| You completely misses the point. Imagine you buy a computer from DELL with an nvidia card. And it came pre-installed with linux or windows. whatever version of those. And you can't upgrade to the next kernel or UI, because nvidia won't release the drivers for that board. You have to wait until DELL asks nvidia for a binary blob driver for the new kernel, and then release it as a new linux update that will touch all the software you have. This is exactly what happens on android. My old phone is still on 2.3 simply because I can't drive the display and camera and radio on any other version. damn binary blobs. people have used 4.2 on this phone with a convoluted chain of translators for the 2.3 interfaces those binary drivers expect to the recent ones... but it is extremely buggy and messy (wrong memory writes all over the place) So, the manufacturer's fault here is just not dealing with their providers to grantee drivers update, but ultimately, all of the current manufacturers are crappy in that aspect. you are just choosing one that provides you two versions, which is still dumb. less dumb than restricting yourself to one version, but still not the best way to go. And it is not like they are defending any super secret information. It is just knee jerk reaction from some lawyers or some sales people trying to make the same margin twice. ...but everyone keep upgrading phones every year, so i think it is fine for everyone and the only sucker is me. |