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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
by css 5y ago
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 repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Where do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one yourself or run older software on it indefinitely.
Further down, the author writes:
> But markets have now become flooded with products that are less repairable.
> "It requires laws in place that prevent manufacturers from stopping [supporting] a product too early, or making it pretty much impossible to repair it by design."
Now the author has shifted "right to repair" to mean mandatory first-party device support and design requirements around repair-ability.
We must very carefully define our terms here, because requiring someone else to provide on one's behalf presumes a right to the product of their labor.
- LegitShady 5y ago>Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Where do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one yourself. Or maybe unlocking the bootloader? >Now the author has shifted "right to repair" to mean mandatory device support and design requirements around repair-ability. It's part of the conversation on planned obsolescence but you're right that's not strictly part of right to repair. But these companies have been crowing about sustainability for a while now for PR purposes - now they may be legislated to actually provide sustainability in terms of product support and repairability.
- fouric 5y agoI'm not very happy with the quality of the article, overall. It seems useful for a consumer, but obvious, and old-hat, to HN denizens. HN submissions are supposed to be "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity", but we've seen dozens of right-to-repair articles by now, and this doesn't bring anything substantially new to the table (unlike the top previous submissions https://hn.algolia.com/?q=right+to+repair https://hn.algolia.com/?q=right+to+repair).
- lsllc 5y agoI think anything publicizing "right to repair" in mainstream media is a good thing. Agreed that for HN denizens, it's nothing new, but most people are just unaware of this topic. Glad to see the BBC running this.
- judge2020 5y agoMaybe, but it’s all over the place and thus might cause confusion for readers who will later see 'right to repair' and think it means that Apple should be forced to send iOS 14 to their iPhone 4S.
- joshspankit 5y agoExactly my point as I read down this thread: For this type of legislation push it is very important to keep the narrative focused on what’s morally and technologically reasonable. Very few people agree that a manufacturer should be forced to spend time and money on supportting a product for life, many (I hope) agree that we should force manufacturers to give us the ability to repair all functions ourselves (or at least not stand in our way), but almost everyone can agree that you should be able to replace something as trivial as a button, a cable, or a screen.
- LocalH 5y agoMaybe they should have to open iOS signing to all versions a device ever received when it becomes EOL? That also has implications with regards to preservation - if you can never install a given version of the OS again, then how can you trust it is properly preserved?
- judge2020 5y agoYou can always install the old version, Apple just doesn't think they can optimize new iOS versions to make old phones work well with the new software (and the bloat/feature creep within).
- spamizbad 5y agoYou are conflating Right to Repair efforts in Europe with those in the US. Naturally, the US laws are more deferential to capital interests and is less consumer-friendly, and simply ask that companies don't ban the sale of components to independent repair shops, firmware lockouts of replacement parts that only the manufacturer can provide, etc.
- css 5y agoWhat does the European definition of "right to repair" entail, then?
- spamizbad 5y agoThe article gives some examples, but I think more broadly the European Right to Repair efforts seem to align the repairability of consumer electronics with what we've come to expect from automobiles.
- anticristi 5y agoThat industry can also use some "right to repair". I can't type www.peugeot.fr and find schematics, propriety diagnostic codes and repair instructions. Granted, these are available from 3rd parties for a rather modest fee.
- mattmanser 5y agoThey've got a whole study about it, if you've got time to read it (I haven't :): https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/648767/IPOL_STU(2020)648767_EN.pdf https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2020/6487...
- GuB-42 5y agoNot exactly the answer to your question but France recently adopted a repairability score that has to be shown, just like the energy efficency class or nutrition labels. The criteria are: 1- Documentation 2- Ease of disassembly, with a subsection on the necessary tools and a focus on the parts that are most likely to be serviced (for smartphones: battery, screen, ...) 3- Availability of spare parts 4- Price of spare parts relative to the finished product price 5- Extra criteria which depend on the type of item, for a smartphone, software updates are in this category
- corty 5y agoThe general aim of "right to repair" is to extend lifetime of devices. All the things the author mentioned are means to achieve this, and all are necessary: Schematics, repair manuals, deliverable parts for a sufficiently long period and software support ("repair" also includes software defects of course). Sometimes also software extensibility and replaceability, i.e. no signature lockdowns and other DRM measures. There are weak versions of the right to repair that are only suited to enable third-party repair shops, e.g. by making schematics and parts available to "licensed professionals". But that is not what is generally desirable. I agree that the article fails to make this clear.
