# Right to repair movement



## _martin (Jul 7, 2021)

I did mention Louis Rossmann in my posts few times. His videos speak themselves. There are some similarities to open source in this regard. 
He got an interesting response today from Steve Wozniak.


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## astyle (Jul 8, 2021)

Well, most ultrabooks are very difficult to take apart and repair without some serious training. 
You can take a PC tower apart and put in aftermarket components yourself for the most part. 
But try taking apart a laptop that is about 1 cm thick... I once did that with an HP Folio back in 2012, to upgrade my RAM from 4 to 8 GB, and had a hell of a time putting it back - there's very little room to operate, and when I closed everything up, some cables lost their connections, and I lost the keyboard backlight, and keyboard itself. I spent hours studying the manual (not the one that came in the box with the laptop, but the one that was available on Internet, but aimed at repair shop specialists. And it was not easy to find. 

I did manage to fix my laptop on my own, without having to send it to HP's Idaho shop for repairs, and I learned a bit along the way... But the system is usually designed with moronic users in mind - the kind that can take things apart, but don't have the ability to put it back together. Basically, protecting such users from themselves. And those vastly outnumber the people who will actually read the manual, have the right tools, and know what they're doing.

In comparison to Open Source - yeah, I can browse KDE's source code all I want, make my own corrections, compile it on my own system, whatever - and even enjoy and share the results if I know what I'm doing. But if I don't quite know what I'm doing - I'd rather not break my own system, and instead wait for the project to come out with an update.


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## _martin (Jul 8, 2021)

That's ok astyle, nobody is taking away that option from you. Problem is on the other end -- companies are trying to take away this option from people who are willing to take the risk and learn. Even worse, they are trying to take away this option from people who are otherwise qualified to do so.  Apple is a good example -- it's ridiculous what they are doing.
That was and is the point of Steve Wozniak's video reply -- he was able to learn because he had access to this material. And it weights a million coming from himself.


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## astyle (Jul 8, 2021)

_martin said:


> That's ok astyle, nobody is taking away that option from you. Problem is on the other end -- companies are trying to take away this option from people who are willing to take the risk and learn. Even worse, they are trying to take away this option from people who are otherwise qualified to do so.  Apple is a good example -- it's ridiculous what they are doing.
> That was and is the point of Steve Wozniak's video reply -- he was able to learn because he had access to this material. And it weights a million coming from himself.


My point was that there's a vast number of users who don't exactly know what they're doing, AND don't realize that. They take things apart, fail at putting things back together, and then have the audacity to claim that the product is defective. Apple's system is designed for people like that - restricting options for failure by, you guessed it - restricting access to info. The fact that a few capable people end up getting locked out of the system is an unfortunate side result. Apple wanted a watertight system that works for majority of its customers. That's how it got rich - it's just evidence of the vast supply of morons.


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## _martin (Jul 8, 2021)

Right to repair is absolutely not about that.  Louis and iPad rehab YT channels have enough videos to proof this point wrong. Out of many that is. And not by words but actually by their own hard work.
And this is being recognized by Mr. Wozniak in the video.

Right to repair is not about somebody breaking stuff and then yelling it's not his problem. Right to repair is about having an option of a 3rd party repair to be able to do so legally. Your device is after all your device. And this is not just about the electronics either -- John Deere being one of the bigger companies guilty of this behavior too.


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## mer (Jul 8, 2021)

_martin said:


> Right to repair is not about somebody breaking stuff and then yelling it's not his problem. Right to repair is about having an option of a 3rd party repair to be able to do so legally. Your device is after all your device. And this is not just about the electronics either -- John Deere being one of the bigger companies guilty of this behavior too.


"Winner Winner Chicken Dinner".

Auto makers are another "good bunch" for that.  I want to be able to choose to take my car to my local non-dealer mechanic for work.  Sorry, you must take to dealer.  This is not a bash on dealer mechanics (I happen to have a fantastic set of them).  Recalls and other double secret probation information;  why not also make them available to third party?

You can see similar trend in software licenses.  You pay how much for Windows 10 and the fine print says you don't own that copy, you purchased a license to use that they can revoke pretty much whenever they want.
That's why folks like Adobe are pushing to this "everything online, software as a service".


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## astyle (Jul 8, 2021)

I drive a BMW (and read bimmerforums, too!).  I want quality repairs when needed. Most non-dealer mechanics will take a look, but probably not do a good job fixing my bimmer, and they will try to charge me a fortune just for having a bimmer.  A non-dealer mechanic failed to spot an oil leak.
The BMW dealer I do business with - they are thorough, will give me a quote and a heads up, but I'm not locked into the dealer. They once told me I need new tires - and yeah, I needed that. Confirmed by doing my own research, and then I went to a third party tire shop that did the job for about half the price, but acceptable quality. And my warranty was never voided or any other nonsense.

