Sunday October 01, 2023 @07:28PM (#37732056)
The prudent manufacturer makes sure that some of the firmware is truly immutable, to prevent bricking the device if some firmware version is botched enough.

I'm not proposing that no hardware ships with firmware. I'm proposing the hardware manufacturer choses: enable updates and don't ship the parts that can be updated, or disable updates entirely.

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