Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#51

Post by vbezhenar » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:20 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31

Apple would be half the size it is if people could easily repair their devices. What’s good for the environment is not good for profits.

My anecdote: I bought Dell Latitude and there are instructions how to disassemble the entire laptop on the Dell website. I did not see circuit schematics, though I'm not skilled enough to make any use of it, but it's something at least. I easily upgraded RAM and installed SSD. That was one of the factors of choosing this specific laptop for me, I wonder how many people consider it. I had terrible experience with Apple Macbook when I realized that disassembling it is extremely hard with glued battery, extremely tiny and fragile connectors, and so on. I tried to repair charger and replace a cable which ended up poorly, because charger case was glued and I broken it. I routinely perform simple repairs on a more repair-friendly devices, it's not like I'm completely clueless. So I decided not to buy that kind of computer ever again, despite the fact that I prefer macOS to Windows or Linux.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#52

Post by jsiepkes » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

s_dev wrote: post #48

jsiepkes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He certainly comes across as a nice guy. But he also has his own crypto-coin so pure soul might be a bit of a stretch.

I don't like this "guilty by association" trend that has become popular. Steve has a crypto-coin -- so what? That means what exactly? The implication you're making is that he is either knowingly damaging the environment, scamming vulnerable people or wasting energy without having to do anything to support that assertion.

> The implication you're making is that he is either knowingly damaging the environment, scamming vulnerable people or wasting energy without having to do anything to support that assertion.

I don't have to support the assertion because I never made it, you did.

You extrapolate my words to extremes by saying "The implication you're making" followed by a false dilemma of three choices based on that extrapolation. So no, I don't have to support the assertion you made.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#53

Post by dijit » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31

Apple would be half the size it is if people could easily repair their devices. What’s good for the environment is not good for profits.

I'd like to see evidence supporting that.

The reason _I_ buy apple products is because they actually fix my machine when I bring it in for repair and don't do what HP, Dell and ASUS used to do which is hide behind: "please resend", "works for us", "we've had it for 18 weeks and now the warranty period is over" stuff.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#54

Post by swiley » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:49 PM UTC

zabzonk wrote: post #28

ekianjo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Commodore 64 was much more akin to the Raspberry Pi's. You didn't have to be rich to have one.

From wikipedia, the introductory price was: > US$595 (equivalent to $1,596 in 2020) Slightly more than a Pi. I could not afford one back then, particularly when you factored in the floppy disk drive prices.

I'd liken some of the smaller z80 machines and "trainers" to the raspberry pi.

But the reality is nothing quite like the pi existed back then. Computing was significantly more expensive than it is now.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#55

Post by libertine » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:54 PM UTC

jsiepkes wrote: post #21

gamesbrainiac wrote: post #17

Steve Wozniak is such a pure soul.

He certainly comes across as a nice guy. But he also has his own crypto-coin so pure soul might be a bit of a stretch.

crypto = dirty/bad/unpure souls, or it just tarnishes purity?

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#56

Post by FPGAhacker » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:55 PM UTC

dijit wrote: post #53

mensetmanusman wrote: post #31

Apple would be half the size it is if people could easily repair their devices. What’s good for the environment is not good for profits.

I'd like to see evidence supporting that. The reason _I_ buy apple products is because they actually fix my machine when I bring it in for repair and don't do what HP, Dell and ASUS used to do which is hide behind: "please resend", "works for us", "we've had it for 18 weeks and now the warranty period is over" stuff.

I use apple mainly now, but my dell repair experiences were fantastic. They always sent a tech to me to do the repair. Support was always my #1 reason for choosing dell.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#57

Post by s_dev » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

jsiepkes wrote: post #52

s_dev wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like this "guilty by association" trend that has become popular. Steve has a crypto-coin -- so what? That means what exactly? The implication you're making is that he is either knowingly damaging the environment, scamming vulnerable people or wasting energy without having to do anything to support that assertion.

> The implication you're making is that he is either knowingly damaging the environment, scamming vulnerable people or wasting energy without having to do anything to support that assertion. I don't have to support the assertion because I never made it, you did. You extrapolate my words to extremes by saying "The implication you're making" followed by a false dilemma of three choices based on that extrapolation. So n…

> so pure soul might be a bit of a stretch.

This is exactly where you imply it.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#58

Post by II2II » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 2:58 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #37

em-bee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in other words, the Right to Repair movement is doing for hardware what the Free Software and Open Source movement is doing for software.

It's partly this. It's also partly about restoring the kind of rights one is supposed to get under the first-sale doctrine: ownership over the thing that you have bought.

The right to repair has nothing to do with open source and it is probably best to avoid conflating it with open source. It is going to be difficult enough to pass legislation to enable the access to components and schematics, as well as to prevent the implementation of technical barriers intended to make independent repair (and modifications) illegal. The reason why we reached this abysmal state of affairs has more to do with consumer apathy, a set of property rights for producers that were naively reasonable, and a twisting of laws that were intended for other purposes.

Put in other terms, the Apple II was not open source. The schematics were freely available, at least some of the ROM's source code was available, there were no barriers to repair (if I recall correctly, there were no custom chips/components), and people were free to modify the hardware. Yet you could not make copies, straight-up or modified, without being sued by Apple. A cleanroom approach would have to be taken to make something compatible. The world seemed to be okay with that. Things like schematics and code served supported repairability, which was an expectation of consumers back then, so the vendor voluntarily provided it.

That being said, a true open source approach to hardware would have still been frowned upon back then.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#59

Post by tqwhite » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

I was a young person during the tube era. My dad was one of those guys with a bag full of tubes. The reason he was carrying them around was that NOTHING WORKED. The 'right to repair' was actually, a horrible 'burden of repair'. It's great that it helped Woz made Apple but it was also an era of buggy whips whose passing I do not lament.

I would not support anything that added a microgram to my iPhone or MacBook or give up even one tiny feature to support the tiny fraction of people who can do repairs.

I would be comfortable with establishing a legal framework that allows standing for litigation on the basis of "subverting the right-to-repair for anti-competitive reasons" with those reasons being constrained to behavior truly unwarranted and without meaningful contribution to the quality of the product I get.

Re: Steve Wozniak speaks on Right to Repair [video]

#60

Post by tqwhite » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 3:16 PM UTC

MayeulC wrote: post #12

TL;DW: He's very supportive, and talks about how things used to be fixable and have plans included on paper, "open source". He says Apple II shipped with complete schematics and source code listings.

The reason it was fixable is because almost nothing worked correctly for very long once it left the factory. It was not a golden age.

Our TV was out for a month once because my dad could not figure it out.