I believe the point of this post is to introduce their "Use The source" mailing list[0] where they publicly track and encourage compliance with the GPL from vendors who release products containing GPL'd software. It's a spiritual successor to the old gpl-violations.org mailing list.

The security angle is because fixing a vulnerability is a fairly compelling reason why someone might want to update the software in a device they've purchased. Vulnerabilities found in Linux and other GPL'd software often get fixed fairly quickly, but random Linux-based IoT devices and whatnot often ship with ancient versions of GPL'd software and never see any security fixes. ("The S in IoT stands for security.") If the vendor complies with the GPL, then end-users can patch it themselves. But, many vendors don't, hence the need for the new mailing list.

[0]: https://sfconservancy.org/usethesource/

The submitted title was "Without software right to repair, your devices are not secure". We've changed it now, in keeping with HN's title rule: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

If it had been a sentence from the article itself, we might have kept it, because "Prioritizing software right to repair: engaging corporate response teams" doesn't say much. But I couldn't find that language in the article, and it seems you couldn't either, so it's probably best to stick to the rule in this case and revert it.

Agreed. The article has almost nothing to with the headline. The article is about copyleft compliance. It is not about "Without software right to repair, your devices are not secure". That is a much larger topic than the article itself which is about auditing that if you're using copyleft software that you're complying with the license. The article itself is not calling for a right to repair all software in all devices.

"Copyleft compliance". Some argue the GPL and other copyleft licences help ensure the right to repair by helping to enforce the availability of source code.

> We recently launched Use The Source (alluded to above), which helps device owners and companies see whether source code candidates (the most important part of copyleft compliance) are giving users their software right to repair, i.e. whether they comply with the copyleft licenses they use.