I have serious doubts about how comprehensive this support will actually be, especially regarding firmware updates and non-Google vendor commitment.
There is a wide variety of Chromebook hardware manufacturers, and most of them don't have a good track record of providing firmware upgrades for long. Google can keep ChromeOS updated on these devices, just like Microsoft can keep pushing Windows updates, but are the manufacturers going to provide firmware updates for 10 years? Are Intel or Mediatek going to be providing 10 years of microcode updates for the CPUs used on these devices? It doesn't make sense to me that these companies are suddenly going to invest a lot of money just to support these cheap devices that probably don't make a lot of profit, when they have never given a similar level of support to their flagship products.
I think this 10 year support window will not be full device support, just a commitment to providing OS updates that don't break stuff.
> but are the manufacturers going to provide firmware updates for 10 years?
Typically, yes, at least for severe, headline-generating issues. Most others tend to be able to be worked around in Linux kernel drivers anyway (and usually better than by most vendors…), so realistically the burden will be on Google to use a 10-year LTS kernel and meaningfully support it receiving backports for various issues.
> Are Intel or Mediatek going to be providing 10 years of microcode updates for the CPUs used on these devices?
Intel at least seems to be providing updates for 7+ years, going by their recent microcode releases. It's not quite as out of the ordinary as it seems, at least for the big vendors. Mediatek is another question.
There is a wide variety of Chromebook hardware manufacturers, and most of them don't have a good track record of providing firmware upgrades for long. Google can keep ChromeOS updated on these devices, just like Microsoft can keep pushing Windows updates, but are the manufacturers going to provide firmware updates for 10 years? Are Intel or Mediatek going to be providing 10 years of microcode updates for the CPUs used on these devices? It doesn't make sense to me that these companies are suddenly going to invest a lot of money just to support these cheap devices that probably don't make a lot of profit, when they have never given a similar level of support to their flagship products.
I think this 10 year support window will not be full device support, just a commitment to providing OS updates that don't break stuff.