Sonos bricking devices intentionally
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https://www.reddit.com/r/sonos/comments/7u8ptd/sonos_ending_support_for_the_cr100_in_april/
Essentially the next update to the CR100 controller will brick it and make it useless. They give you the option of ignoring future updates but obviously do not recommend it and they are offering a $100 coupon towards Sonos purchases.
I would totally get them ending support for a product that is ~10 years old at this point. No problem. But sending out an update that will intentionally brick the product seems like a pretty dick move on their part.
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article @polygeekery linked said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
The CR100 is a unique Sonos product, powered by an internal lithium ion battery. Across devices and industries, aging lithium ion batteries have the potential to overheat when left charging. For this reason, we can no longer continue to support the CR100, even in a limited way.
Because replaceable batteries is a totally unheard of concept that needs solving but is too wild to ponder for today's modern devices...
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@tsaukpaetra if you have a spudger and a soldering iron you can even buy the replacements for this exact model to fix this issue.
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But today, the CR100 can no longer support many of the services and functions that are core to the Sonos experience.
So for the past decade+, everyone who bought one of these things has been pretending to listen to music, or what? What's the "Sonos experience" that apparently needs more than this device can do?
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@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
What's the "Sonos experience" that apparently needs more than this device can do?
It isn't an app that runs on a smartphone.
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@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
What's the "Sonos experience" that apparently needs more than this device can do?
It must be something magical
https://what.thedailywtf.com/post/1290973
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@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
What's the "Sonos experience" that apparently needs more than this device can do?
Pay more money to Sonos.
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@timebandit said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@hungrier said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
What's the "Sonos experience" that apparently needs more than this device can do?
It must be something magical
https://what.thedailywtf.com/post/1290973
For many years Rolls Royce listed the horsepower output of the engines in their vehicles as "Sufficient".
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Time to check the audiophile forums to see what bullshit justification they have for their adopted fanboy first born child brand of choice.
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@the_quiet_one said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Time to check the audiophile forums
You can actually hear the difference between audio over HTTP and HTTPS. HTTPS encrypts the data to make it look random, so the sound actually has a very small amount of random noise in the background. If you don't hear it, then I suggest comparing the two with a high quality DAC and headphone amp.
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If I ever get a large amount of fuck off time I have the idea in my head for an open source hardware and software project which would take a Raspberry Pi and replace the relevant parts of Sonos.
Load the software, slap on a HAT that would interface with a separate bit of kit that would allow the Pi to switch speakers, adjust zone volumes, etc. The HAT would have pass through pins to an off the shelf DAC to output to a conventional receiver.
Raspberry Pi already has good implementations of Airplay and Spotify Connect, etc. No need to reinvent the wheel there.
Chances of me having the time to do this is virtually nil. A man can dream though.
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@polygeekery One time I put a raspberry pie in my hat but all I got was a mess. D-, did not play music, would not buy again.
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@tsaukpaetra if you have a spudger and a soldering iron you can even buy the replacements for this exact model to fix this issue.
Scratch that, you only need a spudger. The connection is socketed.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0074NAUGA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_kV2FAbXJZ9GE4
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I've read the title as "Soros bricking devices internationally". I should take break from political news...
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@polygeekery said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Scratch that, you only need a spudger.
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I've read the title as "Soros bricking devices internationally". I should take break from political news...
and you're not even living in Hungary.
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@bb36e But it's important that you have the http stream go over an old school copper-backed DSL connection. If you get it via fiber, the sound will be much more sterile and flat.
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@marczellm you think you have it bad? You must've not heard of the current death camps naming shitshow.
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@gąska
I see your Holocaust controversy and raise you a bill that would get you banned from Hungary for donating to charities aiding migrants:According to the proposed package, individuals who facilitate the entry of illegal migrants or finance such organizations could be banned from the 8-kilometer proximity of the Hungarian border or even prohibited from entering Hungary.
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In another thread, I was going to have a rant at @Gąska for having succumbed to the brainworm of "you must always update to the newest version and a version a few months old is crap!" and then I stopped myself because it was a bug report (granted, a @Lorne-Kates one, so already quite ranty, but still).
And then I read this thread about how updating to the newest version will brick your device. Such a perfect argument, I couldn't have put it better.
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@remi you should never be forced to update if you don't want to. But using an old version of software that has been discontinued and left unsupported, and demanding that people still support it, is just wrong.
