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The Right to Repair could help address a critical shortage in school computers

498 points by elorant 6y ago

shmerl 6y ago
It's surprising there even has to be a "right to repair" to actually repair things.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  There isn't. It's a political term to make a 2-sided issue look 1-sided.
  - tengbretson 6y ago
    Not sure why this is a controversial take. Personally, I support most of the goals of the so-called "Right to Repair" but it should be pretty obvious that its name is a rhetorical trick to make people say "wow this company who's products I continually choose to purchase is really trampling my rights." Give me a break.
    - shmerl 6y ago
      You can vote with your wallet and don't buy anything from such company :) But curbing such nasty behavior from companies is still good, especially if they all start following that trend of locking things up.
      - tengbretson 6y ago
        Agreed on both counts. Still not a "right"
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  It’s almost always a commercial issue, where you would find yourself in a legal bind. I do think the “first sale” doctrine should extend everywhere and include tinkering. I understand that would cause a lot of changes in the licensing industry but it’s worth it in my opinion.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    Would you say that first sale applies to the software service subscription as well?
- dboreham 6y ago
  If repair involves calibrating some software control system to the new part, and that can't be done without diagnostic software that nobody has access to. That kind of thing.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    Good reason to make all that open source.
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  Yes and no. Yes, I think owners of devices should have much more access to the parts and tools needed to repair their own equipment. But, there's an argument in this article that I don't completely agree with, although I can sympathize with the need. Those activation locked iPads would be very helpful to address the device shortage at schools and it would be great if we could find a way to do that. But, it's not simple either. Activation lock is the problem in this scenario, but it's also a solution in another scenario. Activation lock has dramatically decreased theft of Apple phones and tablets. Right now, there's not much point in stealing one of these devices since it cannot be used by someone other than the owner. But I can remember a time when device theft was a daily occurance in public. The problem expressed in this article is that the legitimate owner has changed, but the lock has remained, and that is a valid problem. If a recycler can suddenly unlock them, that solves one problem but creates two more. Now you've resurrected the black market for stolen apple devices and created a new black market for the unlocking of these devices. Sure, there is probably a technical solution to solve that too, but my point is that a solution needs careful thought and not just free-for-all legislation.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    I'd say schools should stay away from the likes of Apple and use devices and systems that don't have such problem in the first place.
walshemj 6y ago
Not sure that refurbing pc's had a problem with a right to repair. Some bandwagon jumping going on
bserge 6y ago
There's a notable lack of refurbishment/recycling businesses in western Europe. The UK is leading here, the Netherlands is also decent, but Germany, France, Belgium are surprisingly behind. Sure, there's quite a few small outfits that do it, but very few companies doing it at scale. I'm looking at possibly opening such a factory somewhere between FR/DE/BE, though it would ideally need some investment to get it up and running fast. We need to get rid of this stigma of buying used/refurbished. Nothing wrong with an older appliance that has been fixed, tested and cleaned properly. And the environment benefits.
- ciupicri 6y ago
  Nothing wrong with an older appliance, except that you get what you pay. It might be too power hungry or hot, it might be unsupported/obsolete [1][2] or too slow, e.g. Core 2 Duo can barely play FullHD YouTube videos; AV1 and H265 are also too slow on the first generations of Core CPUs (i5-520M, i3-2120). For these reasons I've recently avoided buying anything before Haswell - the first generation with AVX-2 instructions. I would have preferred Broadwell or Skylake because of the new Intel graphics Linux driver [3], but they were too expensive. [1]: "Intel drops plans to develop Spectre microcode for ancient chips", https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/intel-drops-plans-to-develop-spectre-microcode-for-ancient-chips/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/intel-drops-plans-to... [2]: "Support timeframes for Unix legacy GPU releases", https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/support-timeframes-for-unix-legacy-gpu-releases https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/s... [3]: https://github.com/intel/media-driver https://github.com/intel/media-driver
  - simion314 6y ago
    Sure, my first computer was a 486 at the time my friends had Pentium2 . Nothing wrong with a poor kid getting a slower computer and this computer had to wait a few more years before was thrown to garbage (I passed it to a cousin when I had more money to get something more powerful that could play mp3s )
  - bserge 6y ago
    Core 2 Duo is ancient. But people are tossing 2-4 year old machines, and they've got everything one needs. Not to mention smartphones and tablets, which get old in 6 months. That's ridiculous. It's even worse with home appliances, which do not have any significant improvements yoy, or indeed, any improvements at all. Nothing but the design changes. They can be easily fixed and will last just as long as a new appliance.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
The only actual issue listed in this article is a screenshot of a tweet, that says there’s 5 million activation locked iPads sitting in lockers. I’m a HUGE fan of RTR, but I don’t really see how it helps anybody in this situation. You’re legally allowed to unlock/root iOS devices. Nothing legally stopping you. Now there are strong technical barriers indeed, though I bet most of these iPads are vulnerable to rooting.
- shawnz 6y ago
  They shouldn't have included that tweet in my opinion. Right to repair doesn't mean enabling people to bypass factory reset protection.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    What's an activation locked iPad? Does that mean lost, stolen, or an owner threw away a working iPad for some reason, despite its high resale value? Bypassing factory reset protection seems fine as long as its done as eminent domain seizure from the trash, not paying potential thieves.
    - shawnz 6y ago
      I think all that should really matter is whether it was the owner that chose to have the setting on.
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      >Bypassing factory reset protection seems fine as long as its done as eminent domain seizure from the trash, not paying potential thieves. Thieves (or a third party they sell to) will find a way to officially claim it was from the trash when it wasn't. People are clever and when there's money involved a system to exploit something will be found.
      - Wingman4l7 6y ago
        This conveniently ignores the existing huge volumes of secondhand Apple devices which were obtained legally for the refurbishing market, which will always be larger than the volume of devices from theft.
lacker 6y ago
There’s no supply shortage of Chromebooks, you can buy them on Amazon and have them delivered Thursday. Maybe schools don’t have money allocated for this, but refurbishing old PCs isn’t really going to solve that problem. A chromebook is pretty cheap compared to the overall cost of education in the US, so a school that claims it has a computer shortage is probably just not prioritizing the acquisition of additional computers, rather than being totally unable to acquire them.
- 3np 6y ago
