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Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

nytimes.com

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Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#171

Post by teekert »

umvi wrote: post #166
cs702 wrote: post #80

When you buy a physical object, such as a home, a car, a shirt, or a smartphone, shouldn't you be be able to repair it, modify it however you want, use it for different purposes, loan it to friends, sell it to others, and so on -- you know, all the rights and benefits associated with the concept of private ownership ? And when you buy a software object, shouldn't you have the same rights and benefits?

> shouldn't you be be able to ... modify it however you want Not necessarily. Consider products that require radios like satellite internet transceivers. If you were allowed to "modify it however you want" you could easily modify it to put up a continuous wave and effectively DoS the satellite gateway, causing an outage for all other customers on the entire beam which is obviously something the ISP wants to avoid at…

Of course if you buy something, change it and start messing with other peoples lives you are breaking the law. Doesn't really have anything to do with a right to repair.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#172

Post by narag »

mpol wrote: post #119
cs702 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't even mention the words "licensing" and "banning." If a house, a car, a shirt, or a phone is offered to you for sale , and you buy it, then you should own it. FWIW, I agree with you. Please don't attack a straw-man!

Please don't feel attacked. You mentioned buying a software product, but that is not commonly done by consumers. We all license software. Buying software means buying the copyright and become owner of it. The replies mention changing software copyright for consumer products. I can imagine that to be a good idea, but I don't see the EU making GPLv3 software mandatory for software products. I don't see a way forward ye…

In the context of software bundled with a device, the software should be considered accesory if the device needs it to be useful for its main purpose. Often software is used instead of a chip because it's cheaper, easier to correct mistakes, more flexible in general. But the hardware is sold, and so the accesory software should not be used as an excuse to apply the license model to physical products.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#174

Post by listsfrin »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #162
listsfrin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe on paper they do. In reality you pay 20 Euro as bribe and you can get away with anything.

"people are corrupted therefore europe bad"

The laws are nothing if they are not enforced.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#175

Post by baybal2 »

nradov wrote: post #165
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Withing the next 10-15 years 95% of household appliances and furniture will have a chip in them, to enable some type of IoT functionality. All of them will be licensed, almost abolishing private ownership. If we idly accept licensing of everything, we will enjoy what will be basically serfdom. People that were writing these laws never imagined they would prevent you from repairing a cat-feeder or a lighting system. T…

Agreed on appliances, but I don't believe that 95% of new furniture like tables and couches will contain an IoT chip within 15 years. Hardly anyone is working on that.

> I don't believe that 95% of new furniture like tables and couches will contain an IoT chip within 15 years. Hardly anyone is working on that.

Unfortunately not: https://futureiot.tech/ikea-sets-up-smart-home-business-unit...

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#176

Post by 76543210 »

zepto wrote: post #120

Do they have any data at all to support this being a net benefit or is it only ideological?

Less new equipment?

But really people bought Apple products and want the company to act differently. Don't buy from bad companies and it doesn't affect you.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#177

Post by ahartmetz »

lm28469 wrote: post #99
listsfrin wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what's so bad east of Poland but I'm not there. However, as I said, with a small bribe you can take out any particle filter here. It's common knowledge. Besides that, did those VW cars got banned from the streets? No! Does VW pay for my health issues? No! Those money are normal taxes to conduct business in Europe.

> I'm not sure what's so bad east of Poland but I'm not there It's known for being a bit less strict and a bit more corrupt than the west. At least from what I gathered from my bulgarian, polish and greek friends and from my own experience over there. Idk where you live but in France we have mandatory vehicle inspections every 2 years and you definitely can't bribe these guys. You'll get fined if you get caught, like…

> that's the german auto mafia, these guys get away with a lot

Like the most important industries in most countries of the world, sadly.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#179

Post by JoshTriplett »

imtringued wrote: post #89
JoshTriplett wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say "unpackaged" or "unprotected". But I've seen the internals of multiple devices that have simple plastic wrappers (not hard shells) around the various battery cells, with wires connecting those plastic wrappers, and they don't have duplicated battery electronics, just one set.

I'm not sure how that is relevant to the right of being allowed to swap parts. If you can't make parts yourself but you can take salvageable parts from a broken device. Why should you be prevented from doing this repair? Also, why should third party manufacturers be prevented from making compatible parts?

> I'm not sure how that is relevant to the right of being allowed to swap parts. If you can't make parts yourself but you can take salvageable parts from a broken device. Why should you be prevented from doing this repair?

As I stated earlier in this thread, you should absolutely have the right to attempt such repairs. I just don't believe that there should be requirements to make devices use more modular components, at the potential expense of other desirable properties.

Re: Europe Wants a ‘Right to Repair’ Smartphones and Gadgets

#180

Post by simion314 »

chongli wrote: post #152
robert_foss wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you are saying, but pouring oil into the ground or driving without headlights is against the common interests of most people. Being able to repair things is very different, it is _in_ the common interest and likely against the interests of the manufacturers.

Well, there are potential issues with people repairing their own phones. They could use the wrong (or counterfeit) part and cause the phone to emit radiation that interferes with nearby communications. Or they could use the wrong (or counterfeit) battery or even damage the battery during replacement, potentially causing a fire hazard.

The purpose is not for you to fix your phone motherboard, a competent repair person with access to tools, schematics and repair software would do that. If bad quality of batteries are on the market the solution for fixing that is not to prevent people replacing the phone batteries, it would be like if bad petrol is sold somewhere and then car manufacturers use it as an excuse to force you to buy "genuime petrol" so your engine would continue to work.

Also if we want to prevent fires because of batteries then we should make Apple products illegal because it happened that Apple products had issues too https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall

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