Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 325 posts

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#311

Post by brokenmachine »

paulsutter wrote: post #23

This is carburetor nostalgia, from a time when everything was human scale and adjustable. Look at how chips are stacked and interconnected within packages in modern design[1], that trend will only intensify. Software is also getting more complex, with deep learning the system develops its own if/thens. [1] http://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/news/070905_p10_hynix.jpg

Even such fancy chips still require some kind of power, and I'd rather that battery (which is a consumable) would be accessible and replaceable.

I don't need to repair individual transistors on the silicon, it would just be nice to be able to replace the battery or screen if I need to.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#312

Post by brokenmachine »

The real problem is that to the average consumer, an electronic device is nothing more than a black box. There is zero chance of them ever being able to repair it, so they have no interest in whether or not it is repairable... Until the battery fails just after the warranty period is up.

I wish people would vote with their feet, but maybe there needs to be some kind of regulation since companies can't be trusted to play nice.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#313

Post by avindroth »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #218
avindroth wrote: post #176

I once had to fix a fairly complex piece of electronics and when I asked the company for a repair, they told me the directions over the phone. Unscrew this, take that out, check this, boom. I was more than impressed by their confidence in their hardware.

Please tell us the name of the company, so that we can give them our business if we need the type of products they sell.

This was with Amway's eSpring water purifier. The fix was very DIY over the phone.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#314

Post by restalis »

coldpie wrote: post #299
restalis wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Similarly, you don't need to research your grocery store's meat selling policies to ensure you're not getting rotten meat." That is a poor analogy. There actually is a lot of research needed in order to get right the edible food, including meat. We just did it in time, collectively, over many generations; then each of us just learned it all from others (parents, mostly). That's how we come to figure out that that pi…

What? I meant as individual consumers. There's a whole lot more to food safety than whether it smells OK. We have regulations so end consumers don't have to study the history of every company involved in the retail chain or risk illness. Similarly, we can have regulations to prevent customers from unknowingly buying artificially unrepairable objects.

As I said, as individual consumers we had a lot to learn about what is safe to eat. It just happened as we grew up. We learned that knowledge from others instead of tasting everything and see what happens. The food culture however, was developed before us and now it's mature enough to be, more or less, taken for granted. This can not be said to be similar to other areas like that of digital gadgets, developed only recently and for which the community lacks common knowledge.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#315

Post by Silhouette »

robocat wrote: post #305
Silhouette wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter what algorithm the self driving car is running, it is going to be 100 times safer than you driving the car. And yet, I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles over many years under all kinds of road conditions without ever having an accident. Statistically my record is better than many, but it's hardly a unique achievement among experienced drivers who are careful. Tesla's Autopilot probably has done mor…

But are self-driving cars better drivers than some identifiable other group of people than you? E.g. Legal but elderly drivers with poor sight. Are the algorithms a useful helper for some drivers? I really really want all our rental vehicles to remind the drivers if they are on the wrong side of the road (we get multiple deaths every year from Americans and Europeans driving incorrectly in our small country).

I expect that with time these self-driving algorithms will become safer than an increasing proportion of human drivers. I'm just very wary of assuming they are better than most or all human drivers prematurely.

We as a society have a habit of putting too much faith in technology. Most of us aren't knowledgeable and unbiased enough to assess its risks objectively, particularly in areas where there is a very low chance of something happening but it will be very bad if it does happen.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#316

Post by kevin_b_er »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #200
mmanfrin wrote: post #12

John Deere is attempting to make sales of their tractors 'leases' to enforce their ban on self repair: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

I am super hardcore stallman-esque pro openness, but I also have somewhat libertarian views on how people should be allowed to operate. My thinking is: let them lock them down and after a few years, someone who genuinely values openness will come in as a competitor. If you pass a law requiring some kind of openness, companies against openness will just hang out at the edge of what is legally permissible. I am curious…

The problem is already a legislative one. Copyright law is being abused to deny ownership of physical objects. The problem is already directly caused by law.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#317

Post by kevin_b_er »

twblalock wrote: post #45
Aelinsaar wrote: post #2

A 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.

> 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. Oh great, another bureaucracy. Why should manufacturers be forced to make their products repairable by users? Why don't they have the right to make a non-repairable product, and let the market decide whether or not it succeeds? If people really want re…

> Why don't they have the right to make a non-repairable product, and let the market decide whether or not it succeeds

They cannot if the DCMA denies repairs. The market no longer decides, the courts decide you lack the right to use the market.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#318

Post by kerkeslager »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

I 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…

> 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 their car to always favor the people in the car no matter what?

How does this differ from those people making the same choice behind the wheel?

To me, the issue isn't the trolley problem: we haven't come up with a definitive answer for that since it was proposed in 1967 and I doubt we will before self-driving cars are commonplace. The question for me is: when my car is confronted with the trolley problem (and many others), is the decision made by me or by a corporation?

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#319

Post by TaylorAlexander »

kevin_b_er wrote: post #316
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am super hardcore stallman-esque pro openness, but I also have somewhat libertarian views on how people should be allowed to operate. My thinking is: let them lock them down and after a few years, someone who genuinely values openness will come in as a competitor. If you pass a law requiring some kind of openness, companies against openness will just hang out at the edge of what is legally permissible. I am curious…

The problem is already a legislative one. Copyright law is being abused to deny ownership of physical objects. The problem is already directly caused by law.

This is a good point. I am generally anti-copyright but that view is somewhat recent and I still sometimes have an internalized belief that copyright is natural. However we invented copyright and I do think we should either go to something like 5 year terms or eliminate it completely.

I completely forgot that without copyright, this issue would be dramatically different. They could still use obscurity to a point, but we would have the legal right to discover what they are doing and reproduce it.

Re: The Fight for the “Right to Repair”

#320

Post by daveheq »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

I 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…

Would you be the first to volunteer to have your car sacrifice you to save other people's lives? Of course they should not kill the driver, but an alternative shouldn't be to plow into a crowd or another car. My guess is the algorithm can simply be coded to minimize damage and death as best as we can do, and the robot will see it that way, not as "sacrifice the driver to save other people", and hopefully the law will see it that way too.
Post reply on HN