Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair • Hacker News Board

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#111

Post by labawi » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

kempbellt wrote: post #81

steve19 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> liability When has any company been held liable for a customer modifying it. > distribution channels It might be annoying to create but they won't lose money on parts, it would likely be a profit center, just not as big a center as doing the repairs themselves. They already distribute parts to dealers around the world who service the tractors. > documentation They already have repair documentation that they distrib…

> When has any company been held liable for a customer modifying it. All the time. Regardless, the liability is to their brand. If someone hears that a John Deere tractor blew up and set a field on fire, they avoid the brand. Even if it was caused by an improper repair. > They already distribute parts to dealers around the world who service the tractors. Just guessing here, but I imagine they do this in bulk to local…

> the liability is to their brand. If .. a John Deere tractor blew up ... they avoid the brand. Even if it was caused by an improper repair.

Perhaps the tractor is hard to repair safely, the manuals aren't good, qualified repairs are expensive/unavailable/take a long time and repair community isn't good enough...

Those seem like 100% legitimate buyers concern and I don't see why the brand should immune.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#112

Post by ossworkerrights » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

sangnoir wrote: post #108

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #100

Thinking of who wouldn't vote for right to repair I can only come up with: 1. leaders of companies that would be adversely affected by right to repair 2. perhaps employees of same companies but that seems iffy as I doubt the adverse effects would be so great as to threaten employment. 3. People who actually think that although it would be to their benefit to have a right to repair there is an encroachment on a compan…

> Have I missed anyone? "Security-minded" folk who insist corporates should have full control of their device via signed code from pre-boot, incidentally preventing "non-authorised" replacement parts from working since repair is an attack vector, allegedly.

Apple

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#113

Post by SamWhited » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #103

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #100

Thinking of who wouldn't vote for right to repair I can only come up with: 1. leaders of companies that would be adversely affected by right to repair 2. perhaps employees of same companies but that seems iffy as I doubt the adverse effects would be so great as to threaten employment. 3. People who actually think that although it would be to their benefit to have a right to repair there is an encroachment on a compan…

I don't know, Americans seem to be relatively more in favor of allowing corporations to screw them than many other countries.

This post may sound flippant and is getting a lot of down votes, but this seems like an interesting discussion to be had. Do we (I am from the U.S.) tend to allow companies to screw us more than other countries? If so is it cultural, or something legal? Is it part of our broader convenience culture? I don't now, but it would be interesting to dig into if anyone can provide evidence for or against this.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#114

Post by TheRealPomax » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #58

Disclaimer: I'm a VP for an IoT software company. I also grew up in farming communities. I'm all for the right to repair, but I'm concerned we're creating a bit of false hope for famers. As more and more software gets injected into the equipment, "fixing" things requires touching both the physical devices and the software. Obviously, the right to repair for non-software related problems is easy to understand. I'm won…

Let's be clear: if people can reverse engineer entire CPUs, there are plenty of folks who are willing to understand the hardware _and_ software involved if it means keeping an entire industry running despite hardware manufacturer's best efforts. I'd be more surprised if no one figured out how to write custom firmware and OS functionality once the right to repair is a legal right, than someone botching the job.

There's good money to be made by folks willing to put in the time to understand the machinery at the digital hardware level. Money that can't be made by John Deere and friends (because they don't have local offices with quick turnarounds), and so they've taken the "if we can't have it, no one can" stance.

Which is decided un-American, really. I'll be happy to see them put in their place by RtR laws, and farmers put back in control of their own equipment.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#115

Post by steve19 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

kempbellt wrote: post #81

steve19 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> liability When has any company been held liable for a customer modifying it. > distribution channels It might be annoying to create but they won't lose money on parts, it would likely be a profit center, just not as big a center as doing the repairs themselves. They already distribute parts to dealers around the world who service the tractors. > documentation They already have repair documentation that they distrib…

> When has any company been held liable for a customer modifying it. All the time. Regardless, the liability is to their brand. If someone hears that a John Deere tractor blew up and set a field on fire, they avoid the brand. Even if it was caused by an improper repair. > They already distribute parts to dealers around the world who service the tractors. Just guessing here, but I imagine they do this in bulk to local…

> All the time.

