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

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#141

Post by Balanceinfinity » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:40 PM UTC

Crashbat wrote: post #134

Balanceinfinity wrote: post #120

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 (…

I'm pretty sure the farmers know very well the lifecycle costs of their heavy machinery, the problem isn't ill-informed consumers. The problem is the time as well as expense of repairs is controlled by the manufacturers. The razor example isn't analogous here, you can pretty much plan for when you need new blades. A farmer can't predict when the equipment will break down.

Lifecycle costs of machinery are pretty standard (especially after whatever warranty expires). And, of course, the farmer can avoid the risks of these costs by simply extending the warranty - then all the risk is on the warranty provider.

But the homework the farmer (or any purchaser - this same issue arises for medical imaging equipment, cars, busses, etc) should do is what will the service market looklike for his or her equipment after warranty. It's not easy to do this research - but the flip side is this: if the manufacturers have to sell unlocked service, they will charge more for the original sale. Economically speaking that may be better because the costs will be clearer.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#142

Post by yorwba » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:43 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #130

yorwba wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last change 4 minutes ago: https://review.lineageos.org/q/status:open Looks quite alive to me.

An active project that supports no hardware is still a dead project. If you want to run LineageOS, that's not a realistic goal. It's a pipe dream.

I run LineageOS on my phone. I specifically bought the phone to run LineageOS on it. It's only a pipe dream if you want to take any random phone and change the operating system.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#143

Post by geofft » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:44 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.

Hence my "parts of Google" comment - for an organization as large as Google, I don't think that saying that it "desires" anything other than profit is particularly meaningful. There are people and teams at Google who agree that this is a problem. I have no idea what influence they have over the people/teams that make the Pixel, or vice versa.

For a good example of this, see the conclusion of this recent Project Zero writeup of an Android bug (related to old kernel versions in Android, in fact): https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2019/11/bad-binder-an... First, Google Project Zero determined on their own that they would approach Google Android with a 7-day disclosure timeline because of active exploitation - usually a disclosure timeline is a way to force the hand of a software vendor you don't control. Second, their suggestion for fixing it is for Android to change how they approach kernel updates.

For another good example, see the time that Google Ads penalized Google Chrome for buying paid links. https://searchengineland.com/google-chromes-paid-link-penalt...

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#144

Post by eitally » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:46 PM UTC

aguyfromnb wrote: post #117

ProZsolt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The current best practice is to check the manufacturing date of the chromebook you're buying, because the clock starts from when the first unit ships, not when the unit you're purchasing was made. For a part number that may have a 2 year manufacturing run, that can make a HUGE difference.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#145

Post by monocasa » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #105

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…

How does John Deere advocate for their position? Is it about protecting trade secrets or keeping the machines in better condition for possible resale? Or did they just stay quiet because they knew they were in the wrong? Whatever it might be, I'm sure I would disagree with it, but I'd be curious how they try to justify it. Especially when you're talking about farmers, who have an extreme DIY culture.

I've seen a few arguments.

* That modern tractors are complex enough systems that only official techs should be working on them.

* That if they allow third party mods, they can't guarantee regulatory compliance with emissions.

* That they have proprietary secrets that would need to be divulged of the systems were more open, and they just wouldn't have bothered in the first place.

* That their pricing model is dependent on recouping initial capital expense with service contracts.

I personally don't buy these arguments, or at least don't buy that they lead to a better world than the alternative, but those are what I've heard.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#146

Post by alt_f4 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

robertoandred wrote: post #93

nerdponx wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Manufacturer locking end users in to the manufacturer's chosen parts and maintenance shops. Like how Apple tries to pretend the only place you can repair a Mac is at the Apple Store.

Apple Authorized Service Providers are shown as an option everywhere an Apple Store is.

But are actually allowed to do a very small amount of very basic repairs. For everything else, they have to send it to Apple and they tell you that.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#147

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:51 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.

Would you trust Joe Random to replace anything in the hardware authentication pipeline?

Edit: Replied to the wrong comment...

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#148

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #77

vorpalhex wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lineage depends on the community to issue device specific builds. For instance, my dual sim traveling phone has no official Lineage support, but is well supported through the community (and indeed, everything works quite well). I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.

Can't have "official" support unless everything is working. "Promoting" beta-level code would be a disaster.

The release model that LineageOS inherited from CyanogenMod included three branches of varying levels of stability. The philosophy that if it isn't already finished, there's no point starting is the problem with LineageOS today.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#149

Post by huntertwo » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

viklove wrote: post #124

SamWhited wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's getting downvotes because it was posted in bad faith. Many Americans would say we give corporations the freedom to act how they wish, and we give individuals the freedom to do business with the corporations they choose. The argument to be had is how much the government needs to watch out for the citizenship, because every "protective" law they pass is a restriction on the aforementioned freedoms. The American sc…

> we give individuals the freedom to do business with the corporations they choose

Is it really bad faith when this belief is obviously horseshit? Government sponsored oligopolies exist partly because we allow corporations to exercise their freedom to act how they wish at the expense of the individual's freedom to do business with the corporations they choose. The government doesn't really act to watch out for the citizenship in this context and as a result doesn't restrict the freedom of corporations to act as they wish. Given this, the statement that "Americans seem to be relatively more in favor of allowing corporations to screw them than many other countries" just seems obvious.

Re: Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

#150

Post by jacobr1 » Mon, Dec 16, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #127

getpolarized wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason millions of Americans voted for "trickle down" and other irrational economic decisions. They're overly manipulated by propaganda.

Well that's sort of #3, but the thing is trickle down is a lie about how economy works that fools people who have not done any reading on the subject. I guess a similar lie for repairing products would have to be something like - the possibilities of modern manufacturing have progressed to such a point that it is simpler, cheaper, and easier to make longer lasting products that do not need to be repaired if they, par…

Apple has at time made a version of this argument for their iPhones. There probably is some truth to it (removing the repairability constraint probably does let them build thinner devices at times) but overall it is more about maintaining control than engineering practicalities.