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DoctorOetker 2 hours ago

could it be construed as anti-competitive to block end-users or resellers from swapping RAM?

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Aurornis 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No. Price discrimination and locking hardware are not illegal.

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DoctorOetker 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

lets try proof by exhaustion:

in those jurisdictions where either price discrimination or locking hardware are not illegal, it is typically perfectly legal to reverse engineer for compatibility purposes. So nothing prevents such resellers from upping their game and learning a thing or two about link training and general SDRAM bringup.

Once they have acquired the knowledge legally in such jurisdictions the product just flows in the other jurisdictions anyway.

Courts upheld the monopolistic position of microsoft etc. for decades, but respect has no finality, "re" + "spect" to review, so later such companies were fined for their decades long transgressions.

But during those decades it may appear legal to the average consumer.

Inaction is not permission.

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Grombobulous 2 hours ago | parent [-]

All of this is pretty irrelevant from a legal perspective.

Reverse engineering is legal, but manufacturers don’t have to help you figure out how to reverse engineer their products and they’re allowed to design their products in a way that makes it difficult.

There’s generally not a lot of jurisdictions out there that make stuff like hardware lockdowns of this nature illegal, especially for companies that are not in regulated industries or are not monopoly/oligopoly players.

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DoctorOetker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> All of this is pretty irrelevant from a legal perspective.

> Reverse engineering is legal, but manufacturers don’t have to help you figure out how to reverse engineer their products and they’re allowed to design their products in a way that makes it difficult.

I'm not asking for help to figure this out, and of course RP is allowed to shoot themselves in any foot they like.

Consider Europe where such reverse engineering is perfectly legal for compatibility purposes. Let's consider an idealized scenario, there were no security bugs or other issues with the product that would justify reverse engineering RP blobs in public. When they do something like this, they are GIVING CARTE BLANCHE to public reverse engineering efforts to attain compatibility with other RAM chips. Why would you provide legal cover in some jurisdictions for others in publicly reverse engineering your own products by introducing artificial incompatibility?

Also from a consumer perspective, RP tries to place itself front and center in maker communties, emphasizing modularity, not just hobbyists, also companies build and design end products using RP units. All of these companies must now be wondering where RP Foundations exact red line resides: can we resell an RP board in a Kiosk we made? or only for as long as it doesn't compete with RP's future Kiosk modules? Today its the RAM upgrade, but tomorrow RP modules may refuse to boot some popular Kiosk hardware intentionally. What prevents RP Foundation from eventually "not copying" end-application hardware like a Kiosk design from their customers, and then enforcing compatibility only with RP Kiosks?

So not only are they providing legal cover for public reverse engineering efforts, they are scaring part of their customer base.

> There’s generally not a lot of jurisdictions out there that make stuff like hardware lockdowns of this nature illegal, especially for companies that are not in regulated industries or are not monopoly/oligopoly players.

That's a very shallow interpretation of law, looking only at what RP is or isn't allowed to do.

There's generally not a lot of jurisdictions out there that make stuff like reverse engineering for compatibility or security applications illegal either.

	▲	Grombobulous an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think you’re overestimating the peril RP puts itself in here.

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smilespray 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You'd be well advised to remember there is a world beyond your visible horizon.

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Aurornis 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I prefer to stay grounded in the reality of how the world works when responding to questions about legalities.

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smilespray 2 hours ago | parent [-]

What you said isn't true for quite a few countries.

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iso1631 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's quite possible, but could you name a couple where locking a raspberry pi type of computer would be illegal?

	▲	smilespray 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		EU Right to Repair Directive specifically prohibits manufacturers from using HW/SW locks or firmware limits to block part replacement.

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Hizonner 19 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Lots of things aren't illegal... unless you do them for illegal purposes.

I doubt antitrust would get anywhere on this RAM issue, but antitrust law is not defined in terms of either of those categories.

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kmeisthax 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Probably not.

Doing a RAM swap and then selling the resulting unit as if it were a Raspberry Pi of the higher RAM capacity might be construed as trademark infringement[0]. And in general it's fairly difficult to make arguments in antitrust cases that boil down to "yes, your honor, everything they're doing is within their rights but I don't like it".

[0] At the same time, the scammers could probably get away with this by putting "Upgraded to 16GB!" in the title of their eBay listings or whatever, in the same way that fraudulent storage devices are labeled as "upgraded" (read: lying about their capacity). That doesn't impact the antitrust analysis though.

	▲	DoctorOetker 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I certainly agree that such a reseller should clearly state the modification, and not pretend its an authentic RPi 8GB unit. But if this is the real concern, they could just display the fact that "Unoriginal RAM detected" to inform the user its not a vanilla RPi Foundation product, so buyers understand the situation, but continue booting normally.