We are all for opening up parts of the firmware in obsolete products, already not supported by the manufacturer in order to:

  • re-use, re-cycle and allow more inclusiveness in the digital world
  • enhance, include third-world in the innovation cycle
  • discover, reward and create opportunities in the second life of our digital gadgets
  • allow the electronic crumbs of developed countries to become first dishes in different corners of the world
  • keep up with security patches and even
  • find a second life for devices as re-purposing their use

We heard the arguments that patents and money were spent in development and for some products it is a viable point but for the majority of the products out there there is a plethora of manufacturing companies and common frameworks used for firmware development. The chips have common architectures and only a few points of differentiation.

There are already people involved in those efforts and I will include links and take a bow for their unsung efforts:

Most of the companies are recognizing that “many-heads” effort in software development is accelerating the speed of innovation and put “free-hours” together with freelancers. Until now we just peeked into those efforts but soon we will join them and blog about it.