Ethical gadgets

Make Magazine has a nice list of items that gadgets should conform to, so that they are user friendly. Most of them are reasonable and should be required. Here are some more that I want:

1. Gadgets must support open formats, and preferrably not have DRM at all
2. No frail wires in the open that can snap off
3. Any chipsets and processors that the gadget uses must at the very least have open and complete documentation
4. Any firmware / software on a gadget should be free software, along with a HOWTO on how the software can be compiled and replaced by the user
5. It’s the designer’s job to make sure the gadget cannot be disabled (or `bricked’) by any software updates, and it must always be possible to reload a default image and get the gadget back to its factory state

Syndicated 2007-12-23 22:04:49 (Updated 2007-12-23 22:05:02) from Mukund's blog