Submission + - Product Mortality
pubwvj writes: Sonny is killing off their robot Aibo (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/18/technology/robotica-sony-aibo-robotic-dog-mortality.html?_r=0) stranding the 150,000 or so owners with no support, repairs or parts other than cannibalism.
Now we have another Japanese company, SoftBank, releasing a robotic 'child' (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150618/as--japan-robot-6771acf4a6.html) Eventually they too will discontinue the production of parts and support beginning the process of killing off all those 'children' that are spawned.
As robotics become (far) more advanced at what point will it be murder for a company to discontinue a product line?
This leads to the thought that it is time for all products that are discontinued to be forced into the public domain, to be open sourced. If a company is going to discontinue something then they need to release all the information for the production and support of the product so that others who want to do so can pickup the project and continue it's useful life. This should reach back retroactively and is needed to support all those systems that are in place as companies drop support or go out of business.
Now we have another Japanese company, SoftBank, releasing a robotic 'child' (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20150618/as--japan-robot-6771acf4a6.html) Eventually they too will discontinue the production of parts and support beginning the process of killing off all those 'children' that are spawned.
As robotics become (far) more advanced at what point will it be murder for a company to discontinue a product line?
This leads to the thought that it is time for all products that are discontinued to be forced into the public domain, to be open sourced. If a company is going to discontinue something then they need to release all the information for the production and support of the product so that others who want to do so can pickup the project and continue it's useful life. This should reach back retroactively and is needed to support all those systems that are in place as companies drop support or go out of business.
