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It's your device, you should be able to repair it

bbc.com

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Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#161

Post by rasz »

cbmuser wrote: post #101
css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

That’s usually because these people don’t have the slightest clue how industrial mass-production for consumer goods work. They constantly think it’s always about the customer, it isn’t. The products are almost always optimized for costs, nothing else. If a manufacturer uses glue instead screws, they don’t do that to make it harder to repair. They prefer glue because it’s cheaper. The same applies for cheap components…

No, its not optimized for cost. Manufacturing is optimized for _profit_.

>they don’t do that to make it harder to repair

you mean cryptographically linking lcd screen to motherboard is done for cost, not to stop third parties from being able to repair it?

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#165

Post by alexvoda »

css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

Electronics used to come with full schematics as part of the documentation.

As an example, this (1) is how the manual looks for a ~1970-1974 stereo record player I have. You have diagrams of the boards and lists of parts as in individual caps, etc.

We should strive to move in that direction, not away from it. Permanently locked bootloaders, DRM for componets, etc. are a move in the oposite direction.

To move the overton window even a little bit towards where it was before, the demands have to be disproportionate. I say those demands are still reasonable. We should demand that any device and any component in any device be second source-able (just like AMD was a second source for early x86 chips). And for that matter since I am from Europe, any component should be second source-able from Europe. If IP transfers worked for China, they should work elsewhere.

(1) https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1012672/Pioneer-C-5600dfv....

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#166

Post by marcosdumay »

css wrote: post #2

This article moves the goalposts on what "right to repair" is several times. It generally means that manufacturers should not hide schematics from device users or disallow third party manufacturing of first party parts. However, the author states: > The law doesn't yet cover smartphones and tablets that she says are getting harder to fix. One problem is keeping older devices updated with new software. Now "right to r…

> Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support?

Well, I would say it includes publishing the software interface of your hardware, and not making it impossible to replace the software. Those are the main roadblock on updating old tablets and phones.

I do really read those lines as fighting closed boot loaders, DRM on real goods, dependencies on the manufacturer's servers, and all kinds of purposeful hindrances that are so popular between the large industries nowadays.

I would really not include the "design for repairability" and software upgrades into the idea. But one does not need to include those to agree with the article.

Re: It's your device, you should be able to repair it

#169

Post by forgotmypw17 »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #5

A bit of a tangent, but I'm really surprised one of the android vendors hasn't focused on the niche of easy to repair phones. Maybe even making them four or five times the thickness of the latest i-sung devices. extra hot swappable batteries and the like. I know the ostensible reasons waterproofing, planned obsolescence, looking cool, and being light weight. Though I suspect the real reason is they're just chasing th…

Take a look at corporate or industrial devices.
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