  And those chromebooks are how repairable and maintainable? And how usable for an average school without Google software? This is larger than the immediate issue you think you're talking about.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  Not true. Chromebooks with FHD screens in quantity have been constrained since March. Uniformity is important for management of fleets of devices, free refurbs arent free — they require more labor.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    FHD is not strictly necessary. Refurbing broken old dells won't solve the unformity problem. The point of Chromebook is that they are uniform from a fleet management perspective. And the point of
    - danans 6y ago
      Neverware Cloud-ready is an entire OS derived from Chromium OS and designed to provide an experience very uniform with that of Chrome OS on old PC and Mac hardware: https://www.neverware.com/edu#edu-intro https://www.neverware.com/edu#edu-intro
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      The market disagrees — when I was sending out teams of people to buy laptops at retail during peak COVID crazy, those devices were in stock all over. Chromebook is awesome from a management perspective, but you need to buy Neverware to chrome-ify the boneyard stuff, and you still need to deal with batteries, power supplies, etc.
supernova87a 6y ago
But the story is totally vague. All he says is that there's a shortage, and that ability to repair could help. How exactly? Would it help in a comprehensive view of things? Certain aspects of making hardware affordable (for a given design) is being integrated and somewhat harder to repair. If manufacturers were required to make their stuff repairable, would that increase the costs of production and the price of laptops? Would fewer people be able to afford them? Would the specs of computers have to change in order to fit/enable removable parts? Are people likely to buy refurbed old computers at $200 versus $300 for a new one? Would the price of new computers go from $300 to $400 if this were required? None of these things are answered. The article/author is otherwise just advocating for something he desires (and I could go so far as to say using Covid as an cover, given the lack of detail) without being responsible for its implementation or feasibility. If the details were addressed, I could get on board with requiring companies to do so.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > If manufacturers were required to make their stuff repairable, would that increase the costs of production and the price of laptops? No. The difference in the manufacturing cost would be trivial, because the primary costs are in the high value components, e.g. CPU and display. > Would fewer people be able to afford them? No, because the costs would not materially increase. Moreover, the people for whom cost is a primary concern buy from the second hand market anyway, and increasing availability there would reduce prices by supply and demand. > Would the specs of computers have to change in order to fit/enable removable parts? We have some good evidence of this already, because repairable devices do exist even though they don't represent the majority of the market, and the specs are... basically identical. > Are people likely to buy refurbed old computers at $200 versus $300 for a new one? Yes, that's kind of the point. > Would the price of new computers go from $300 to $400 if this were required? Does increased competition usually result in higher prices? If anything they would need to take thinner margins in order to compete with the refurbished market. Which is why they don't want to do it.
  - supernova87a 6y ago
    I don't know that most of your blanket assertions are true. Just taking one example, the cost of manufacturing electronics is not just the raw cost of the component. And you seem just fine to have increased costs passed along to manufacturers and not believe it would have an effect on them, but then state that such small $ differences would have a big effect on people buying the stuff. But anyway, why should companies be required by law to build a product a certain way, for a feature that's not safety/public health/deceptive advertising related? If your statements are true, go out there and offer such a great product, and let it take the market. Otherwise, I don't agree with the logic of having laws intrude into the design choices of products that are voluntarily manufactured and purchased.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
I feel sad that we need to educate and demand 'The Right to Repair'. Yesterday, I accidentally noticed that my iPad Air 2 which I 've been using as a external display for ~ a year has its battery bulged and even pushed out the display[1]. If I hadn't noticed this, It could have ended really bad. But now I have to wait for the heat gun to arrive to remove the battery for safely discarding it, as Apple has made it really hard to change batteries. I don't intend to replace the battery, as I think any device with battery and without charging pass-through feature is a potential fire hazard when using for any application which involves charging constantly. I have removed other such devices (incl. iPhone) preemptively. More over I'm tired of spending money on expensive hardware which I don't own completely. There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence, which are bad for the consumers as well as for the planet. I will vote with my wallet for Fairphone, Pine64 like brands here after. [1]https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152 https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152
- supernova87a 6y ago
  So, the fact that the battery is glued into the tablet the way it is, is part of why it was at a certain $ price and had the form factor it did. Would you buy an iPad that cost say $100 more, and was twice as thick, so that you could repair it? I don't know, but that's not for me to mandate. If people are willing to buy what is being offered, why put a requirement that they build something different, by law? Let people/companies build what they think people will want, and have the market decide whether it survives. Nothing is stopping you from offering that product.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Companies don't want to offer that product because then you wouldn't have to replace it as often. For example, point me to the iPad with the replaceable battery. How can the market decide if the product isn't available? More people would buy it, but then they wouldn't have to buy it as often, so the overall number of sales would go down, so companies stop offering that. In theory in a competitive market you would then expect someone to defect and gain that business, but that doesn't work in highly concentrated markets. Apple and Samsung together have more than 70% of the US market. So you can either have right to repair, or you can do some trust busting. Or both.
formalsystems 6y ago
The 1 million laptop shortage in California was reported by the Sacramento Bee after polling school districts. I worked with school boards and school districts in California for 3 years selling education software, and I have to say that the people in administration are the most unaware of what the district's technology needs really are. For every heartwarming story of a school setting up a maker lab for its students, there is another school which was allocated funding for a hackerspace, bought all the necessary equipment, and then stuck it in a closet until the right person came along to set it up. I have seen brand new 3D printers grow obsolete sitting in a public school's storage room and shelves stocked with brand new Chromebooks as a "strategic reserve". The other thing about public school administration in California is the attitude that parents and rich benefactors will make up for any budget/equipment shortfall that a school faces. Administrators have an incentive to underreport their school's technology assets, since their requests are filled one way or another.
- mistrial9 6y ago
  second - I have seen this with my own eyes in California public schools
- specialist 6y ago