BTW @Lorne-Kates, your original reason not to update was awful UI changes in FF23. If you finally got past it and updated to 28, why not go all the way to newest
nightlystable?
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi you should never be forced to update if you don't want to. But using an old version of software that has been discontinued and left unsupported, and demanding that people still support it, is just wrong.
The only part that makes your last sentence correct is the "demanding that people still support it". Sure, you should not expect newer technologies to work on older versions.
Yet you should expect stuff written with older techs to also work on older versions and having devs telling you to update when you hit such a bug is just the "update everything" brainworm. And this mentality is how we get stupid IoT stuff because you know, you must be able to update your washing machine so this means shipping a web server inside it, and you must accept whatever update the author is sending because anything else is bad.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi you should never be forced to update if you don't want to. But using an old version of software that has been discontinued and left unsupported, and demanding that people still support it, is just wrong.
The only part that makes your last sentence correct is the "demanding that people still support it".
That's how logical conjunction works, generally. Using old software is fine, and so is demanding support for your system. But not together.
Yet you should expect stuff written with older techs to also work on older versions and having devs telling you to update when you hit such a bug is just the "update everything" brainworm.
But there has to be a line somewhere. In 2018, devs should be able to say "XP? Fuck off oldfag." For me, a fair estimate of where the line should be is official EOL + 12 months. Of course, by which I mean, I won't support anything older unless you pay me for it.
And this mentality is how we get stupid IoT stuff because you know, you must be able to update your washing machine so this means shipping a web server inside it, and you must accept whatever update the author is sending because anything else is bad.
Forced updates isn't the problem here (well, not the biggest one). The problem is that washing machine requires internet connection to operate. It's DRM all over again, and has exactly the same problems as back in 2006, including buggy software compromising security of your entire network.
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
But there has to be a line somewhere. In 2018, devs should be able to say "XP? Fuck off oldfag."
OK, let's get philosophical: why? If you are using a technology that existed when XP was under support, it shouldn't matter that the user is on XP or whatever. The only valid reason is if you are using a technology that was not available. But then we get to the idea, which I dislike as well, that we should change technologies every year or so, and also do so in such a way that the new technology is incompatible with older devices (changing version on the server is fine, as long as it still serves the same stuff to clients). Stop chasing the shiny new stuff and use what you've got correctly!
Related is also the misguided idea that new versions should necessarily bring new features and significant changes, because every piece of software always grows and adds warts and stuff (I think the original quote was that every software grew until it included a mailer, but that could be extended to a chat, a browser, a music player, a cloud...). Keep stuff simple, don't try to add to it forever (start a different compatible software for that!): see TeX/LaTeX and other Knuth's works, they are basically rock-solid, and code written for it years ago still works like a charm, because they just do their stuff, nothing else (not that they are necessarily the best tool that there is, but at least they don't pretend to store your docs in the cloud or whatever).
I know that the Unix CLI gets a lot of flack in some other threads (and I'm not the last one to do it), but at least
catstill doescat, not some weird mix ofwget+grep+cat+sort+ ... And therefore you don't have to worry about which version ofcatyou are using, if you copy a script that uses it, it will just fucking work, even on a 10-year old version of bash (although arguably there are differences between GNU and other versions, but that is more like comparing different pieces of software that happen to have the same name, than successive versions of the same software).stupid IoT stuff
Forced updates isn't the problem here (well, not the biggest one). The problem is that washing machine requires internet connection to operate. It's DRM all over again, and has exactly the same problems as back in 2006, including buggy software compromising security of your entire network.
Right, but if developers and users were not used to having their software update every other hour, maybe, just maybe, they would be a bit more careful in what's in the first and only version of it.
I feel that the internet and the ability to push updates whenever you want has made developers even lazier than they were before (and devs, like most humans, have always been lazy).
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
...is the "demanding that people still support it". ....
Alas, there have been legal rulings that can cause a company to be exposed to significant liability even for something that is "no longer supported". It would be a great conversation around that, but it is really independent of this specific thread.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
see TeX/LaTeX and other Knuth's works, they are basically rock-solid, and code written for it years ago still works like a charm, because they just do their stuff, nothing else (not that they are necessarily the best tool that there is, but at least they don't pretend to store your docs in the cloud or whatever).
Porting LaTeX to Electron and adding cloud file storage services would be an amazingly good troll of EFF and FOSS people.
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@thecpuwizard said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
...is the "demanding that people still support it". ....