But changing oil - nobody but the dealer even had a quote up front for me. The dealer even had a time estimate for me. Made an appointment, came in, and was out in an hour. Fast and sweet, no nonsense. Well worth paying a little extra for.



> @mer : Recalls and other double secret probation information; why not also make them available to third party?


Yeah, who else will give you a loaner BMW to drive around while yours is serviced for free because of an air bag recall?


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## msplsh (Jul 9, 2021)

Louis is far too aggressive about his opinions being the correct ones, but that's what gets the clicks on YT.  He doesn't seem to think stopping chop-shops for locked iPhones is a problem worth solving if it means only Apple (by virtue of them knowing if phones were stolen or not via activation locks, serial number databases, find my iphone, and commitment to privacy) can fix certain problems.  I tend to think if he didn't have his YT channel, he couldn't spend as much time a he does fixing phones on the videos for too little money.  Rent seems high in NY...

I didn't bother watching the video, but if he talking about Apple's SSD locks on computers, that might have merit.  There's no reason to make those the way they do.  Apple has also gone back to charging more for RAM and storage now that you can't upgrade it.  For a while there they priced it just low enough that the cost of "upgrading" say 4 -> 8 GB on the BTO options was the same as just buying 8GB of third party RAM (which would then leave you with 2x2GB modules nobody wanted and no warranty support unless you put them back in).


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## astyle (Jul 9, 2021)

msplsh said:


> Louis is far too aggressive about his opinions being the correct ones, but that's what gets the clicks on YT.  He doesn't seem to think stopping chop-shops for locked iPhones is a problem worth solving if it means only Apple (by virtue of them knowing if phones were stolen or not via activation locks, serial number databases, find my iphone, and commitment to privacy) can fix certain problems.  I tend to think if he didn't have his YT channel, he couldn't spend as much time a he does fixing phones on the videos for too little money.  Rent seems high in NY...
> 
> I didn't bother watching the video, but if he talking about Apple's SSD locks on computers, that might have merit.  There's no reason to make those the way they do.  Apple has also gone back to charging more for RAM and storage now that you can't upgrade it.  For a while there they priced it just low enough that the cost of "upgrading" say 4 -> 8 GB on the BTO options was the same as just buying 8GB of third party RAM (which would then leave you with 2x2GB modules nobody wanted and no warranty support unless you put them back in).


Ah, all the more reason for me to stay away from Apple. Not only way more expensive than Windows counterparts with comparable specs, but also nanny software that tells you to save PDFs to a certain folder that is only accessible by a certain app, and hardware components that are impossible to upgrade unless you fork over a truckload of dough for higher specs from get-go.


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## Alain De Vos (Jul 9, 2021)

I found parallels a good virtualization app on MAC.


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## drhowarddrfine (Jul 9, 2021)

If I didn't build my own machines, cause I want as much control over everything I can, I would buy a Mac in a heartbeat. The only reason my wife doesn't use one is cause she doesn't like change. My son has Apple everything and loves it.


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## mer (Jul 9, 2021)

drhowarddrfine said:


> If I didn't build my own machines, cause I want as much control over everything I can, I would buy a Mac in a heartbeat. The only reason my wife doesn't use one is cause she doesn't like change. My son has Apple everything and loves it.


I've had Mac in the past, in fact way back  in the early/mid 1980's I had one of the original Macs, in the beige case with the 9inch B&W screen.    Upgraded the memory by soldering more chips in and yes the inside of the case had impressions of peoples signatures.  It was portable in the way KayPros were "portable".

Wife had one of the Macs that looked like half a soccerball with a screen on a stick (can't recall what they called it) for a while.

Macs, at least the hardware used to be relatively solid builds.  Similar to old Sun Microsystems hardware.   Cost a bit more, semi-proprietary bits and bobs, but just worked.  Switching to more of a "high end PC consumer hardware that we are going to lock you in on" has taken a bit of the shine away for me.

My bigger issue is Apple has gone to the whole "Apple ecosystem".  "Everything you have must be Apple and they must all share everything all the time".


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## astyle (Jul 9, 2021)

Macs are FreeBSD 4. I'm on 13.  Granted, back in the 90s, running games off floppies in the classroom computer after class, I preferred the Apple II over the IBM one, just because the boob tube was RGB, and was snappier on the Apple. The IBM was an ugly green-screened, pixelated slow-ass thing. Over time, I switched to IBM based stuff as the preferable platform, but color green still turns me off.


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## covacat (Jul 9, 2021)

mer said:


> Wife had one of the Macs that looked like half a soccerball with a screen on a stick (can't recall what they called it) for a while.


iMac G4 aka "lamp"
i had one of those, the 20" one
nice IPS display, built in woofer, wifi, apple pro speakers


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