- Guest42 5y agoRegarding software, I think that pushing updates that essentially kill devices should fall under right to repair. I generally delay my ios updates out of concern whether space and ram will get eaten up. There probably won’t be an os update that enables a new app or feature I’m looking for. I’m not one to run unknown software and with the walled garden can’t really download any executables anyways. Also had win 10 updates kill a laptop in this manner that was then extended another 7 years by switching to Ubuntu.
- corty 5y agoUpdates that kill devices are at best a defect that is the manufacturer's responsibility to fix or pay for. At worst computer sabotage, which is a crime. Unfortunately courts have yet to get "bitey" on this issue. I guess it needs to hit a few more judges until the hammer comes down hard.
- thinkharderdev 5y agoAre there cases now where an update bricks devices that are still supported and the manufacturer doesn't fix it? Genuinely asking as I don't know of any such cases.
- overgard 5y ago
- FridayoLeary 5y agowith all due respects, this article is neither extremely rich or information nor exhaustively researched. Its more like the kind of stuff you hear on BBC radio. Just a few interviews with people whose experiences you might not hear from otherwise.
- qzw 5y agoIsn’t the underlying issue planned obsolescence as a business model? It’s anti-consumer and anti-environment, and maybe we shouldn’t incentivize it as a planet.
- zepto 5y agoThe problem is that planned obsolescence is not in fact everyone’s business model. Apple’s penetration into the US market is not because the iPhone matches Android in terms of sales, it’s because iPhones last longer and get handed down or resold. Apple literally continues to sell years old devices. That isn’t planned obsolescence. A really simple step in the right direction would be mandated labeling showing how many years of software updates the device will get and statistical expected lifetime.
- fsflover 5y ago> That isn’t planned obsolescence. Yes, it is. Even though Apple devices last longer, after the support is ended, I cannot do anything with them. I cannot update, install anything. They effectively become bricks. If this is not planned obsolescence, then what is?
- ska 5y agoIt's only planned obsolescence if the lifetime of a product is artificially shortened by design choices. It's not clear this applies here.
- swiley 5y agomy interpretation is that there should be no artificial barriers. Don't hide schematics, don't lock bootloaders, don't use NDAs to prevent sharing driver code, don't prevent component manufacturers from selling to third parties.
- duped 5y agoI think requiring schematic disclosure and non exclusivity for venders of custom parts is entirely unreasonable with catastrophic first and second order effects. Particularly the latter. We want more contract manufacturing, not less of it. If you take away the ability of companies to negotiate reasonable deals with their venders, they'll just buy them out and vertically integrate.
- joshspankit 5y agoHow about forcing disclosure only for products that are no longer supported by the manufacturer? Not ideal from a repair standpoint, but removes (imo) the argument about the first and second order effects.
- AdrianB1 5y agoWhen I was born all electric and electronic appliances came with a complete diagram in the box. I don't understand how disclosing the schematic has any negative impact of any sort. Also the vendor contracts in these cases are based on volume discounts which are not affected by non-restricted sale to other parties.
- duped 5y agoWell two points on that: - Repair schematics and diagrams are not necessarily complete schematics and may be abridged or missing some details - Modern electronics are significantly more complex than when you were a child, unless you were born yesterday. Schematics for designs are barely useful for assembly today, let alone repair. They are primarily design documentation.
- 5y ago
- danogentili 5y agoThese are all absolutely valid and sane points. Instead of arguing on the exact definition of right to repair, we should all fight for the right to truly OWN our devices, where OWN := we have the legal right to do anything we want with the hardware AND with the software (because you can't really distinguish the two, now that all CPUs come with embedded TPMs running parallel closed OSes with ring -inf permissions).