  This mirrors my direct experience as well. Teaching and computers don't mix. Certainly not before eighth grade. Maybe give every student an iPad every year. Tell Apple to just gift them for the tax write-off and goodwill. Maybe have computer labs, whatever curriculum units are called. Starting with logo turtles. Along side chemistry and other science units. Then maybe grant access to desktops and printers starting in ninth grade. Never provide internet access. I'd be okay with a computer skills class starting in middle school if there's a motivated teacher to staff it. So kids can play with Scratch, other proto programming stuff, some art stuff. Whatever's cool. Treat this like music, art, woodshop, and other electives. I'm VERY on board with a school sponsored, hosted "hackers" club. Like math, debate, young entrepreneurs, cheerleading, etc. clubs.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Programming is fairly difficult (beyond some very basic exercises) without internet access at this point, even just for reference material.
tedunangst 6y ago
How does unlocking an iPad turn it into a laptop? Second question: how are they planning to turn the million desktop PCs trapped in offices into laptops?
reaperducer 6y ago
This is just a group that is using "right to repair" to get attention for themselves. Nice and topical, complete with a clickbait headline and "think of the children" plea. The right to repair won't help the school computer shortage. There aren't enough broken computers, nor enough people able to repair them, to make a difference. I'm in favor of the right to repair. I've been repairing broken computers and electronics almost my entire life. I have a couple of Apple machines on my bench right now that I'm bringing back to life. But this is just opportunistic attention-seeking. And even if the most extreme ideals of "right to repair" were in place a decade ago, the situation would be the same as today because the need to manufacture new machines would have been lower, so we'd still have fewer available computers to sell or repair now.
- scarface74 6y ago
  And they are complaining that they can’t use them because they can’t remove the activation lock without the owner’s consent. That’s kind of the entire point. The government was actually pushing for something like an activation lock making stolen phones harder to use.
  - wmf 6y ago
    How many computers (not phones/tablets) have some sort of activation lock turned on? That part of the article is unclear.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I’m not aware of any PC that has an activation lock - maybe a bios password for a few but not many. Macs don’t have the concept of an activation lock do they? Even if it is password protected you can always reinstall the OS can’t you?
      - wmf 6y ago
        https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987 https://www.ifixit.com/News/34072/apples-activation-lock-will-make-it-very-difficult-to-refurbish-macs https://www.ifixit.com/News/34072/apples-activation-lock-wil... (biased obviously) Computrace may cause similar problems on PCs.
einpoklum 6y ago
A great part of the problem is planned obsolescence - through one of many avenues. A lot of modern Capitalist economy is based on massive continuous consumption. So much so that if a company sell a viable, well-manufactured, robust product - it might be digging its own grave, because people won't need to buy the same or slightly-better product next year or in a couple of years. So, what does the economic incentive make manufacturers do? * Make parts that are sensitive to the elements or to pressure, so they are likely to sustain damage faster. * Make mechanical parts that are flimsy, thin, or just naturally wear out quickly. * Use electric components with short lifespans: Batteries that can charge less and less (while consumption is kept high), capacitors that pop and leak, solder spots that heat up and detach etc. * Write software or promote software that uses ever more computing resources even for the same functionality. * Invest in advertising, "news" and cultural products which encourage repeated consumption, fashions, disdain for what's older etc. * In extreme cases like that spoiled-princess company, Apple - they actively sabotage their own hardware with lock-ins, slow-downs on upgrades and other such goodies. and there's more, I suppose.
- barbecue_sauce 6y ago
  I always see Apple cited as some malevolent king of planned obsolescence, but I have a 2013 MacBook Pro and an iPhone 6, both under constant use, both of which I have never had any significant issues with and do not plan to upgrade any time soon. I know they oppose Right-To-Repair, but so far their hardware has been fairly robust for me.
  - Wingman4l7 6y ago
    They've intentionally made battery replacement more difficult on their laptops by using strong adhesive on in their batteries (they used to screw them in). What's more damning IMO is their propensity to solder RAM, and now SSDs, to the motherboard. If permanently affixing the most commonly upgraded parts for laptops isn't planned obsolescence, I'm not sure what is.
    - Bud 6y ago
giantg2 6y ago
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about right to repair... or maybe it just means different things to different people. It's one thing to make a machine that is difficult to repair - like removing the screen to get to the battery. The real problem is when a company won't provide replacement parts and have patented the parts to eliminate third party manufacturers. The laws around the auto industry got it pretty much right - if the manufacturer mandates that you use a specific part, then they must make it available, and I believe they have to stock replacement parts for 20 years or something reasonable like that. It doesn't mean it's necessarily easy to make the repair (ever do transmission work?).
wiseleo 6y ago
I can buy used Chromebooks that clearly came from schools for $69 at retail and substantially less in container load quantities. At the same time, schools say they can’t buy Chromebooks. There’s a disconnect here - these devices are supported by Google longer than the schools are keeping them. Schools need to stop trashing perfectly functional devices as e-waste and should make them available to other schools and cities. I use my HP G4 11” Chromebooks every day for software development. They are certainly good enough for school work. I support right to repair, of course, but this article can cause harm to that cause. It mentions overriding activation locks. That’s bypassing security measures on functional products, which is not truly repair. Should the manufacturer have a process to factory reset low value equipment? Of course. Still, I wouldn’t want to conflate that with right of repair
citizenpaul 6y ago
For once I'm on board with a "PLEASE SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN" excuse for getting a law passed.
fortran77 6y ago
I'm all for a sensible "Right to Repair" but I'm not sure there's a "critical shortage of school computers"
shirakawasuna 6y ago
A repair mindset can also help with wastefulness and standardization. If you expect that you'll need to repair an item, having a certification or expectation that it can even be repaired will force the use of more standardized components. And less junk thrown into landfills.
greentimer 6y ago
People who read this would probably be interested in one laptop per child, which was a nonprofit effort to provide $100 laptops to students throughout the third world. There is no need to buy cheaper used laptops when the laptops can just be manufactured more cheaply to begin with. A lot of what people are spending their money on is the software like that of the operating system which is not strictly necessary for young students. The actual components of a barebones computer are dirt cheap.
- wmf 6y ago
  I don't think OLPC has much if any advantage over Chromebooks today. IIRC the OLPC laptop (not tablet) never reached $100; it was more like $200 with specs (e.g. VIA processor and 7.5" screen) that were weaker than even the cheapest $200 Chromebook.
bgorman 6y ago
How about school districts don't buy non-repairable devices? Enterprise focused laptops are easy to service.
hu3 6y ago
"The irony is that I’d like to do the responsible thing and wipe user data from these machines, but Apple won’t let me. Literally the only option is to destroy these beautiful $3000 MacBooks and recover the $12/ea they are worth as scrap." https://twitter.com/DebraMoxon/status/1251537062278332416 https://twitter.com/DebraMoxon/status/1251537062278332416
Animats 6y ago
