Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows • Hacker News Board

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#41

Post by hombre_fatal » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #28

ericabiz wrote: post #18

Here's another way Apple may be killing "right to repair": I own a chain of independent cell phone and computer repair shops. Last year, Google unilaterally took away AdWords in our industry. The day after Thanksgiving, we woke up to find none of our ads were running. Google claimed this was because "third-party tech support providers" were scamming customers--i.e. people were buying AdWords for virus removal and tec…

You might want to contact the Justice Department to contribute to their anti trust investigation against Google.

"Have you considered just phoning up the government?" has got to be the pinnacle of armchair activism.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#42

Post by woliveirajr » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

s1512783 wrote: post #11

woliveirajr wrote: post #4

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges…

> no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I think that's a dangerous route to follow. I completely agree with right to repair legislation, but I can also imagine a situation where a company makes ten thousand of something and sells it in a year through a retailer, and then keeps replacement parts available for a long time. Warehousing, inventory, service and delivery costs cou…

> (...) when they use an obscure electronic part (...) it reaches End of Life, they buy all the stock (...) and charge a lot for it.

But in this case there were other suppliers and they buy all those parts to be exclusive sellers, and for a thing (a plane) that is expected to have a long life.

And still it's much more easy on the client than having a propertary chip with planned obsolescence (print 2,000 pages, or be cycled on-off 200 times, or wait 497 days, or be moved to another table 7 times, whatever happens first) and then fail without any trace on where was the wrongdoing of the costumer.

And then have no third-party suppliers. And then charge 80% of the equipament for just one part that was made to be replaceable.

I'm not talking for how long should HP, in my case, should store replacement parts, and I know that it implies some costs.

What I consider the giant problem is that we complain that the environment is getting polluted but companies are allowed to sell things that will last just some choosen time. That we buy something but we don't own it since nobody knows when or why it will fail. I'm ok with a plastic breaking, with a chip releasing the magic smoke.

I'm mad with a chip stop working for unknown reasons because it was designed to. I'm mad that I (or anybody else) can't fix it because programing it to fail after x pages is even copyrighted and the pokerfaced company says it is to protect me from hackers, from printing bad-looking pages, from spitting some ink in my desk...

When I pay for something I'm giving my money so that the company uses it as they wish. But in return I'm just getting that I don't own, that I can't use as I want, and even is against the law if I try, because I'll be breaking some IP if I make my own chip.

Anyone following the future of Java and how using the same method/signature/name for functions/API calling (whatever the name it takes) knows how it affects us, and can imagine how this can extends to the same reasoning when one company began claiming that "I have rights on the specific sequence of voltages that are applied to each pins of this print head, so anyone else can't make the same thing".

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#43

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:17 PM UTC

olliej wrote: post #38

ben509 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to require OEMs sell their parts. They just need to be unencumbered by IP and other restrictions, i.e. customs. Then the parts will become available on the secondary market as companies disassemble dead devices and resell them.

So Apple should be required to license their cpu design to other companies?

[deleted]

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#44

Post by kcbanner » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

olliej wrote: post #38

ben509 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to require OEMs sell their parts. They just need to be unencumbered by IP and other restrictions, i.e. customs. Then the parts will become available on the secondary market as companies disassemble dead devices and resell them.

So Apple should be required to license their cpu design to other companies?

How does third parties disassembling and reselling parts equate to licensing a cpu design?

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#45

Post by hombre_fatal » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

olliej wrote: post #29

Buttons840 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In many scenarios, simply having the company not sue you if you did get your hands on a CPU replacent is an improvemt.

Except if the company doesn’t sell those cpus separately, in which case you know you’re buying stolen goods.

Well, they could be scavenged from existing devices that were already sitting around destined for trash.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#46

Post by olliej » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:22 PM UTC

kcbanner wrote: post #44

olliej wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Apple should be required to license their cpu design to other companies?

How does third parties disassembling and reselling parts equate to licensing a cpu design?

A most of the time the third parties are sourcing from recovered parts, they’re dealing in parts stolen from factories.

But you are right - if they did gets the parts from a different device they should be allowed to reuse them freely.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#47

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

s1512783 wrote: post #3

"Providing open access to the technical specifications of consumer electronics would enable criminals to “more easily circumvent security protections, harming not only the product owner but also everyone who shares their network,” and "On the other end, John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures" Of course they're doing it all for…

> "On the other end, John Deere argues that access to the company’s proprietary software could be used to bypass emissions controls or safety measures"

They do have a point on emission controls, though. Pretty much every person I know that owns a diesel car has either ripped out or plans to rip out the particulate filter. Doesn't matter that it's illegal, doesn't matter that it hurts everyone around. People just don't care.

I'm all for the right to inspect and mod electronics, hardware and software alike, but we also need alternative ways to stop socially irresponsible people.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#48

Post by patricius » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

I would like, just for once, that a company comes out and straight up says: “We choose how to make our products, you choose whether you want to buy it.” That’s everything there is to it. Don’t use any other arguments like “We do it to protect you.”

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#49

Post by _Codemonkeyism » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

woliveirajr wrote: post #4

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges…

You got a dirt cheap printer because you're paying with supplies. Printer heads are the normal price.

Re: Support for right-to-repair laws slowly grows

#50

Post by woliveirajr » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

Aromasin wrote: post #19

woliveirajr wrote: post #4

Having my HP printer just failed because of something was wrong on the printer head (and replacing the printer head alone costs more than the printer, and is a easy job as it was made to be easily replaced), I'm always mad that a part costs equal or more than the whole thing. Any kind of "locked-in" to repair anything should always be against the law: no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges…

>no one should be allowed to charge more for a part than it charges for the whole I love right to repair policy as much as the next man, but I don't entirely agree with this statement. Certainly from my experience in the aerospace industry where some of the hardware is 20+ years old, the company might not have produced the product for the past decade and have none of the machines/molds/designs to make the part any lo…

Ok, but even in your example your thinking in spending $20k for a $500 piece for being able to use something that costs much more than $20k.

Perhaps I should made it clear in the original reply: what I expect is to own the thing I buy. And owning it means that I should be able to do whatever I want with it, including fix it using third-party suppliers.

Of course, if we think of extremes, I think that SpaceX will charge much more for providing me a replacement noozle than it actually costs, but in this case we will be talking about rocket science.