- salawat 5y agoAnd they should be required by law to come with the respective datasheets and specs required to do so. You don't de facto have one without the other.
- ryandrake 5y agoI'd argue that when a security vulnerability is made public, patching the operating system with an update is a form of repair. The device is as broken as my Gen-1 iPad that can no longer browse the web safely. If the manufacturer stops releasing such updates, AND actively prevents the user from developing and applying their own updates, then they are preventing repair.
- dnh44 5y agoTo be fair that first gen iPad is too slow to browse the web at all unless it's a really lean site like HN.
- joshspankit 5y agoBut if we (users) choose to only browse lean sites with our first-gen iPads, why should we (society) say “stop doing that”?
- thinkharderdev 5y agoI don't think that it is correct to say that anyone is telling you anything. Apple has decided that they will drop support for devices after a certain period of time because the development effort of maintaining support is too costly given the number of users with the old hardware. If I could be emperor for a day I would just mandate that when they drop support an old device, they have to provide a way for users still owning that device to have unlimited ability to load and run any software on it. That way if you really want to keep using your first-gen iPad then you can support it yourself. But it doesn't seem right to mandate that someone else continue to spend effort supporting idiosyncratic choices of all users.
- ryandrake 5y agoWhile I agree with your "emperor for a day" solution, I'd like to point out that wanting to use a device I paid for longer than two years after I bought it is not an idiosyncratic choice. Apple's last OS update for the device (iOS 5.1.1) was a mere 2 years after the device's initial release. This is IMO totally unreasonable. I have a PC next to me that's 20 years old which still functions and runs a very recent Linux distribution.
- harimau777 5y agoRe: Legacy software support How does this work with physical products such as cars? Is there a statute of limitations for automobile recalls?
- userbinator 5y agoCompanies like Tesla are trying to change things, but for most of a century it was the norm that the manufacturer would make parts available for purchase, and even if they had stopped doing so, there is a huge aftermarket industry around repair and customisation. The aftermarket has become so big, that you can probably build an entire car of the 50s to early 70s entirely out of aftermarket parts. Even body panels and frame rails are available.
- II2II 5y agoPerhaps the author kept moving the goalpost since we have lost so much over the years. Take that legacy software. For many technologies the software is not distinguishable from the hardware to the end user, yet faulty software could present a security risk or even pose physical danger. At the same time, vendors are dropping support for software at an accelerated rate while making it impossible to use third party fixes or replacements. This is not about having the latest features or being able to run the latest apps. It is about having the device being an asset rather than a liability.
- segmondy 5y agoAre they also going to force "the right to sell" instead of rent? Nothing is stopping companies from renting instead of selling their products. We already see that with software, no one is trying to sell software these days, it's all subscriptions. It could happen with hardware, in which case you don't have the right to repair since it never belonged to you.
- merlincorey 5y agoThis is the crux of the argument to me - if I own the device, why do some companies act like I am just renting it?
- beefalo 5y agoMost cell phones are leased already today
- Karunamon 5y agoNo they're not. Leasing implies a limited, fixed term. Financing and leasing are two different transactions.
- michaelmrose 5y agoThat is only untrue because owning the phone would be disadvantageous to them. It's vastly more advantageous for them if you own it and are obliged to pay them for it because you own both pieces if it breaks.
- criddell 5y agoIf we are going to allow software patents on the basis that software is a device, then laws affecting physical devices should apply to software as well.
- joshspankit 5y agoI’m curious but don’t know what laws you’re suggesting. Could you dig a bit deeper?
- criddell 5y agoI was thinking about right to repair laws. What's the analog for schematics when you are talking about a software device? It's going to be something like source code or API documentation.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago> Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? This is really the same thing, i.e. comprehensive hardware documentation. If the hardware is well-documented then third parties can use the documentation to create hardware drivers and continue to support e.g. Android/Linux on that hardware even after the OEM stops providing supported software. This is true even of iPhones; there is no technical reason you shouldn't be able to port Android or any other OS to iPhone hardware given adequate hardware documentation. People are attempting to port Linux to M1 Macbooks even without adequate hardware documentation, though of course the lack of documentation is a severe impediment and the efforts consequently have yet to produce a usable port.
