[mschuster91]

Ideally, companies should be forced to deposit everything needed for manufacturing a product - 3D designs, software toolchains, PCBs, BOMs, service tooling - at the national archives to be held in trust.

Once the manufacturer ceases supporting a product, everything becomes open source.

[HelixEndeavor]

This is kind of solved by Right to Repair legislation. It would prevent companies from making exclusivity deals and force them to allow this stuff to be sold to the public - not that they have to sell it themselves, but their partners would be free to.

I don't know if putting the government in charge of maintaining all of that would be the best idea.