Live data from Hacker News

Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

motherboard.vice.com

141–150 of 151 posts

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you feel about mandatory warranty periods? You know what you're getting when you buy the product. It's critically important to be able to say "no warranty whatsoever"; Open Source wouldn't exist without that, and neither would the (still quite small) open hardware community. Nor, for that matter, would small hardware manufacturers. (I do feel that you should always be legally allowed to try repairing somethi…

> You know what you're getting when you buy the product. To add to what others said on it: no, you don't. You would if the manufacturers provided full specs, data sheets and CAD drawings of the internals. They don't, for obvious reasons. What's worse, the whole point of a sales copy is to confuse you about what you're getting - providing disinformation, in form of vague promises of emotional effects and feature state…

> To add to what others said on it: no, you don't. You would if the manufacturers provided full specs, data sheets and CAD drawings of the internals.

That's not what I'm referring to. I mean that you know when buying the product that there's no warranty.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what you're getting when you buy the product. No you don't. That's most of the point of warranties. > Open Source Sharing source code isn't a sale. If you do sell a program, open/closed source doesn't matter, and you don't need the ability to say "no warranty". > open hardware community. Nor, for that matter, would small hardware manufacturers. If you make more than a thousand of something, you have the re…

> If you make more than a thousand of something, you have the resources to include a few diagrams and a simple but useful manual. For now I won't say anything about smaller quantities. If someone makes more than a thousand of something, they probably also have the resources to buy you a free lunch, too. But that's not the product you bought.

Sales are never just the product. At the very least there are rules about scams, basic safety, radio interference... Sometimes it's okay to have legal requirements that lead to fewer problems down the line. You might not think this particular rule is worth it, but it's not out of line with existing rules. And a lot of people do think it's worth it.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you make more than a thousand of something, you have the resources to include a few diagrams and a simple but useful manual. For now I won't say anything about smaller quantities. If someone makes more than a thousand of something, they probably also have the resources to buy you a free lunch, too. But that's not the product you bought.

Sales are never just the product. At the very least there are rules about scams, basic safety, radio interference... Sometimes it's okay to have legal requirements that lead to fewer problems down the line. You might not think this particular rule is worth it, but it's not out of line with existing rules. And a lot of people do think it's worth it.

Whether a rule is "worth it" or not isn't the evaluation I'm making at all; the first question, before that, is "is there a critical life-or-death reason to interfere with a private transaction". There are plenty of features I'd like to have, and I look for people who sell products with those features. I often support people that specifically provide better documentation, open source software, diagrams, schematics, as well as companies that give back to the people and projects who make components they use. That's my choice, because I value those things. I'd certainly like other people to value those things as well.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did the free markets ended slavery in US In a very oblique manner it did. Industrialization (which was very much a product of free markets) of the Northern States made the economics of slavery untenable in the North. Once people were not as blinded by profits, they could actually see that slavery was a moral evil. In the South, the economics were very different and therefore a lot of rationalizations were formed as…

> Once people were not as blinded by profits, they could actually see that slavery was a moral evil. It was actually quite the opposite. Pre-industrialization, serfdom and slavery were basically equivalent. You hand a local lord and if you worked for him you got food and shelter. Your alternative was to run off into the wilderness and fend for yourself, which frequently meant starving or freezing to death or being ma…

I agree with what you say. I meant my comment mainly about the North. There, like you said, the factories made slavery uneconomical. Because their livelihoods did not depend on slavery, people were able to take a more objective look at the morality of slavery and come to the conclusion that it was an evil.

In the South, people's livelihood depending on slavery. Because of that, their minds did all sorts of rationalizations as to why slavery was not that bad.

>The response to industrialization was what made 19th century slavery so much worse than traditional serfdom.

The other thing that made 19th century slavery so much worse than traditional serfdom was the racial aspect. If a serf had some skill and went to a town and somehow became a craftsman, people could not look at the him and know he had once been a serf. Because of the racial aspect, ex-slaves could not escape people immediately knowing that they had been slaves.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those downvoting me, if you genuinely think that pentalobe screws are bad, can you please explain why someone who doesn't have access to a pentalobe screwdriver has even the slightest business opening up an iPhone?

Wow circular logic much? So anyone without a pentalobe screwdriver is not qualified to replace a battery (for example)?

Other way around. Anyone qualified to replace a battery should have no difficulty getting their hands on a pentalobe screwdriver.

In fact, it would not surprise me in the least if vendors selling third-party iPhone batteries included pentalobe screwdrivers with the battery (or offered it as an add-on).

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sales are never just the product. At the very least there are rules about scams, basic safety, radio interference... Sometimes it's okay to have legal requirements that lead to fewer problems down the line. You might not think this particular rule is worth it, but it's not out of line with existing rules. And a lot of people do think it's worth it.

