alt Hacker NewsYou've just made an argument for a bunch of regulation to force opening up and removing obstacles.
E.g.: "for example, you may not be allowed to provide access to the radio firmware." Given that everything has a radio these days (everything is wifi- and/or bluetooth- enabled), this is just stupid. Why is firmware for basically essential infra not legally available?
Same goes for many, many, many other things.
> Given that everything has a radio these days [...] this is just stupid
Manufacturers need to pass certification for their radio implementations, such as FCC, CE/RED, PTCRB, Bluetooth SIG, etc. Any modification to the radio firmware can potentially change the device's RF characteristics and cause it to fall outside of the conditions under which it was certified.
This is why manufacturers generally cannot simply release the radio firmware and allow users to modify it freely, as doing so could result in devices operating outside their certified RF parameters and expose them to regulatory or legal liability.
Not to mention the intellectual property rights of the manufacturer and their vendors. The firmware may contain proprietary code, algorithms, or other licensed technology that the manufacturer does not have the legal right to redistribute, especially if it was developed by a third-party vendor.