It's going to be interesting if batteries good for far more charge cycles become available and the phone makers resist using them because they will extend device lifespan.
- deafcalculus 6y ago
  At least in the Android market, there is enough competition that this doesn't bother me.
persephonee 6y ago
My oldest notebook was sold in 2006-2008. I repaired it multiple times. I use it everyday, a Sony Vaio SZ1m
m0zg 6y ago
I wonder why there is a "shortage in school computers" still. Computers haven't significantly improved in the past decade, and most of the ones manufactured would still work fine at a local school. All you need to do is put in a $100 SSD into them and they're good to go. I have 3 older machines collecting dust around the house and I don't know what to do with them.
Animats 6y ago
The trouble with using recycled computers is that they're all different. That, in a school setting, is hell. "Every child a sysadmin"
Const-me 6y ago
I maintain and repair my electronic devices when needed. Some hardware vendors are better than other. Some of them publish service manuals for open access, and even have youtube channels with videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=ProBook+445+G7 https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=Pro...
valuearb 6y ago
Is there really a shortage of school computers? Unrequested: my kids got sent a chrome book and MSFT surface for school this year, when they already had better home computers. The US has never spent a higher percent of GDP on education, https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending so why is this a problem and what does it have to do with Right to Repair?
- wmf 6y ago
  "Lenovo, HP, and Dell have told school districts they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops" https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/us-faces-back-to-school-laptop-shortage-amid-covid-19/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/us-faces-back-to-school-laptop...
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Again, does every kid need a school procured laptop or pc? Mine didn’t, they had their own. My guess is most kids do so if schools just focused on the kids who didn’t already have computers the backlog would likely disappear.
arminiusreturns 6y ago
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The right to repair requires the right to root!
randyrand 6y ago
Low end computers cost peanuts compared to what we spend on education in the USA. Any perceived computer shortage is due to lack of will, not lack of funds.
- bArray 6y ago
  Agreed, there are plenty of retired machines out there. Hell, if they organized properly I am sure office companies would happily give them computers when they do their cycling every few years. I imagine their local firms probably refresh at least every 5 years. How many Windows/Linux laptops are as locked down as the iPad anyway? It seems that right-to-repair is specifically a war with Apple at the moment as they make vendor specific components and glue the thing together. Most off the shelf laptops use off the shelf user replaceable parts? To be honest I don't think we should encourage children into the Apple ecosystem until they sort their shit out. With so many credit-card sized computing devices, I don't know why we're not yet building laptops where you can just drop in some semi-standard computing device into the middle and simply plug in a HDMI screen, 5V USB power connector from a battery and USB peripherals. Kids don't need the slimmest, fastest computing device ever created, they need something robust and reliable. Maintaining these machines is often as simple as just having the ability to swap parts to build working machines - make it so that somebody not trained in tech can do it.
aaron695 6y ago
Not sure why this blog spam has so many upvotes? If you think IT repair and refurbishment in education is an amazing solution you're either naive or so brilliant no one else in the industry can see it. Random thought, physical destruction of hard disks is often required, as it should. If you could find a way to do it electronically and be auditable, it might be step one. The erasing is easy, the auditing is hard.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
I feel we need the manufacturers to provide a design lifespan for each device, and that should mean that at least half the devices sold must reach or exceed that age without significant degradation -> like a half-life. Nobody wants to buy a laptop that will only last 2 years, so the manufacturers would either have answer some tough questions, or design things to last, and to be repairable (because that's one way of making them last). Obviously careful through is needed towards the fine print - one should allow some parts to be replaced, like batteries, but not accept that a device lasts 10 years if you spend more on repairs than the device has cost in the first place.
foobar1962 6y ago
I don't see much about "right to repair" in the article. As @samatman says: "Right to repair and user-replaceable batteries have nothing to do with each other whatsoever." Some commenters mention how specialised tools are needed, and how a lot of things are glued together making repair difficult. This is a consequence of the engineering choices made between, say, a thin notebook and something like a Dell Latitude, and the purchasing preferences consumers have that drive those design choices.
rootsudo 6y ago
Wasn't aware of a shortage of school computers, imo growing up in Florida it was more of a shortage of competent IT staff. In middle school I was able to use Net Send, granted this was pre SP2 for WinXP but that was a great way to have fun, meanwhile in highschool it was veritas backup software, open network directories and simple permissions that, should've been locked down vs any semi competent kid could do, nefarious stuff. Of course, I never did. Ever. But the computers were never that used, I don't think we even had AD for unique user names, and we did not have email addresses. Computers were on a domain and there were some user names, but simple simple stuff like logging in as admin was possible (by default no password on Pre SP2.) For the article, they cover refurb, and IMO that's the best answer - Microsoft gives away O365/M365/W10 for school basically free (if not free) and there's entitlements via techsoup for any non-profit, that basically mean if you file a non-profit llc, you get it if you provide a resale license and state leter of incorporation. (Resale license is pretty common for most non-profits, and allows you to waive sales tax on most purchases, because, its' for sale and ultimately will increase tax revenue for the state/county) And an 5-7yr, maybe 10yr old i3, i5, i7 is all a student needs - a majority of students just need a basic laptop that should have good parts bin because it's probbaly to get damaged, vs having something new and not having that secondary resale/used/chinese market propping up parts. Old Dell Latitudes, XPS's, For email, office apps, browing, and general computing, I don't see an issue. Especially w/ an SSD. Now, macbooks, the resale market is strong on these, 2013 macbook airs are still selling for 400$+. Yeah. Right? 2013 Dell's and Lenovos, $100'ish. And they're great computers. Most of the time the users don't even know the differences, just have Windows 10 and have it O365 ready and look in "good" shape.
zxcb1 6y ago
Perhaps there should also be a Right to Virtualize? In this way there is less dependence on hardware and app ecosystems, as everything can co-exist and run everywhere; in the cloud or on refurbished hardware.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
phobosanomaly 6y ago
Public purchasing of refurbished computers by low-income school districts implemented on an accelerated time scale? There is no way that doesn't just turn into a feeding frenzy of people scamming school districts.
ThinkBeat 6y ago
This is one problem that the self proclaimed philanthropists of Silicon Valley could easily solv. Jeg buy 6 million computers. Easy. A lot might even come from gear they are replacing a anyways. Hopefully they will step up
rbanffy 6y ago
Fascinating. This looks like the kind of problem the OLPC was created to avoid - it was inexpensive, durable, open, standardized, and trivially easy to repair. It'd also be given to each and every student.
doggydogs94 6y ago
Maybe for the next pandemic ...

