It does but the movement behind the petition that led to this hearing was specifically about games, you can read more about it on their website https://www.stopkillinggames.com/en
It’s mostly games that do this. Regular software by and large either uses a subscription model (think Adobe Creative Cloud) or an up-front payment model that won’t stop working when the vendor’s servers say so.
The main exception to this is device firmware and operating system images that require them (most visibly for smartphones), but the law in that case focused on demanding 5 years of software updates. IMO it doesn’t go far enough - they should also be forced to publish everything required for the community to pick up the support at EOL - but it’s not being ignored.
Not providing software updates isn’t the same thing as remotely disabling the software. Of course it is a major issue for smartphones, because it’s a massive security issue to not have an up-to-date OS, but it’s not the same issue SKG is campaigning on.
I get where you’re coming from, but if we’re talking about some 6 year old budget smartphone or something, will there really be enough interest in maintaining the firmware? It seems just as likely that you’d be blowing the source code open for people looking for hacks.
Why is this specific to games? Seems to apply to any software?
It does but the movement behind the petition that led to this hearing was specifically about games, you can read more about it on their website https://www.stopkillinggames.com/en
It’s mostly games that do this. Regular software by and large either uses a subscription model (think Adobe Creative Cloud) or an up-front payment model that won’t stop working when the vendor’s servers say so.
The main exception to this is device firmware and operating system images that require them (most visibly for smartphones), but the law in that case focused on demanding 5 years of software updates. IMO it doesn’t go far enough - they should also be forced to publish everything required for the community to pick up the support at EOL - but it’s not being ignored.
Not providing software updates isn’t the same thing as remotely disabling the software. Of course it is a major issue for smartphones, because it’s a massive security issue to not have an up-to-date OS, but it’s not the same issue SKG is campaigning on.
I get where you’re coming from, but if we’re talking about some 6 year old budget smartphone or something, will there really be enough interest in maintaining the firmware? It seems just as likely that you’d be blowing the source code open for people looking for hacks.