We don't care about their licenses; that's their problem. If they need firmware with a license that allows them to redistribute it there are plenty of free ones to choose from.
And you can't wait until after they're dead to have them do something. By then they're gone or judgment proof because they're already bankrupt. Especially when you're talking about companies that aren't in the jurisdiction because you can't even make them do anything when they're already not shipping products to you anymore. It has to be from Day 1.
> It has to be from Day 1.
There was a promising design from Azure Sphere for 10 years of IoT device Linux security updates from Microsoft, even if the IoT vendor went out of business. This required a hardware design to isolate vendor userspace code from device security code, so they could be updated independently. Could be resurrected as open standard with FRAND licensing.