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Comment by alimov | Hacker News Reader

This is an interesting point. While this would be nice for some folks that just want drivers to be functional I could also see why a manufacturer might be reluctant to offer such information. One reason they could bring up is that it may put undue burden on them to document and provide such information. Another possible issue a manufacturer may have with this is that it offers a more direct route for abuse of their software/hardware (maybe?). Or in some cases it may be a liability to offer such information (if there is a potential for misuse)

Edit: or maybe they don’t want to release that kind of info for product/brand lock-in reasons?

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> it may put undue burden on them to document and provide such information.

How can documenting something be an undue burden? In order to write the drivers that they do write, for say Windows, they must have written some documentation.

And if I want to abuse some piece of hardware, such as making a musical instrument out of a pile of floppy disk drives, what business is that of the manufacturer?

The documentation is not the burden as much as the requirement, or at least expectation, to adhere to the published specs once they are published. By not releasing any info they are not burdened with having to stay consistent on driver details from one product or version to the next.

I called my ebike company and apparently my year and make could have one of three different batteries. Seems infuriating, but hardware manufacturers don't have to be consistent I guess, just release some new/updated docs?

I wonder if it has to do with any underlying 3rd-party components. Otherwise, yeah, makes no sense.

It might be worth clarifying that Wacom is not taking that approach. But their statement there suggests that the underlying reason for lack of hardware support in Linux is the OpenSource nature of the software.

Well one way that comes to mind for why it could be considered a burden is breaking down internal documentation into public and private, and making sure that the private one is never exposed. As much as we don’t want to imagine business constraints on some manufacturers, they could always come up with reasons.

> And if I want to abuse some piece of hardware, such as making a musical instrument out of a pile of floppy disk drives, what business is that of the manufacturer?

As an example (maybe not a fair one) we can ask Tesla why they don’t want to expose some/all APIs that Tesla owners might want access to. I expect they would bring up a thousand reasons why, maybe safety related, maybe not.

I generally agree with you though, you paid and own something, and you wish to use it as you see fit. Unfortunately it seems like what we think we own and what we actually own are in some cases two separate things.

The safety issues are a red herring. It is the responsibility of the relevant regulatory authority to decide that not the manufacturer.

Some documentation, but when the guy who wrote the hardware is down the hall from the guy writing the documentation it typically isn't very good, saving a lot of effort

Some vendors might also be bundling spyware with their drivers. In that case, releasing hardware info would take the (unjust) power over the users away from them.

> This is an interesting point. While this would be nice for some folks that just want drivers to be functional I could also see why a manufacturer might be reluctant to offer such information.

Well, yeah, the point of regulations is to make companies do things that are not in their direct self-interest, but benefit wider society.

Manufacturers would also be reluctant to comply with planned obsolescence bans, or consumer safety regulations. That's why the regulations must have teeth to them.

They already have the documents. But releasing them would make it easier for a competitor to make a cheaper drop in replacement. It would be a win for consumers though.

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