Then I am sure you can give us some recent examples in the media where the manufacturer is blamed for bad modifications by users.

If I pour a gallon of gasoline on a tractor and set it on fire, and the media reported "man sets farm on fire after torching a tractor", no tractor buyer is going to blame John Deere.

Your argument relies on the false premise that informed consumers (tractor operating farmers) would react negitivly to a brand if something happened involving a modified tractor. When in reality farmers are crying out to be able to repair and mod their tractors.

Compare to the tech industry. How often do PC gamers mod CPUs out of spec and end up shortening thr lifespan, or killing them? All the time. Nobody blames Intel.

> That are used internally... Are your internal docs customer friendly enough to help them repair the most minute problem?

Have you seen car repair manuals? They are very detailed and complete and third party dealers have access to them.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#116

Post by cycloptic » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #58

Disclaimer: I'm a VP for an IoT software company. I also grew up in farming communities. I'm all for the right to repair, but I'm concerned we're creating a bit of false hope for famers. As more and more software gets injected into the equipment, "fixing" things requires touching both the physical devices and the software. Obviously, the right to repair for non-software related problems is easy to understand. I'm won…

If you care about the right to repair the software in devices like that, please don't ship closed-source code on your company's devices. Once your company decides to drop support, the paying customers are faced with a hard choice anyway: reverse-engineer it or throw it out.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#117

Post by aguyfromnb » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

ProZsolt wrote: post #66

aguyfromnb wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. The same thing happened recently with the Chromebook I purchased for my significant other. She's a very light computer user, so we thought it was a perfect device. It was great, until one day she received a message saying, essential…

You should get ~7 years of update. Here you can check: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en I think it should be more, but it's on par with MacBooks

>You should get ~7 years of update.

Interesting. Thanks for the link.

It appears that the hardware is older than I assumed (yet perfectly capable for browsing the web), which begs another question: I bought this thing brand new a few years ago. Should it be up to the consumer to ensure that there is life left for updates? I will be certain to now, going forward. But I can't expect less-savvy consumers to do the same. It looks like there are models on that list that will stop receiving updates in less than 2 years for sale as new computers on Amazon...

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#118

Post by linuxftw » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #67

eastof wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get really good support from Lineage OS for years to come. Been running it on all my android devices for years. The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support.

I ordered a cheap Android phone the other day because installing a non-OEM OS like Lineage mean... banking software doesn't work. I have an older phone but the last stock ROM on it is Android 5, although it is currently running Lineage with Android 9. So I bought that phone to keep at stock and have a phone I can do my banking with. Come to think of it, I should just switch banks!

You can side-load firefox and just use the bank's mobile site.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#119

Post by sangnoir » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

ISL wrote: post #95

geofft wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware. For what it's worth, Google (or at least parts of Google) agrees that the closed-source drivers are a problem for extended security lifecycle, and they're working with the Linux community to a) extend the kernel LTS cycle to 6 years b) make something that looks awfully…

In this case, my phone is a Google product. Google can make available the drivers if it so desires.

Google doesn't make chips and therefore doesn't own the SoC IP - Qualcomm does. Google may not make unilaterally decide to avail those drivers. They could theoretically play hardball with Qualcomm on the licensing, but I doubt the Pixel line brings in enough revenue for Qualcomm to even consider that threat for more than half a second.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#120

Post by Balanceinfinity » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

An economist would say that when considering buying this machinery the farmer would also consider the cost and availability of repairs and that the competition in the machinery market (the primary market) would police the secondary market for repairs. In reality, this kind of policing is hard to come by because of the time and expense of figuring out which company has the cheapest lifecycle1 costs for the equipment (do you figure out how much the blades will cost when you buy the razor). But the real reason is that lots of people just don't think about the long-term costs attached to a purchase.