498 points by elorant 6y ago

shmerl 6y ago

It's surprising there even has to be a "right to repair" to actually repair things.

srtjstjsj 6y ago
There isn't. It's a political term to make a 2-sided issue look 1-sided.
- tengbretson 6y ago
  Not sure why this is a controversial take. Personally, I support most of the goals of the so-called "Right to Repair" but it should be pretty obvious that its name is a rhetorical trick to make people say "wow this company who's products I continually choose to purchase is really trampling my rights." Give me a break.
  - shmerl 6y ago
    You can vote with your wallet and don't buy anything from such company :) But curbing such nasty behavior from companies is still good, especially if they all start following that trend of locking things up.
    - tengbretson 6y ago
      Agreed on both counts. Still not a "right"
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
It’s almost always a commercial issue, where you would find yourself in a legal bind. I do think the “first sale” doctrine should extend everywhere and include tinkering. I understand that would cause a lot of changes in the licensing industry but it’s worth it in my opinion.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Would you say that first sale applies to the software service subscription as well?
dboreham 6y ago
If repair involves calibrating some software control system to the new part, and that can't be done without diagnostic software that nobody has access to. That kind of thing.
- shmerl 6y ago
  Good reason to make all that open source.
bonestamp2 6y ago
Yes and no. Yes, I think owners of devices should have much more access to the parts and tools needed to repair their own equipment. But, there's an argument in this article that I don't completely agree with, although I can sympathize with the need. Those activation locked iPads would be very helpful to address the device shortage at schools and it would be great if we could find a way to do that. But, it's not simple either. Activation lock is the problem in this scenario, but it's also a solution in another scenario. Activation lock has dramatically decreased theft of Apple phones and tablets. Right now, there's not much point in stealing one of these devices since it cannot be used by someone other than the owner. But I can remember a time when device theft was a daily occurance in public. The problem expressed in this article is that the legitimate owner has changed, but the lock has remained, and that is a valid problem. If a recycler can suddenly unlock them, that solves one problem but creates two more. Now you've resurrected the black market for stolen apple devices and created a new black market for the unlocking of these devices. Sure, there is probably a technical solution to solve that too, but my point is that a solution needs careful thought and not just free-for-all legislation.
- shmerl 6y ago
  I'd say schools should stay away from the likes of Apple and use devices and systems that don't have such problem in the first place.

walshemj 6y ago

Not sure that refurbing pc's had a problem with a right to repair. Some bandwagon jumping going on

bserge 6y ago

There's a notable lack of refurbishment/recycling businesses in western Europe. The UK is leading here, the Netherlands is also decent, but Germany, France, Belgium are surprisingly behind. Sure, there's quite a few small outfits that do it, but very few companies doing it at scale. I'm looking at possibly opening such a factory somewhere between FR/DE/BE, though it would ideally need some investment to get it up and running fast. We need to get rid of this stigma of buying used/refurbished. Nothing wrong with an older appliance that has been fixed, tested and cleaned properly. And the environment benefits.

