Hardware End-of-Sales (HEoS)

[santosomar]

This is a follow up of #13

Let's define each element and work on their definitions in separate GitHub issues. This issue will focus on defining:

Hardware End-of-Life (HEoL) or Hardware End-of-Sales (HEoS)

[santosomar]

Potential Definition:

Hardware End-of-Life (HEoL) signifies the date when a manufacturer will no longer produce, sell, or market a specific hardware product. After this date, the product is officially discontinued, and customers can no longer purchase it through regular sales channels. HEoL also typically marks the beginning of the phase-out of support services, with eventual cessation of all support and updates.

Example:

Consider a networking company, NetTech, that produces a line of routers named "NetRouter 3000". NetTech announces that the Hardware End-of-Life for NetRouter 3000 will be on December 31, 2023. From this date forward, NetTech will stop manufacturing and selling NetRouter 3000. Although existing customers may still receive support for a limited time, they are encouraged to transition to newer models like NetRouter 4000.

[fjscao]

In many cases, the hardware with a specific component (like CPU, DRAM) is HEoL or HEoS. This should be included into the definition.

[santosomar]

As discussed in our TC meeting on 2024-08-21, we combined the definition of hardware and software end-of-sales (EoS) and then will have two separate categories in the schema at a later time.

The motion to accept the EoS definition is available here: https://groups.oasis-open.org/discussion/motion-to-accept-the-end-of-sales-eos-definition