- cbmuser 5y agoThat’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 over high quality ones. Want to increase the possibility of getting a durable and repairable product? Well, prepare to spend ten times as much.
- rasz 5y agoNo, 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?
- emkoemko 5y agonot just electronics, John Deer tractors and farming machines... all the parts have encrypted links that only John Deer repair shops can sync new parts... soon your car won't let you change your tire without it not turning on, unless you buy their "tire"
- giantrobot 5y agoIt's done for security because the screens are primary input devices and linked to the biometric sensors. Without protections for genuine components anyone could replace your screen with one that had a hardware key logger and compromised biometric sensors. The security of the system is as weak as the weakest component. Your phone has access to tons of personal data, for some people just about all of their personal data. It's in every user's best interest to have secure hardware since it's inherently mobile and easily lost or stolen, easier than a desktop locked in a house. But no I'm sure it's just some conspiracy to make iPhones disposable. That makes way more sense.
- throwaway2048 5y ago
- quotemstr 5y agoWhy are you surprised? This is the common pattern of tech activism: start with a kernel of a legitimate grievance, grow it into a whole crop of outrage, and harvest that outrage to make new rules that actually make everything a bit worse. Designing for repairability has costs both monetary and functional. Why should everyone have to pay these costs on the say-so of a few people whose main claim to legitimate authority is their social media follower count? I believe this push for repairability is bad and that it will lead to bad outcomes for consumers. The market ought to be what tells us what product features are really important.
- AdrianB1 5y agoYou are right, but then let's make it mandatory for the end user to safely recycle all the components from their devices; they should not be allowed to sale or donate old devices, but have to recycle every piece of it. The purpose? Safe disposal. If you don't want to extend the life of the devices, keep it forever or safely dispose it.
- quotemstr 5y agoModern landfills are safe disposal sites. Recycling can be economically incentivized where it makes sense.
- tachyonbeam 5y agoI don't think Apple or Google have to open source every part of their software. They just have to make it possible for us to install alternative operating systems on their computing platforms. That would allow giving older devices new life by putting Linux on them, for example. A fully unlocked iPhone 6 with Linux on it could be very useful.
- globular-toast 5y agoOnly if they're selling a computer. I've never wanted my phone to be a computer (although I don't mind if it is).
- tachyonbeam 5y agoGood for you. You don't have to install Linux on your phone, but it would be better for the planet (eg: recycling) if we all could.
- omgwtfbyobbq 5y agoIt is goalpost moving, but I also agree with the author. If a device is no longer supported by a company, or that company goes under, there should be some mechanism to make any software needed to modify software on the device available. Take the essential ph-1 as an example. Now that the company is gone, if a device bricks during an update, that's it. Having the firehose file would make it possible to unblock it, but without it, a bricked phone is just spare parts (less the main board).
- hilbert42 5y ago"a bricked phone is just spare parts (less the main board)." The main board should be just as repairable as any other device. If that requires changes to copyright law, the DMCA and or even WIPO treaties then that will eventually happen. It's not that many years ago—certainly well within my lifetime—that 'deep' repairs of this kind were not only commonplace but actually encouraged by manufacturers. (If you want examples then I'll provide some). By such action, we would only be returning to the status quo as it was some 40 or more years ago. (To detractors of this comment, I accept and understand that you never lived through that time to see it in action, if you had then very likely you'd have a changed point of view.)
- jpttsn 5y agoI like the better performance of computers now. If lower repairability is a way to pay for that, that’s great.
- hilbert42 5y ago"If lower repairability is a way to pay for that, that’s great.' You are implying the two concepts are incompatible. There is no reason why they should be other than a manufacturer's planned obsolescence strategy, which is what the Right to Repair movement is all about and fighting to fix.
- jpttsn 5y agoAssuming there's planned obsolescence, it will make the manufacturer money. This money lets them build better products, stay in business longer, et.c. If Apple made a repairable iPhone with the same profit margins and specs, I'm guessing it would have to be more expensive. I would have to pay for this, even though I don't want to repair my stuff (I just buy new stuff when it breaks).