ciupicri 6y ago
Nothing wrong with an older appliance, except that you get what you pay. It might be too power hungry or hot, it might be unsupported/obsolete [1][2] or too slow, e.g. Core 2 Duo can barely play FullHD YouTube videos; AV1 and H265 are also too slow on the first generations of Core CPUs (i5-520M, i3-2120). For these reasons I've recently avoided buying anything before Haswell - the first generation with AVX-2 instructions. I would have preferred Broadwell or Skylake because of the new Intel graphics Linux driver [3], but they were too expensive. [1]: "Intel drops plans to develop Spectre microcode for ancient chips", https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/intel-drops-plans-to-develop-spectre-microcode-for-ancient-chips/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/intel-drops-plans-to... [2]: "Support timeframes for Unix legacy GPU releases", https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/support-timeframes-for-unix-legacy-gpu-releases https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/s... [3]: https://github.com/intel/media-driver https://github.com/intel/media-driver
- simion314 6y ago
  Sure, my first computer was a 486 at the time my friends had Pentium2 . Nothing wrong with a poor kid getting a slower computer and this computer had to wait a few more years before was thrown to garbage (I passed it to a cousin when I had more money to get something more powerful that could play mp3s )
- bserge 6y ago
  Core 2 Duo is ancient. But people are tossing 2-4 year old machines, and they've got everything one needs. Not to mention smartphones and tablets, which get old in 6 months. That's ridiculous. It's even worse with home appliances, which do not have any significant improvements yoy, or indeed, any improvements at all. Nothing but the design changes. They can be easily fixed and will last just as long as a new appliance.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

The only actual issue listed in this article is a screenshot of a tweet, that says there’s 5 million activation locked iPads sitting in lockers. I’m a HUGE fan of RTR, but I don’t really see how it helps anybody in this situation. You’re legally allowed to unlock/root iOS devices. Nothing legally stopping you. Now there are strong technical barriers indeed, though I bet most of these iPads are vulnerable to rooting.

shawnz 6y ago
They shouldn't have included that tweet in my opinion. Right to repair doesn't mean enabling people to bypass factory reset protection.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  What's an activation locked iPad? Does that mean lost, stolen, or an owner threw away a working iPad for some reason, despite its high resale value? Bypassing factory reset protection seems fine as long as its done as eminent domain seizure from the trash, not paying potential thieves.
  - shawnz 6y ago
    I think all that should really matter is whether it was the owner that chose to have the setting on.
  - marcinzm 6y ago
    >Bypassing factory reset protection seems fine as long as its done as eminent domain seizure from the trash, not paying potential thieves. Thieves (or a third party they sell to) will find a way to officially claim it was from the trash when it wasn't. People are clever and when there's money involved a system to exploit something will be found.
    - Wingman4l7 6y ago
      This conveniently ignores the existing huge volumes of secondhand Apple devices which were obtained legally for the refurbishing market, which will always be larger than the volume of devices from theft.

lacker 6y ago

There’s no supply shortage of Chromebooks, you can buy them on Amazon and have them delivered Thursday. Maybe schools don’t have money allocated for this, but refurbishing old PCs isn’t really going to solve that problem. A chromebook is pretty cheap compared to the overall cost of education in the US, so a school that claims it has a computer shortage is probably just not prioritizing the acquisition of additional computers, rather than being totally unable to acquire them.

3np 6y ago
And those chromebooks are how repairable and maintainable? And how usable for an average school without Google software? This is larger than the immediate issue you think you're talking about.
Spooky23 6y ago
Not true. Chromebooks with FHD screens in quantity have been constrained since March. Uniformity is important for management of fleets of devices, free refurbs arent free — they require more labor.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  FHD is not strictly necessary. Refurbing broken old dells won't solve the unformity problem. The point of Chromebook is that they are uniform from a fleet management perspective. And the point of
  - danans 6y ago
    Neverware Cloud-ready is an entire OS derived from Chromium OS and designed to provide an experience very uniform with that of Chrome OS on old PC and Mac hardware: https://www.neverware.com/edu#edu-intro https://www.neverware.com/edu#edu-intro
  - Spooky23 6y ago
    The market disagrees — when I was sending out teams of people to buy laptops at retail during peak COVID crazy, those devices were in stock all over. Chromebook is awesome from a management perspective, but you need to buy Neverware to chrome-ify the boneyard stuff, and you still need to deal with batteries, power supplies, etc.

supernova87a 6y ago

But the story is totally vague. All he says is that there's a shortage, and that ability to repair could help. How exactly? Would it help in a comprehensive view of things? Certain aspects of making hardware affordable (for a given design) is being integrated and somewhat harder to repair. If manufacturers were required to make their stuff repairable, would that increase the costs of production and the price of laptops? Would fewer people be able to afford them? Would the specs of computers have to change in order to fit/enable removable parts? Are people likely to buy refurbed old computers at $200 versus $300 for a new one? Would the price of new computers go from $300 to $400 if this were required? None of these things are answered. The article/author is otherwise just advocating for something he desires (and I could go so far as to say using Covid as an cover, given the lack of detail) without being responsible for its implementation or feasibility. If the details were addressed, I could get on board with requiring companies to do so.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> If manufacturers were required to make their stuff repairable, would that increase the costs of production and the price of laptops? No. The difference in the manufacturing cost would be trivial, because the primary costs are in the high value components, e.g. CPU and display. > Would fewer people be able to afford them? No, because the costs would not materially increase. Moreover, the people for whom cost is a primary concern buy from the second hand market anyway, and increasing availability there would reduce prices by supply and demand. > Would the specs of computers have to change in order to fit/enable removable parts? We have some good evidence of this already, because repairable devices do exist even though they don't represent the majority of the market, and the specs are... basically identical. > Are people likely to buy refurbed old computers at $200 versus $300 for a new one? Yes, that's kind of the point. > Would the price of new computers go from $300 to $400 if this were required? Does increased competition usually result in higher prices? If anything they would need to take thinner margins in order to compete with the refurbished market. Which is why they don't want to do it.
- supernova87a 6y ago
  I don't know that most of your blanket assertions are true. Just taking one example, the cost of manufacturing electronics is not just the raw cost of the component. And you seem just fine to have increased costs passed along to manufacturers and not believe it would have an effect on them, but then state that such small $ differences would have a big effect on people buying the stuff. But anyway, why should companies be required by law to build a product a certain way, for a feature that's not safety/public health/deceptive advertising related? If your statements are true, go out there and offer such a great product, and let it take the market. Otherwise, I don't agree with the logic of having laws intrude into the design choices of products that are voluntarily manufactured and purchased.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