Whether a rule is "worth it" or not isn't the evaluation I'm making at all; the first question, before that, is "is there a critical life-or-death reason to interfere with a private transaction". There are plenty of features I'd like to have, and I look for people who sell products with those features. I often support people that specifically provide better documentation, open source software, diagrams, schematics, a…

Are you against all the existing rules that aren't life-or-death, then? Because they make life a much better place when you don't have to obsessively research every single product you buy.

And generally you can avoid it for bespoke items. It's not a barrier to personal deals.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether a rule is "worth it" or not isn't the evaluation I'm making at all; the first question, before that, is "is there a critical life-or-death reason to interfere with a private transaction". There are plenty of features I'd like to have, and I look for people who sell products with those features. I often support people that specifically provide better documentation, open source software, diagrams, schematics, a…

Are you against all the existing rules that aren't life-or-death, then? Because they make life a much better place when you don't have to obsessively research every single product you buy. And generally you can avoid it for bespoke items. It's not a barrier to personal deals.

I'm in favor of independent voluntary certifications (and testing labs, and similar) that encompass a large number of associated features and properties. I shop at places that have good return policies, and I like the resulting incentives to not sell products that will generate many returns. And I'm strongly in favor of having enough up-front information to know whether you're in a buyer-beware as-is situation or a "you don't need to check very carefully" situation, and make decisions accordingly.

I don't want to prohibit the equivalent of "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY".

> And generally you can avoid it for bespoke items. It's not a barrier to personal deals.

I'm not just talking about bespoke or "personal deals", I'm also talking about "crowdfunded, we made 6,473 of them, but we're not a big company". Or "here are some schematics to build a piece of hardware, I'm not making any promises about the result". Or any number of other situations in which the choice is not "write and provide a repair manual or not", it's "develop the product or not".

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you against all the existing rules that aren't life-or-death, then? Because they make life a much better place when you don't have to obsessively research every single product you buy. And generally you can avoid it for bespoke items. It's not a barrier to personal deals.

I'm in favor of independent voluntary certifications (and testing labs, and similar) that encompass a large number of associated features and properties. I shop at places that have good return policies, and I like the resulting incentives to not sell products that will generate many returns. And I'm strongly in favor of having enough up-front information to know whether you're in a buyer-beware as-is situation or a "…

> I'm in favor of independent voluntary certifications (and testing labs, and similar) that encompass a large number of associated features and properties.

Got any suggestions to make that actually happen? The benefit per sale is small enough that it's really hard to get the demand together on a per-product basis. Consumers don't have the time to learn every minor certification body either. But making the decision in bulk, as a society, is a lot more feasible.

Also, there isn't an infinite variety of products. The more dimensions you have to filter by, the worse your result gets per dollar. The free market can't solve everything at the same time.

> I don't want to prohibit the equivalent of "This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY".

That is again not a sale. And you can have triple your $0 back if it breaks.

> I'm also talking about "crowdfunded, we made 6,473 of them, but we're not a big company". Or "here are some schematics to build a piece of hardware, I'm not making any promises about the result". Or any number of other situations in which the choice is not "write and provide a repair manual or not", it's "develop the product or not".

A small crowdfunded operation can do this more easily than a big company. They can have a designer spend two days getting the final schematics together and writing a short document. It's such a miniscule cost that it will almost never be the difference between producing and not producing, and that tiny risk is worth the benefits.

And a schematic documents itself pretty well. But if you really don't want to make any promises then maybe don't charge money for the design.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#149
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misconstruing the aims of the right to repair movement. Its nothing to do with forcing companies to make it "easy" to repair, but rather about preventing companies from including "features" which serve no purpose besides preventing third party repair. An example would be a tractor that is designed to be cheaply serviceable, but has a feature which disables any replaced parts until a message signed by…

There is that but also access to spare parts. Louis Rossman talks about how it’s hard to get replacement chips to fix motherboards because Apple locks down the distribution channels so they have to relay on harvested components from failed boards or chips who fell of the back off a truck.

Also not sending ICE to raid small shops who istall aftermarket parts would help too.

Re: Internal Documents Show Apple Is Capable of Implementing Right to Repair

#150
This is nonsense.

I am capable of blowing $20K in one night. Why should I do it?

You can't buy something and make up new service demands thereafter, or force a private company to design a product or service according to your requirements. What you may do is vote with your money and not buy what you don't like.

The fake right to repair is a nonsense idea... Can't wait for it to become "law" so that I can force Ubuntu to code latest h/w drivers for my 5 year old distro.

Post reply on HN