> closed hardware (that owns its entire stack) even be legal to sell?
Two thoughts:
1 - As software goes into everything, keep in mind that the universe of devices to which this applies will grow to include the set of "non-organic physical objects."
2 - And this will means that surprising outcomes could come of requiring everything to be open. Who do you trust to verify the software in your used car/refrigerator/lightswitch/water heater/etc? For devices where physical safety is at play, how do you verify that the (possibly aftermarket) software is up to code or other certification? Imagine every car sale or home inspection required a software assurance verification of every embedded system. Closed systems implicitly provide some level of assurance here.
(Edit: I did not downvote, this is a legitimate counterpoint.)
> perfect counterexample is the VW dieselsoftware
This is a great counterexample that inadvertently proves the point because in that case a) the software in question was exactly as delivered by the manufacturer so that b) consumers were able to receive compensation from rich VW for the faulty software.
If the software stack was open, a malfunction could be caused by aftermarket software (think: downloaded from Sourceforge) and therefore consumers would have no real remedy.
I suppose I could have been clearer on what's being assured. There is (obviously) value in being assured that you are buying what the manufacturer intended!
With an open system, that flaw would have been detected way earlier. Now the original post was about closed hardware, so I'm not sure if this was the case here. I have never tried flashing some motor control of a car, but it's possibly not even restricted, so "open system" would more likely refer to "open source".
While there might be an incentive to restrict modifications (at least on a car, which is potentially dangerous), I don't see counterpoints to open-sourceing the software that runs on (the car in this example).
Two thoughts:
1 - As software goes into everything, keep in mind that the universe of devices to which this applies will grow to include the set of "non-organic physical objects."
2 - And this will means that surprising outcomes could come of requiring everything to be open. Who do you trust to verify the software in your used car/refrigerator/lightswitch/water heater/etc? For devices where physical safety is at play, how do you verify that the (possibly aftermarket) software is up to code or other certification? Imagine every car sale or home inspection required a software assurance verification of every embedded system. Closed systems implicitly provide some level of assurance here.