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Fixers Know What 'Repairable' Means—Now There's A Standard For It - Ifixit:
[Earlier this year], three years of arguing with industry finally paid off, as the European standard EN45554 was published. This official document with an unexciting name details "general methods for the assessment of the ability to repair, reuse and upgrade energy-related products." In plain English, it's a standard for measuring how easy it is to repair stuff. It's also a huge milestone for the fight for fair repair.
We want to repair the stuff we own, so we can use it for longer. This is not only important because we want our money's worth out of the things we paid for, but because manufacturing new products is a huge and underestimated driver of climate change. So if we want to avoid cooking our planet, we need to stop churning out disposable electronics and start repairing more. Like, right now.
The problem is, industry won't do this by itself. Managers get ahead by showing quarterly sales growth, not increased product lifespans. Hence we need the government to step in, banning unrepairable products and helping consumers—that's you!—to identify the most durable products out there, so as to empower them to make better purchasing decisions. And in the EU, our political leaders are getting ready to do so.
But here's the rub: those leaders don't know what a repairable product is. If you ask manufacturers, they will all tell you their products are repairable. If you ask us, some devices clearly are more repairable than others, and some are frankly just not repairable at all.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Dr Spin on Monday July 06 2020, @12:21PM (2 children)
Take your straw man, set it on fire, and then jump into the fire: Not all repairs involve soldering hardware.
I have several phones which work, but the OS is obsolete, and the information does not exist to replace it because the datasheets for the parts
and the boot loader API are not publicly available.
The manufacturer should be required to put these in escrow before being permitted to sell the device, so that the FOSS community can
replace the bloatware with a usable alternative if it performs better than his shitstorm or he forces an upgrade on me with a UI that is worse
than shit.
Failing that, he should be treated as a serial fly-tipper, and fined several thousand for each phone he sells, on pain of lengthy terms in prison
for each and every director if the company turns out to have supplied duff information, or defaults on payments.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday July 06 2020, @05:14PM (1 child)
You're now introducing software specifications.
Almost every phone is nothing but an ARM chip, the bootloader isn't necessary to boot an alternative OS (proven by LineageOS).
What you're suggesting is completely open hardware - admirable but more unlikely that someone just making a "CPU board" that can be replaced by any other that connects to a "GSM board", a "screen module" and so on. Often datasheets
While ideally you'd be right, it has nothing to do with repairing the device (and you accuse me of strawman?). Datasheets for things like the x86 chips are just sitting out there for everyone - doesn't help you crack the XBox, etc.
But if you could just swap out the CPU module for an OS-version one, you'd be laughing, and could even get better, more suited chips/BIOS for the things you want to do. Then "the OS" just becomes a pluggable module, in effect.
And with security heading towards secure-booting everywhere, you can have all the details in the world - if you don't have the bootloader key, you can never load the OS (without invalidating the warranty by permanently flipping a bit, like how phones work now) even if you know every other detail of how it works. And Samsung aren't going to sign your bootloader or provide an opportunity to bypass it without it being extremely obvious (as they already do).
You're two steps ahead. But my suggested step would not only make your possible, but would probably negate the need for it anyway. Buy a new phone, buy an "open" CPU module... done.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dr Spin on Monday July 06 2020, @06:38PM
Prior to Bill Gates, almost all hardware had published datasheets which the manufacturer would happily send you free of charge.
The 8008 datasheet explained exactly how the instructions were executed, to the gate level (I have a first edition).
I headed a team that wrote an OS for the 8080 quite similar to CPM (could read CPM, Intel ISIS and RSX/11 files).
DEC would supply you with free manuals explaining the internals of all the parts to the level required to write Unix.
In the 1970's no procurement team would buy chips (or any other component) for which there was no second source.
Hence Intel and AMD cross licensed a load of chips, All was happy.
Then came manufacturers of video chips which were "proprietary" - primarily because they were so bug infested that
anyone who read the datasheet risked their head exploding (I wrote OS/2 drivers for S3 chips).
But my suggested step would not only make your possible, but would probably negate the need for it anyway. Buy a new phone, buy an "open" CPU module... done.
No, its not about my phone - it is about Mr and Mrs Twit and their kids buying stuff that manufacturers are free to brick and send to landfill. There should be no "freedom to
make money by trashing the planet" any more than you are free to enter my house and enter your trash can on the carpet.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!