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Comment by traverseda | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to see "right to downgrade" put in to law, if I buy a product I should have the option to have it run older firmware, or play an older version of a game I bought.

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So should we force product owners to support multiple older versions of clients, even though the backend is progressed? Who will pay for this extra cost, the users who don't upgrade their devices? I don't think so.

Do every rule has to be written, or does writing them into law makes it logical every time? App owners can add "we only support client versions which is max 6 months older than current stable version" to their EULA and it is also fine (while being worse than current situation) then?

No, not forced to support.

One should, however, be able to download old software and install it.

This is not currently possible.

Force the release of all code that product was sold with in its factory state to users along with code for all updates applied to that factory state during its company supported lifetime. Firmware blobs the lot.

Corporate profits aren't an acceptable excuse for negligent business practices that push a forced culture of wasteful consumption. Apple needs to pull their head in along with many others in the tech world.

We should force product owners to stop designing their products as thin clients of server-side APIs. Then there won't be any support costs for older devices.

How does that work for a lot of the apps described in the article? Railroad tickets get purchased without web access how? Would all map data for the map applications mentioned in the article be downloaded with the app?

Just like anything physical, you could simply have a “go ahead and do it, but you get no help from us” policy. When the ecosystem is open enough there is a community of people who learn what they need to. For reference see: car racing.

I was recently surprised to learn the Google app repository browser doesn't let you do that. If you use apps that are also on f-droid, it might be better to install from there to avoid being locked into a new version that you don't like. Or make backups so you have the old apk and can restore the data directory as well (iirc it doesn't let you keep that upon downgrading).

For system images, it's a bit harder. I don't really have a good solution that would downgrade the OS without also restoring an old app state.

Yes, it should be possible to revert a device to the state you bought it in. Sure, software support was also included in the price, but there's a reason it's called support and not enforcement.

Sounds like a security nightmare.

That's another benefit, if I buy a smart TV with the express intent of sideloading software on to it and then they remove the ability to do that later on than the product I've purchased has fundamentally changed. Most EULA's allow them to make arbitrary modifications like that.

I consider being able to exploit security issues in older firmware revisions an absolute win for software freedom.

I don't think anyone is stopping you from using an older version of a game or older firmware, given you can obtain them (legally) and you're ok with the limitations this might impose. For example, if you're not on the latest version of a multiplayer game, you might not be allowed to play. On older firmwares you might not get full access to the application store. Etc. The point is, you don't need a law, but it might not be easy to get an older version running.

Most phones don't allow you to downgrade your version of the OS. Definitely iPhone doesn't.

Hell, tons of software-driven things don't allow you to downgrade, it's not just phones. And often for good reason, a software upgrade on a modern "thing" often contains firmware or patches for various chipsets in the device, not just some OS or app-level features and fixes. Orchestrating a downgrade, and ensuring it doesn't accidentally brick something, would be a major testing headache across the matrix of all potential FROM and TO versions of software that could be involved. All so that some super edge case user can be accommodated.

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