- msla 5y ago> Now the author has shifted "right to repair" to mean mandatory first-party device support and design requirements around repair-ability. I'm sure mandatory first-party device support is better for the manufacturer than giving people the idea they should be able to control what software runs on their device. I wonder if that stance is a lack of imagination on the author's part or something more deliberate.
- alexvoda 5y agoElectronics 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.html https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1012672/Pioneer-C-5600dfv....
- jimmaswell 5y agoI wonder how big the manual would have to be for a smartphone with the equivalent of those old stereo diagrams.
- tratax 5y agoMaybe not that big, unfortunately a lot of the connections will end up going to that SoC that does most of the work and is probably obsolete by the time you want to repair it.
- thereddaikon 5y agoLook up board view files. Those are the kinds of schematics people are talking about. Louis Rossman uses them on his Youtube channel to do board level repairs of Macs and iOS devices. They are not all you need copy a device outright, contrary to what some people in the comments think. But they are sufficient for you to track down faulty components and de-solder them.
- maxerickson 5y agoCan't you do that without imposing it on everyone else? I care about consumption (I'm on my 2nd laptop since ~2003), but I don't particularly want to pay $15,000 to replace this one with one that is worse.
- marcosdumay 5y ago> 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.
- spinningslate 5y ago>Well, I would say it includes publishing the software interface of your hardware, and not making it impossible to replace the software. 100% this. Case in point: I have two 'old' apple devices: a 2009 mac mini and an ipad c.2011. Apple doesn't provide updates for either any more. For the mini, that's not a problem: it's running Debian just fine, and kept up to date. The ipad is a different story. Physically it's still in perfectly good nick: it's a well-built device. Software, though, is a different matter. Progressively fewer websites render properly with the outdated version of safari; the number of installable apps is down to a faint trickle. It's broken. Doesn't matter that it's broken because the software is outdated rather than a hardware component has given up. It doesn't do what it was intended for, and there's no way to repair it. I've no issue with apple - or any other manufacturer - deciding there's a lifetime beyond which they're not willing to support the device. But they shouldn't be allowed to brick it. At the point it goes out of manufacturer support, there should be the option to 'unlock' and install 3rd party software. Of course it'll impact Apple's revenues. At least to some extent; plenty people will still want "shiny new". And it'll need 3rd party software to be available. But that's a whole new market opportunity. More fundamentally, it's simply unconscionable to consign devices to the scrap heap because the manufacturer built a time bomb into the software.
- m4rtink 5y agoAsking the manufacturers to not pull dirty tricks with the bootloader (AKA Tivoization) does not sound to me like asking much of them and could cut quite a bit of ewaste as old devices are reused with new software. Of course many would try to block that as it cuts into their planned obsolescence roadmaps...
- shoto_io 5y agoI don’t know why we shouldn’t let the market handle this. If people want everything to be repairable then why isn’t there a phone which solve that issue? Maybe people don’t care that much after all.
- emkoemko 5y agoi not sure what your talking about... people get their phones fixed all the time, its just the companies make it very difficult or not possible at all when you can't get access to parts, or you have companies like Apple who prevent you importing parts even if the parts are ripped out of broken devices. Then you have Apple who lie they say you can't recover your data or repair your device, yet you go to a repair shop and you get your data back and phone fixed...
- shoto_io 5y agoBut that’s my point. Why do buy a phone from company like that? Just stop buying from them and buy from another manufacturer instead and the problem will be solved.
- emkoemko 5y agookay true, but you think its fine for Apple to prevent you from taking out say your broken camera and replace it with a working one? or a LCD... or any part? You think its fine for say John Deer to prevent you from repairing your own tractor? if any part is replaces with exactly the same part but your tractor won't turn on because the "encryption link" is not correct? would you be fine with your car preventing you from changing your tire? unless you get them to do it and only install their "tires"?
