Right to Repair sows new fields.

Markverhyden

Markverhyden

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Last year, Public Knowledge and iFixit, a website that publishes electronics-repair guides, petitioned the Copyright Office for an exception that would allow owners of commercial and industrial equipment to do repairs, rather than having to rely on a technician from the manufacturer.
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From - https://www.wsj.com/business/mcdona...b?st=du5RYw&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

I hadn't been to iFixit in ages so I'd thought I'd see what they have. A lot sure has changed in 3-4 years.

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It was on the TV news yesterday that McDonalds has just won the right to repair their own McFlurry machines, many of which had been out of commission for quite a while because the company that makes them, and had exclusive rights of repair, wasn't able to keep up with the demand for repairs.

I really hope that, eventually, it becomes a matter of law that repair manuals, regardless of whether electronic (which is most these days) or hard copy must be available to anyone who wants them. (And I don't necessarily mean at no cost, but not at obscene cost, either). Automobile manufacturers that now primarily use software systems for workshop and spare parts manuals also need to make that available at very low cost to anyone who wishes to have it.
 
britechguy said:
I really hope that, eventually, it becomes a matter of law that repair manuals, regardless of whether electronic (which is most these days) or hard copy must be available to anyone who wants them. (And I don't necessarily mean at no cost, but not at obscene cost, either). Automobile manufacturers that now primarily use software systems for workshop and spare parts manuals also need to make that available at very low cost to anyone who wishes to have it.
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It's not manuals that matter that much. The world is full of people are really, really, really good at taking things apart and putting them back together with no extra pieces hanging out. It's all about the parts. And in the last couple of decades, since IoT started becoming a thing, firmware/software

That's a great example of how Apple crushed R&M competition for so many years. Their manufacturers were prohibited from selling new parts to non-ASP's. Furthermore Apple, their main customer, would only manufacture enough parts for the time period they specified for each type of device. Typically 3-5 years. And firmware/software is also used to lock out competitors. I remember reading about John Deere a few years ago on the RtR issue. They required a firmware flash/programming when certain chipped parts were replaced or the tractor would not start.
 
Manuals is a step but as @Markverhyden points out it is the parts availability that is one of the real troubles we face and brands like apple monopolizing the components even after their EOL is a major problem. I am not saying that their monopoly on repairs during product life is good or acceptable but monopolizing repairs that they won't and effectively can't do any more is far worse. I am not a particular fan of Louis Rossman but he does at least care about this issue passionately and actively works towards making it better and provides regular commentary that I can listen to on many such matters.
 
@Markverhyden and @Blues

We're all on the same page. In recent years most of my "right to repair" issues have not been with computers (at least the PC side of the world) but with automobiles, and that's been not primarily an issue of parts, which can be sourced, but of the knowledge and tools (typically software-based manuals and/or actual software used as part of the repair process itself, as has been mentioned).

What it boils down to is that there should be no monopoly on the right to repair. Anyone willing and able to even try it should have ready access to everything that's needed to make the attempt as a matter of principle. And all of us here certainly know that at least some of our business comes directly from failed attempts from those who should never have made them to begin with, but it is absolutely their right to have tried whether the outcome was what was hoped for or not.

This is all the more frustrating when the thing being repaired is long out of production and the OEMs and their respective representatives "on the ground" have not touched the product being repaired in decades and often have no desire to do so. Having the original manuals and software is an essential set of tools for the ability to repair. When it comes to cars and parts, it's the aftermarket and niche parts makers that fill in the gap for "the long dead cars" of the collector car world.

One of our local institutions, Kline's Dairy Bar, still uses freezer machines that date from before I was born, and it's only because they are repairable and that they've always had the right to keep them in repair that they can. And not only is that "part of the charm" the actual way these machines freeze and limit the air put into the final product differentiates it from more modern varieties. It's far more akin to frozen custard (for those that live in areas where it's common) than it is typical soft-serve.
 
We can bundle proprietary software in with "parts" as in items we must acquire to actually perform a repair including physical and digital "parts"
 
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