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- cross-posted to:
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Missed opportunity to list how long software support is. So we could publicly shame companies with shit software support. Also they’d have to clearly state how many years of support you get instead of chasing the damn info online.
The article says that all phones in the EU must receive 5 years of software support. 10 would be ideal tbh, but labeling isn’t as important now that we’re getting 5 years.
Ideal would be unlimited like PC’s, let people install whatever OS version their phone is capable of running.
It’s not unlimited on PC’s. Most mainstream mainboards don’t get firmware updates after 2 years. Weakest link in the security chain sets the time.
I think that boils down to how ARM chipsets don’t support mainline Linux. You need lots of patchsets which break over time.
There are plenty of custom ROMs for phones where the chipset drivers are open (usually Qualcomm) and the phone has unlockable bootloader. If these 2 conditions are met in many cases the community is able to do better job of keeping the phone up to date with newer Android builds than the manufacturer itself. My phone would be stuck with Android 12 if I did rely on the manufacturer, but thanks to the community I run Android 14 with security patch from this February and Android 15 is also available. The problem is of course that most users aren’t going to flash their phone with a new ROM on their own anyway even if it is possible the ARM ecosystem unfortunately relies on the hardware manufacturer to keep the drivers and everything up to date (to work with the latest OS realease) and not on the OS distributor like most x86 ecosystem does, so you are lrobably right ARM is kind of cursed in this way. I know there are also drivers on x86, but the whole nature of things much more open. Correct me if I am wrong.
Males sense. Technically, all chipset drivers are required to be open source since Linux is hard-copyleft open source.
The kernel is open-source AFAIK, but anything built on top of it is part of AOSP which is licensed under Apache 2 and allows for proprietary modifications to be redistributed. To be honest I don’t know how this licensing stuff works exactly.
There are no nearly custom ROMs for phones with mediatek processors AFAIK because the drivers are not open-source. Either that or there is a legal issue with modifying and redistributimg the modified drivers.
I dont see how the energy label would need that.
Software is a different department, and EU is currently looking at making laws about unlocking the phones for alternative OS software, which seems like a much better approach.
It really isn’t. Buyers need to be informed how long is phone supported officially. People don’t know how to install Windows or Linux on PC through simple installer wizard and you expect them to flash firmware on phone and deal with all the issues when bootloader is unlocked? No fucking chance. I’ve been there, phone wasn’t even rooted and banking apps were removed about bootloader because I was using LineageOS. It’s when I started using phones with very long official software support, because I just can’t be bothered dealing with that fuckery anymore.
Only OS that even allows re-locking of bootloader with 3rd party firmware is GrapheneOS on Pixels. It’s just too much hassle for everything else and I’ve been flashing phones for like 15 years…
I dont think its irrelevant at all, but this is the Energy Department. They do different work.
EU should add the label you talk about for sure, but this is not the tree to bark at.
I mean, software support is part of sustainability. The longer it’s getting updates, the more secure it is and longer it will be functional from software aspect.
That seems like something that could pretty easily be added to the label down the line.
I’m interested to see how EU will measure battery life, I’m guessing some standard stress testing software perhaps?
This is how gsmarena does it: https://www.gsmarena.com/gsmarena_lab_tests-review-751p6.php
They will probably do somewhat the same. They only need battery capacity, idle test and stress test.
No different than any other electronic like washing machines, TVs etc, and then adding battery capacity.