I feel sad that we need to educate and demand 'The Right to Repair'. Yesterday, I accidentally noticed that my iPad Air 2 which I 've been using as a external display for ~ a year has its battery bulged and even pushed out the display[1]. If I hadn't noticed this, It could have ended really bad. But now I have to wait for the heat gun to arrive to remove the battery for safely discarding it, as Apple has made it really hard to change batteries. I don't intend to replace the battery, as I think any device with battery and without charging pass-through feature is a potential fire hazard when using for any application which involves charging constantly. I have removed other such devices (incl. iPhone) preemptively. More over I'm tired of spending money on expensive hardware which I don't own completely. There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable batteries other than planned obsolescence, which are bad for the consumers as well as for the planet. I will vote with my wallet for Fairphone, Pine64 like brands here after. [1]https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152 https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152

supernova87a 6y ago
So, the fact that the battery is glued into the tablet the way it is, is part of why it was at a certain $ price and had the form factor it did. Would you buy an iPad that cost say $100 more, and was twice as thick, so that you could repair it? I don't know, but that's not for me to mandate. If people are willing to buy what is being offered, why put a requirement that they build something different, by law? Let people/companies build what they think people will want, and have the market decide whether it survives. Nothing is stopping you from offering that product.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Companies don't want to offer that product because then you wouldn't have to replace it as often. For example, point me to the iPad with the replaceable battery. How can the market decide if the product isn't available? More people would buy it, but then they wouldn't have to buy it as often, so the overall number of sales would go down, so companies stop offering that. In theory in a competitive market you would then expect someone to defect and gain that business, but that doesn't work in highly concentrated markets. Apple and Samsung together have more than 70% of the US market. So you can either have right to repair, or you can do some trust busting. Or both.

formalsystems 6y ago

The 1 million laptop shortage in California was reported by the Sacramento Bee after polling school districts. I worked with school boards and school districts in California for 3 years selling education software, and I have to say that the people in administration are the most unaware of what the district's technology needs really are. For every heartwarming story of a school setting up a maker lab for its students, there is another school which was allocated funding for a hackerspace, bought all the necessary equipment, and then stuck it in a closet until the right person came along to set it up. I have seen brand new 3D printers grow obsolete sitting in a public school's storage room and shelves stocked with brand new Chromebooks as a "strategic reserve". The other thing about public school administration in California is the attitude that parents and rich benefactors will make up for any budget/equipment shortfall that a school faces. Administrators have an incentive to underreport their school's technology assets, since their requests are filled one way or another.

mistrial9 6y ago
second - I have seen this with my own eyes in California public schools
specialist 6y ago
This mirrors my direct experience as well. Teaching and computers don't mix. Certainly not before eighth grade. Maybe give every student an iPad every year. Tell Apple to just gift them for the tax write-off and goodwill. Maybe have computer labs, whatever curriculum units are called. Starting with logo turtles. Along side chemistry and other science units. Then maybe grant access to desktops and printers starting in ninth grade. Never provide internet access. I'd be okay with a computer skills class starting in middle school if there's a motivated teacher to staff it. So kids can play with Scratch, other proto programming stuff, some art stuff. Whatever's cool. Treat this like music, art, woodshop, and other electives. I'm VERY on board with a school sponsored, hosted "hackers" club. Like math, debate, young entrepreneurs, cheerleading, etc. clubs.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Programming is fairly difficult (beyond some very basic exercises) without internet access at this point, even just for reference material.

tedunangst 6y ago

How does unlocking an iPad turn it into a laptop? Second question: how are they planning to turn the million desktop PCs trapped in offices into laptops?

reaperducer 6y ago

This is just a group that is using "right to repair" to get attention for themselves. Nice and topical, complete with a clickbait headline and "think of the children" plea. The right to repair won't help the school computer shortage. There aren't enough broken computers, nor enough people able to repair them, to make a difference. I'm in favor of the right to repair. I've been repairing broken computers and electronics almost my entire life. I have a couple of Apple machines on my bench right now that I'm bringing back to life. But this is just opportunistic attention-seeking. And even if the most extreme ideals of "right to repair" were in place a decade ago, the situation would be the same as today because the need to manufacture new machines would have been lower, so we'd still have fewer available computers to sell or repair now.

scarface74 6y ago
And they are complaining that they can’t use them because they can’t remove the activation lock without the owner’s consent. That’s kind of the entire point. The government was actually pushing for something like an activation lock making stolen phones harder to use.
- wmf 6y ago
  How many computers (not phones/tablets) have some sort of activation lock turned on? That part of the article is unclear.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    I’m not aware of any PC that has an activation lock - maybe a bios password for a few but not many. Macs don’t have the concept of an activation lock do they? Even if it is password protected you can always reinstall the OS can’t you?
    - wmf 6y ago
      https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208987 https://www.ifixit.com/News/34072/apples-activation-lock-will-make-it-very-difficult-to-refurbish-macs https://www.ifixit.com/News/34072/apples-activation-lock-wil... (biased obviously) Computrace may cause similar problems on PCs.

