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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Over the last year, we've noted the surge in so-called "right to repair" laws, which would make it easier for consumers to repair their electronics and find replacement parts and tools. It's a direct response to the rising attempts by companies like John Deere, Apple, Microsoft and Sony to monopolize repair, hamstringing consumer rights over products consumers think they own, while driving up the cost of said product ownership. John Deere's draconian lockdown on its tractor firmware is a large part of the reason these efforts have gained steam over the last few months in states like Nebraska.
In New York, one of the first attempts at such a law (the "Fair Repair Act") has finally been making progress. But according to New York State's Joint Commission on Public Ethics, Apple, Verizon, Toyota, Lexmark, Caterpillar, Asurion, and Medtronic have all been busy lobbying to kill the law for various, but ultimately similar, reasons. And they're out-spending the consumer advocates and repair shops pushing for this legislation by a rather wide margin:
"The records show that companies and organizations lobbying against right to repair legislation spent $366,634 to retain lobbyists in the state between January and April of this year. Thus far, the Digital Right to Repair Coalition—which is generally made up of independent repair shops with several employees—is the only organization publicly lobbying for the legislation. It has spent $5,042 on the effort, according to the records."
Source: techdirt.com
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday May 25 2017, @10:08AM (4 children)
A lot of this junk isn't even workable after 0 days.
The first computer I built came with full technical specs on all the components and an exhaustive dictionary for the software.
Ever since, the trajectory has been fairly clear, even if it occasionally reversed for a year or two.
It's not in a good direction.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25 2017, @06:26PM
Documentation is haaaaard!
But in seriousness, things have gotten so complicated that manuals are next to impossible for anyone to read and would be very very large. I agree with your sentiment, but unless consumers are willing to demand and pay higher price for full open / documented systems then we're shit out of luck.
Thankfully, I think we're probably a decade at most away from open computing efforts to create hardware that does enough. Right now the options are too under powered and bulky, but soon enough people will be able to choose options that are good enough and I have faith that the young people will be cynical enough to distrust general computing / software. Snowden was one revelation, but it will take a while for a full generation to grasp why Stallman isn't a crazy neckbeard. Neckbeard yes, crazy no.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:08PM
There's always been junk. It hasn't always been computers.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday May 26 2017, @11:34AM (1 child)
IMSAI 8080?
Mine still works... ( last time I checked... several years ago ).
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 26 2017, @10:50PM
Soon we will have to do like the Intel 4004 replica [wikipedia.org] at 41 x 58 cm for 2300 transistors to be able to repair.. ;-)