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Proposal: any physical product sold that hard-depends on a server somewhere introduces a legal requirement for the manufacturer to keep that server available in perpetuity.
If the manufacturer does not want to do that, then they will just have to make sure that the product can function without it in some way, whether it is by having default behaviour, or a local fallback, or by making the source code of the server available under an open-source license or in the public domain.
@joepie91 why limit it to hw though
@ethorsoe Because for software it's a much more complex point to argue, and including it risks drowning the entire proposal in endless debate :)
@joepie91 I think we could do with a 1000 year term, counting from the date of the most recent purchase of the item or the date of withdrawal of the product from the market (whichever is later).
Question would be how to handle when the manufacturer goes out of business, considering that in most locales, a company's obligations are tied to the company.