Alas, there have been legal rulings that can cause a company to be exposed to significant liability even for something that is "no longer supported". It would be a great conversation around that, but it is really independent of this specific thread.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I know anything about this, but it does not seem entirely unreasonable for physical objects. A car maker, or any other appliance maker, is (as far as I know?) liable for major defects in the car even years after the warranty expires. Somehow the software industry has managed the wonderful sleight of hand that is the "AS-IS" in all licenses to evade all responsibility...
Is there any other product in the world that you would pay money for, and where the maker of that product could sell you anything while telling you "THIS [STUFF] IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [including the purpose for which I am explicitly selling it to you]"???
So yeah, a software maker should be responsible for major bugs in his software, regardless of the maintenance window.
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@polygeekery The Bad Ideas Thread is
(but I love it!)
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@cvi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@bb36e But it's important that you have the http stream go over an old school copper-backed DSL connection. If you get it via fiber, the sound will be much more sterile and flat.
I'd recommend the music be played at one of those vacuum tube computers (you know, anything with "vacuum tube" must be good for music).
Just don't ask me how to play on them.
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@cheong said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Just don't ask me how to play on them.
With drumsticks, obviously
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@thecpuwizard said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
...is the "demanding that people still support it". ....
Alas, there have been legal rulings that can cause a company to be exposed to significant liability even for something that is "no longer supported". It would be a great conversation around that, but it is really independent of this specific thread.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I know anything about this, but it does not seem entirely unreasonable for physical objects. A car maker, or any other appliance maker, is (as far as I know?) liable for major defects in the car even years after the warranty expires. Somehow the software industry has managed the wonderful sleight of hand that is the "AS-IS" in all licenses to evade all responsibility...
Is there any other product in the world that you would pay money for, and where the maker of that product could sell you anything while telling you "THIS [STUFF] IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [including the purpose for which I am explicitly selling it to you]"???
So yeah, a software maker should be responsible for major bugs in his software, regardless of the maintenance window.
This IS a physical object!!!!!!
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
But there has to be a line somewhere. In 2018, devs should be able to say "XP? Fuck off oldfag."
OK, let's get philosophical: why?
Because every second spent on compatibility shims is a second not spent on developing new features and fixing bugs on actually supported systems.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
If you are using a technology that existed when XP was under support, it shouldn't matter that the user is on XP or whatever. The only valid reason is if you are using a technology that was not available.
Note that my original post was in context of a bug that only exists in compatibility layer, which was made specifically to accomodate old browsers that don't support technology used by the forum. I don't know the details, though - that's only my understanding after a quick reading of that bug thread.
I'm all for supporting old systems if possible. But if I need a WinAPI function that only exists in Windows 7 and up, I don't care about your XP or your Vista. And by 2020, I won't care about your Windows 7 either (unless you pay me). I could write a workaround, but I won't.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Stop chasing the shiny new stuff and use what you've got correctly!
If shiny new stuff makes my life better, I'm gonna use it and no one can stop me.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Related is also the misguided idea that new versions should necessarily bring new features and significant changes
And I hate that philosophy as much as the next guy. But if the changes in upstream libraries are already made and they're good, why not take advantage of them?
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Forced updates isn't the problem here (well, not the biggest one). The problem is that washing machine requires internet connection to operate. It's DRM all over again, and has exactly the same problems as back in 2006, including buggy software compromising security of your entire network.
Right, but if developers and users were not used to having their software update every other hour, maybe, just maybe, they would be a bit more careful in what's in the first and only version of it.
You wish.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I feel that the internet and the ability to push updates whenever you want has made developers even lazier than they were before (and devs, like most humans, have always been lazy).
I was told computer programs in the 80s and early 90s were much more buggy than today, and no one gave a shit.
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
your original reason not to update was awful UI changes in FF23. If you finally got past it and updated to 28, why not go all the way to newest nightlystable?
they re-worked the UI two more times between v28 and v58 and made it less customizable with each release
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
But there has to be a line somewhere. In 2018, devs should be able to say "XP? Fuck off oldfag."
OK, let's get philosophical: why?
Because every second spent on compatibility shims is a second not spent on developing new features and fixing bugs on actually supported systems.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
If you are using a technology that existed when XP was under support, it shouldn't matter that the user is on XP or whatever. The only valid reason is if you are using a technology that was not available.
