Effective [some future date], in order to sell any device connected to the Internet (or Bluetooth, or whatever), you must register your entire codebase and all internal documentation with the FTC, and keep it updated, along with any signing keys to lock bootloaders. The day you abandon support, if you haven’t provided everything required for end users to take complete control of their device, your code base and any other IP enters the public domain, and the FTC uses their discretion on release of keys.
It would take new laws, and you’d have to be careful with language and structure to prevent abuse of “third party” code and abuse of corporate structure to try to prevent old devices from being usable, but you could do it.
I have had a similar idea. Basically some third party that is trusted to be the escrow for all the source code and documentation would basically release it once the company stops supporting it.
Effective [some future date], in order to sell any device connected to the Internet (or Bluetooth, or whatever), you must register your entire codebase and all internal documentation with the FTC, and keep it updated, along with any signing keys to lock bootloaders. The day you abandon support, if you haven’t provided everything required for end users to take complete control of their device, your code base and any other IP enters the public domain, and the FTC uses their discretion on release of keys.
It would take new laws, and you’d have to be careful with language and structure to prevent abuse of “third party” code and abuse of corporate structure to try to prevent old devices from being usable, but you could do it.
I have had a similar idea. Basically some third party that is trusted to be the escrow for all the source code and documentation would basically release it once the company stops supporting it.