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An Anonymous Coward writes:

So, you buy a bit of kit, and it is yours, right? Not so fast.

Built-in software ‘death dates’ are sending thousands of schools’ Chromebooks to the recycling bin [mercurynews.com]

At a lofty warehouse in East Oakland, a dozen students have spent their summer days tinkering with laptops. The teens, who are part of Oakland Unified’s tech repair internship, have fixed broken screens, faulty keyboards and tangled wiring, mending whatever they can.

But despite their technological prowess, there’s one mechanical issue the tech interns haven’t been able to crack: expired Chromebooks.

With a software death date baked into each model, older versions of these inexpensive computers are set to expire three to six years after their release. Despite having fully functioning hardware, an expired Chromebook will no longer receive the software updates it needs, blocking basic websites and applications from use.

And, some free software bashing, to (not) boot.

Kimathi Bradford, a 16-year-old Oakland tech repair intern, has looked into whether there was a way to replace the outdated Chromebook software with a non-Google brand, but it ended up being a lot of work, Kimathi said, and the open-source replacement wasn’t up to par.

“It’s like the Fritos of software,” he said. “No one really wants to use it.”

What exactly "not up to par" means when comparing Chrome linux to, you know, real linux, is left as an exercise for the reader.

Original Submission