Note that my original post was in context of a bug that only exists in compatibility layer, which was made specifically to accomodate old browsers that don't support technology used by the forum. I don't know the details, though - that's only my understanding after a quick reading of that bug thread.
I'm all for supporting old systems if possible. But if I need a WinAPI function that only exists in Windows 7 and up, I don't care about your XP or your Vista. And by 2020, I won't care about your Windows 7 either (unless you pay me). I could write a workaround, but I won't.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Stop chasing the shiny new stuff and use what you've got correctly!
If shiny new stuff makes my life better, I'm gonna use it and no one can stop me.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Related is also the misguided idea that new versions should necessarily bring new features and significant changes
And I hate that philosophy as much as the next guy. But if the changes in upstream libraries are already made and they're good, why not take advantage of them?
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Forced updates isn't the problem here (well, not the biggest one). The problem is that washing machine requires internet connection to operate. It's DRM all over again, and has exactly the same problems as back in 2006, including buggy software compromising security of your entire network.
Right, but if developers and users were not used to having their software update every other hour, maybe, just maybe, they would be a bit more careful in what's in the first and only version of it.
You wish.
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I feel that the internet and the ability to push updates whenever you want has made developers even lazier than they were before (and devs, like most humans, have always been lazy).
I was told computer programs in the 80s and early 90s were much more buggy than today, and no one gave a shit.
You should have been around in the early 1970's (and before). An oscilloscope was needed for finding failures within the CPU...or perhaps a wirwrapp connection had become tarnished and was not working, or....
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@thecpuwizard said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
...is the "demanding that people still support it". ....
Alas, there have been legal rulings that can cause a company to be exposed to significant liability even for something that is "no longer supported". It would be a great conversation around that, but it is really independent of this specific thread.
I am not a lawyer, nor do I know anything about this, but it does not seem entirely unreasonable for physical objects. A car maker, or any other appliance maker, is (as far as I know?) liable for major defects in the car even years after the warranty expires. Somehow the software industry has managed the wonderful sleight of hand that is the "AS-IS" in all licenses to evade all responsibility...
Is there any other product in the world that you would pay money for, and where the maker of that product could sell you anything while telling you "THIS [STUFF] IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [including the purpose for which I am explicitly selling it to you]"???
So yeah, a software maker should be responsible for major bugs in his software, regardless of the maintenance window.
I read a quote once that went like: "being able to get a refund for defective software sounds like a good idea, but it would bankrupt the entire software industry within a week". In other words, making bug-free software is disproportionately hard, so we can't expect it to be the standard.
This doesn't mean software makers shouldn't be held responsible at all. IMO we should start with some bare minimum responsibilities (like 2 years of support minimum, security bugs found within that time must be patched) and then work to find a good middle ground.
However, one thing that is just absolutely wrong is defining liabilities, then letting people waive them. Literally the only thing it achieves is punish people who don't include the same stupid all-caps paragraph in their license.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
"But there has to be a line somewhere. In 2018, devs should be able to say "XP? Fuck off oldfag.""OK, let's get philosophical: why?
Users don't deserve it.
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@anonymous234 said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
So yeah, a software maker should be responsible for major bugs in his software, regardless of the maintenance window.
I read a quote once that went like: "being able to get a refund for defective software sounds like a good idea, but it would bankrupt the entire software industry within a week". In other words, making bug-free software is disproportionately hard, so we can't expect it to be the standard.
Well, part of it is that we never really made any efforts about it. Sure, short of using correctness proofs (which we are actually slowly getting around to... in that regard programming is slowly moving from a craft to a science...), we cannot guarantee the absence of all bugs. But again, see Knuth's works for a counter example. With a very high cost, sure, but it can work. It's not because we are used to defective products that they are the only possible state of things.
Also, remember that for e.g. a car, what you get is not a guarantee that everything works perfectly forever. There are thousands of tiny things that would be considered a minor bug and that will be accepted (I don't know, a thread in the seat fabric that if off, a plastic seam with a tiny gap...). What are guaranteed are the significant features, and only those (of course the definition is open to discussion, but still, by and large there are some simple cases). Essentially, we already have those guarantees, in that if you have a word processor where you can never save a document, this will not sell and will naturally disappear, but there is no reason the seller should be able to remove those guarantees himself.
This doesn't mean software makers shouldn't be held responsible at all. IMO we should start with some bare minimum responsibilities (like 2 years of support minimum, security bugs found within that time must be patched) and then work to find a good middle ground.