- Sohcahtoa82 5y agoYou're not making a convincing argument when the person you're arguing with is coming from the "free market" angle. Someone arguing in favor of allowing market forces to solve the problem truly do think it's fine for Apple and John Deere to do those things. The solution for lack of repairability isn't to enact legislation to force them to make their products more repairable, it's to stop buying Apple and John Deere. To a point, they're right, but relying on market solutions assumes rational consumers, which we have anything but. I think back about 7 years when I bought a Motorola Droid Turbo. Back then, consumers were asking for phones with longer-lasting batteries and screens that wouldn't shatter because you sneezed. This phone was exactly what consumers were asking for, with it's monstrous 3950 mAh battery, and a screen that could survive a 100-foot drop onto pavement (Saw a video of it!), but most people had never even heard of it, and still bought their iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones which couldn't even survive a waist-high drop onto the sidewalk without cracking the screen. Consumers are not rational, and so the market will never be rational, and relying on market solutions does not always work.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoIt's clearly written by an author who isn't very technically or legally savvy, however it gets the point across to the general public about the importance. We can let the pros determine the goalposts but clearly what we're doing now and letting manufacturers get away with is insufficient.
- passivate 5y ago>Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Where do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one yourself or run older software on it indefinitely. You're argument is with the author, and his interpretation, not with "right to repair". What "right to repair" is or isn't , is not decided by the author of this article. There are various organizations that are loosely related with a few shared ideals. >We must very carefully define our terms here, because requiring someone else to provide on one's behalf presumes a right to the product of their labor. Not really. Anyone can propose anything in an article, and they must be free to do so. Its upto us as a collective to think over ideas and proposals and then push for policy proposals that align. Ultimately the terms will be defined in legislation, not on bbc.com
- kbenson 5y ago> Now "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Any right to repair law that doesn't also include provisions to ensure you can run your own code on the device is hobbled. How "repairable" is a device that is cloud based but they disabled the cloud service? I don't care that manufacturers support the software beyond what they've contractually signed up for, but I do care that I'm not left holding a brick afterwards by design. As long as the capability exists to put other firmware that exists on the device, or write my own, I'm protected from that, at least in the general case. If nobody has provided that firmware and I can't do it myself, that's still a situation I think it many times better than the alternative.
- michaelmrose 5y agoPerhaps compulsory software updates at least as far as security issues for a reasonable time frame after selling a particular device as new to stores. I'd say 5 years to go with the 5 year warranty against defects in manufacture. This would discourage waste and improve the second hand market. So moto, samsung, et all would be obligated to provided fixes for 5 years after they sold the last unit. If an oem can't meet that obligation just forbid their import. We presume a right to the product of other people's labor for the privilege of doing business here all the time. See every product in existence.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y agoAs a user, the only "moving of goalposts" I see with regard to "software updates" is that as a consumer if I buy the device with software installed (including whatever latent defects that software may contain) the manufacturer believes it has the right to continually install updates. I did not buy the updates (new software). That was not part of the deal. I did not sign up for a subscription. I purchased a piece of hardware. And yet, there is an expectation, for lack of a better word, that I will "update", long after purchase, after the buyer's relationship with the manufacturer ends (no warranty in effect). Of course, these updates are always to benefit the manufacturer, by retaining an ability to track buyers after purchase. Surveillance capitalism. I have no desire for any developer to have to do more work after the date of purchase to "fix" or "support" software. What I want is all the work to be done before selling the device. Quality control. Is this really too much to ask. I am not interested in purchasing what are effectively "works-in-progress".
- userbinator 5y agoNow "right to repair" includes not only designing devices to be easier to repair but also includes legacy software support? Where do we draw this line? If your M1 dies, you can't fab one yourself or run older software on it indefinitely. If your IBM PC dies, you can definitely create a functionally exact clone based on publicly available information, and in fact many have done so, either virtually or physically. IMHO if the manufacturer ceases to provide support, then it must open up the documentation and design, or allow all reverse-engineering of it.
- OrwellianChild 5y agoMore importantly, you can buy a new Intel chip to replace the one that failed, swap them out, and go about your day. Thinking about the gap between the lifecycle experience on the PC side vs. the Mac side is a good way to understand the difference between an ecosystem open to repair and one closed to it.