For me, Apple devices are always what come to mind when thinking about ability to repair and modify. I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily. Today however, when something as trivial as a computer memory upgrade is restricted, and the Genius Bar is overloaded with iPhone screen repairs, I find myself wanting some sort of standards with regards to repair rights.
The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
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Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#12John Deere is attempting to make sales of their tractors 'leases' to enforce their ban on self repair:
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#13I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for the…
You bring up very interesting questions, but the self-driving car should be taken as a very special case.
A manufacturer can hardly argue that they have a safety reason to keep you from repairing your TV, printer, or cell phone.
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it should be expected that once the software/firmware of a self-driving car has been modified by someone not authorized by the car maker, it should be expected that the car maker is not responsible for that car any more. Of course it brings up the problem of whether it is possible to detect such a modification.
And also whether the modification is relevant the the problem. I can imagine court cases where the driver argues that the change they made was irrelevant to the accident that occurred.
Right, and unlike a lot of other cases with software, how this was decided might actually result in jail time. For example if a modification was deemed negligent and resulted in the death of a person, whoever made/authorized the modifications could be charged with manslaughter/murder.
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#15I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for the…
I think it is pretty likely that the full self driving system will be the thing that gets licensed.
If that were the case, your exploited systems would not be licensed for operation on public roads. This can be completely orthogonal to whether you are able to modify the vehicle or not.
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#16For me, Apple devices are always what come to mind when thinking about ability to repair and modify. I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily. Today however, when something as trivial as a computer memory upgrade is restricted, and the Genius Bar is overloaded with iPhone screen repairs, I fi…
I've never gone to the genius bar to get stuff done because of this. There is always an enterprising college student (often ex-Apple) willing to get just about anything done on the cheap, on my time.
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#17I think electronics should be designed for repair and easy recycling as a main design goal.
For example a cell phone, you could build it with an aluminum back with small phillips screws instead of glued back. Open the phone up with a standard screw driver and you will be able to replace the battery, main board and screen yourself.
What kind of environment do you want to leave for future generations. A big pile of electronic garbage or a world as clean as it could be? What about the carbon foot print of upgrade phones every two years?
If we can reuse electronics components the garbage foot print should be smaller.
Why do we have to throw a working screen and battery in a cell phone if you just want to upgrade the cpu speed or camera of your phone?
How about laws that require that consumers should be able to repair their things, average life time.
Good projects on the right path so far Google has Project Ara Fairphone2
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#18A lot of issues surrounding the move to make anything and everything a "Service" are starting to become very clear. The issues with IoT devices being bricked, Tesla 'ownership', and so on really do need scrutiny from a functional body with a hint of the public's interest at heart.
Those are all definite issues, but even in the case of simple computer hardware there's a problem when the manufacturer tries to lock the owners out of repairing with special screws, glue, etc., so that they can make money off the repairs themselves. New MacBook Pros have their batteries glued in and they can't really be replaced without replacing the entire top case they're glued to at the same time. They claim this…
MacBooks and MBPs are becoming throw away devices after 3 or 4 years. In 2013 I upgraded my 2011 MBP to have more RAM and a larger SSD. The new ones have the RAM soddared on so I guess I'll need to max it out when I buy and forfeit the possibility of a future upgrade. The custom SSD is expensive and only one maker seems to have decent quality ones.[1]
I know laptops aren't increasing in power/abilities like they used to be. It's still nice to be able to add more to an old laptop and get a couple more years.
[1]https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-d...
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#19I think this whole open source and right to repair/modify will be very interesting with self-driving cars, because of their interaction with the commons. Here are some issues. There have been some discussions about the ethics of self-driving cars if it should sacrifice the lives of the people in the cars to save more lives. In a right to repair/modify wouldn't a lot of people pay to have the algorithm changed for the…
I think the ethical question is greatly overblown. The odds of being in a situation where there's any sort of ethical choice to make are so remote as to not really be worth considering. 99.9999% of the time, the correct choice when faced with an impending crash will be to brake as hard as the driving surface allows and steer to avoid obstacles as much as possible.
In any case, tinkering and commons already intersect to an extent, for example with emissions. It's not uncommon for emissions to be favored over performance, for example, and some people hack their cars to favor performance instead. Or they just like being polluting assholes, as is the case with "rolling coal." But it's not a big deal, some jurisdictions do periodic testing and others just rely on the fact that such people are relatively rare.
Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”
#20For me, Apple devices are always what come to mind when thinking about ability to repair and modify. I used to not mind when I couldn't open my iPod Classic to replace the battery, because failures like this rarely occurred and when they did Apple repaired them easily. Today however, when something as trivial as a computer memory upgrade is restricted, and the Genius Bar is overloaded with iPhone screen repairs, I fi…
There are tons of third party repair shops for iPhone. It's also easy to do at home, I replaced my battery not too long ago.
Apple definitely has that reputation, but I don't think its deserved in my experience. They user manuals for machines with replaceable parts often describe exactly how to do it. For other things that require a tiny bit of skill or where an unskilled person could easily mess things up, they put up a minor barrier like a different screw head, the tool for which will often ship with replacement parts.