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Apple and John Deere Shareholder Resolutions Demand They Explain Their Bad Repair Policies - iFixit:
Apple and John Deere, primary antagonists of the Right to Repair movement, may soon have to explain their domineering repair programs to one of their most demanding audiences: their shareholders.
U.S. PIRG, working with its affiliated socially responsible mutual fund company, Green Century Funds, has filed shareholder resolutions with both Apple and John Deere, asking them to account for “anti-competitive repair policies." Both resolutions admonish the companies for fighting independent repair and ignoring the broad political shift toward Right to Repair laws.
Touch ID stops working if you replace the fingerprint sensor on your iPhone. This used to brick iPhones; now it’s just the sad reality of iPhone repair.
Green Century’s Apple resolution says that the company “risks losing its reputation as a climate leader if it does not cease its anti-repair practices.” Noting that internet-connected devices will account for 14% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, Green Century’s resolution demands the company reverse course to “mitigate regulatory and reputational risks and bolster the company's ambitious climate commitments.”
[...] The John Deere resolution calls out the company’s broken promise to make crucial repair software available to farmers. "Company representatives are quick to point out that less than 2% of all repairs require a software update," Green Capital Funds notes. "However, Deere does not disclose what percentage of the repair sales the 2% represents."
(Score: 5, Informative) by legont on Thursday September 16 2021, @02:35AM (4 children)
Once upon a time I did a project for Deere. We converted all their old typesetting repair documentation into SGML so bright new word tools repair manuals could be created. Their manuals were excellent and I did a good job automating all this; in a few dozens languages mind you. They told me that the goal is that barely literate Chinese farmer could repair his tractor in the middle of nowhere. I was so prod.
It's sad to watch what all of it became.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 16 2021, @03:21AM
Yeah, the PDF is a total fuckup for meaningful docs (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Thursday September 16 2021, @05:51AM
I've never used a Deere manual, but kudos and thank you! Oh wait, I did, an F525, and I remember it being awesome. Some repair manuals are amazingly well written. Maybe you made them too good, such that the MBA vultures swooped in? No worries- I'm fairly hopeful that the Right to Repair movement will gain momentum and Deere and Apple and others will be forced to play fair.
BTW, I assume you know about this:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/john-deere-tractor-hacks-ukrainian/ [digitaltrends.com]
https://tractorhacking.github.io [github.io]
(Score: 5, Touché) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday September 16 2021, @05:52AM (1 child)
The essay "Empire of the Rising Scum" explains, quite plausibly, how any organization that stays in operation too long gets taken over by people whose talent is empire-building. Against them, the people who wanted Chinese farmers to repair their tractors had no chance.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Thursday September 16 2021, @02:17PM
Pournelle's Iron Law
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.