I agree. Starting by removing these stupid as-is licenses would be the first step. I'm pretty sure there are already a lot of rules on what minimal service a seller must provide (compared to what he sold), and a robust jurisprudence related to it, it is likely that these could be used with little changes as guidelines for judges.
However, one thing that is just absolutely wrong is defining liabilities, then letting people waive them. Literally the only thing it achieves is punish people who don't include the same stupid all-caps paragraph in their license.
This is where regulations are needed. In the EU, stuff like household appliances have a legally guaranteed 2-year warranty, and (I think) you cannot waive this warranty away (as a buyer), even if the seller makes you sign a contract to that effect (in software-related stuff, I think that this is how shrink-wrap licenses are treated now, i.e. entirely invalid whatever the license may say). This should apply to software as well.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Also, remember that for e.g. a car, what you get is not a guarantee that everything works perfectly forever. There are thousands of tiny things that would be considered a minor bug and that will be accepted
And possibly a lot more, depending on the brand.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
stuff like household appliances have a legally guaranteed 2-year warranty
Depends on the product. I'm not entirely sure how much of this is Dutch law and how much is European guideline, but the legal warranty against production defects extends all the way to the end of the technical lifetime of the product, which can extend for decades. This should be claimed with the vendor, not the manufacturer, as it is the vendor with whom you have a legal contract. All costs for repair, transport, and damage (think of a washing machine springing a leak) are for the vendor, and it is on the vendor to reclaim this with the manufacturer.
Source: https://www.kieskeurig.nl/document/A19B25827AA58DE3C12574AB00374E15
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@pleegwat I should have said "at least 2 years"... but I'm sure there are lots of subtleties, for example I would be kinda surprised if that covered absolutely everything including basically throw-away stuff. There is probably some kind of catch-all clause about applying it to stuff "where the consumer has a reasonable expectation" or some other legalese.
The point is, regulations override contracts and there are consumer's rights that cannot be waived away even by signing a contract that explicitly says so. That could be used to make all software licenses as-is clause void at once.
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@remi I don't think you'll be able to gather any warranty repairs on an empty alkaline battery.
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Is there any other product in the world that you would pay money for, and where the maker of that product could sell you anything while telling you "THIS [STUFF] IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [including the purpose for which I am explicitly selling it to you]"???
Ever heard of used cars?
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@anonymous234 said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I read a quote once that went like: "being able to get a refund for defective software sounds like a good idea, but it would bankrupt the entire software industry within a week". In other words, making bug-free software is disproportionately hard, so we can't expect it to be the standard.
It'll always be disproportionally hard as long as we keep up with our current braindead practices and ignore quality. I for one think this would be a good change, because no one who goes out of business because of it deserves to be in business.
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@pleegwat An used one, certainly not. But it may be that if you show that the battery was still in its pack and it's empty, you could have a case. But we're just
'ing now...
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Is there any other product in the world that you would pay money for, and where the maker of that product could sell you anything while telling you "THIS [STUFF] IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [including the purpose for which I am explicitly selling it to you]"???
Ever heard of used cars?
I've helpfully highlighted the relevant part for you.
Also, there are some things that even a used-car dealership could not get away with (sales between individuals are a different matter).
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
I've helpfully highlighted the relevant part for you.
...and due to quote nesting fuckery we cannot easily see it. :P
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Is there any other product in the world that you would pay money for, and where the maker of that product could sell you anything while telling you "THIS [STUFF] IS PROVIDED WITHOUT WARRANTY OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE [including the purpose for which I am explicitly selling it to you]"???
Ever heard of used cars?
I've helpfully highlighted the relevant part for you.
So if I'm not the maker, I shouldn't be held liable for what I sell?
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@gąska I don't usually say pedantic dickweedeery, but this is just pedantic dickweedeery.
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@gąska said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
you think you have it bad? You must've not heard of the current death camps naming shitshow.
I get ads on YouTube from like the Poland Tourism Bureau or something that are all like "hey Polish people didn't kill millions of Jews, k?" It makes you wonder why anybody who didn't actually kill millions of Jews would have to buy advertising space to say so...
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@remi said in Sonos bricking devices intentionally:
Sure, short of using correctness proofs (which we are actually slowly getting around to... in that regard programming is slowly moving from a craft to a science...), we cannot guarantee the absence of all bugs.
Correctness proofs will never find usability bugs. Neither will unit or integration testing.
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