einpoklum 6y ago

A great part of the problem is planned obsolescence - through one of many avenues. A lot of modern Capitalist economy is based on massive continuous consumption. So much so that if a company sell a viable, well-manufactured, robust product - it might be digging its own grave, because people won't need to buy the same or slightly-better product next year or in a couple of years. So, what does the economic incentive make manufacturers do? * Make parts that are sensitive to the elements or to pressure, so they are likely to sustain damage faster. * Make mechanical parts that are flimsy, thin, or just naturally wear out quickly. * Use electric components with short lifespans: Batteries that can charge less and less (while consumption is kept high), capacitors that pop and leak, solder spots that heat up and detach etc. * Write software or promote software that uses ever more computing resources even for the same functionality. * Invest in advertising, "news" and cultural products which encourage repeated consumption, fashions, disdain for what's older etc. * In extreme cases like that spoiled-princess company, Apple - they actively sabotage their own hardware with lock-ins, slow-downs on upgrades and other such goodies. and there's more, I suppose.

barbecue_sauce 6y ago
I always see Apple cited as some malevolent king of planned obsolescence, but I have a 2013 MacBook Pro and an iPhone 6, both under constant use, both of which I have never had any significant issues with and do not plan to upgrade any time soon. I know they oppose Right-To-Repair, but so far their hardware has been fairly robust for me.
- Wingman4l7 6y ago
  They've intentionally made battery replacement more difficult on their laptops by using strong adhesive on in their batteries (they used to screw them in). What's more damning IMO is their propensity to solder RAM, and now SSDs, to the motherboard. If permanently affixing the most commonly upgraded parts for laptops isn't planned obsolescence, I'm not sure what is.
  - Bud 6y ago

giantg2 6y ago

I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about right to repair... or maybe it just means different things to different people. It's one thing to make a machine that is difficult to repair - like removing the screen to get to the battery. The real problem is when a company won't provide replacement parts and have patented the parts to eliminate third party manufacturers. The laws around the auto industry got it pretty much right - if the manufacturer mandates that you use a specific part, then they must make it available, and I believe they have to stock replacement parts for 20 years or something reasonable like that. It doesn't mean it's necessarily easy to make the repair (ever do transmission work?).

wiseleo 6y ago

I can buy used Chromebooks that clearly came from schools for $69 at retail and substantially less in container load quantities. At the same time, schools say they can’t buy Chromebooks. There’s a disconnect here - these devices are supported by Google longer than the schools are keeping them. Schools need to stop trashing perfectly functional devices as e-waste and should make them available to other schools and cities. I use my HP G4 11” Chromebooks every day for software development. They are certainly good enough for school work. I support right to repair, of course, but this article can cause harm to that cause. It mentions overriding activation locks. That’s bypassing security measures on functional products, which is not truly repair. Should the manufacturer have a process to factory reset low value equipment? Of course. Still, I wouldn’t want to conflate that with right of repair

citizenpaul 6y ago

For once I'm on board with a "PLEASE SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN" excuse for getting a law passed.

fortran77 6y ago

I'm all for a sensible "Right to Repair" but I'm not sure there's a "critical shortage of school computers"

shirakawasuna 6y ago

A repair mindset can also help with wastefulness and standardization. If you expect that you'll need to repair an item, having a certification or expectation that it can even be repaired will force the use of more standardized components. And less junk thrown into landfills.

greentimer 6y ago

People who read this would probably be interested in one laptop per child, which was a nonprofit effort to provide $100 laptops to students throughout the third world. There is no need to buy cheaper used laptops when the laptops can just be manufactured more cheaply to begin with. A lot of what people are spending their money on is the software like that of the operating system which is not strictly necessary for young students. The actual components of a barebones computer are dirt cheap.

wmf 6y ago
I don't think OLPC has much if any advantage over Chromebooks today. IIRC the OLPC laptop (not tablet) never reached $100; it was more like $200 with specs (e.g. VIA processor and 7.5" screen) that were weaker than even the cheapest $200 Chromebook.

bgorman 6y ago

How about school districts don't buy non-repairable devices? Enterprise focused laptops are easy to service.

hu3 6y ago

"The irony is that I’d like to do the responsible thing and wipe user data from these machines, but Apple won’t let me. Literally the only option is to destroy these beautiful $3000 MacBooks and recover the $12/ea they are worth as scrap." https://twitter.com/DebraMoxon/status/1251537062278332416 https://twitter.com/DebraMoxon/status/1251537062278332416

Animats 6y ago

It's going to be interesting if batteries good for far more charge cycles become available and the phone makers resist using them because they will extend device lifespan.

deafcalculus 6y ago
At least in the Android market, there is enough competition that this doesn't bother me.

persephonee 6y ago

My oldest notebook was sold in 2006-2008. I repaired it multiple times. I use it everyday, a Sony Vaio SZ1m

m0zg 6y ago

I wonder why there is a "shortage in school computers" still. Computers haven't significantly improved in the past decade, and most of the ones manufactured would still work fine at a local school. All you need to do is put in a $100 SSD into them and they're good to go. I have 3 older machines collecting dust around the house and I don't know what to do with them.

Animats 6y ago

The trouble with using recycled computers is that they're all different. That, in a school setting, is hell. "Every child a sysadmin"

Const-me 6y ago

I maintain and repair my electronic devices when needed. Some hardware vendors are better than other. Some of them publish service manuals for open access, and even have youtube channels with videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=ProBook+445+G7 https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=Pro...

valuearb 6y ago

Is there really a shortage of school computers? Unrequested: my kids got sent a chrome book and MSFT surface for school this year, when they already had better home computers. The US has never spent a higher percent of GDP on education, https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending so why is this a problem and what does it have to do with Right to Repair?

wmf 6y ago
"Lenovo, HP, and Dell have told school districts they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops" https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/us-faces-back-to-school-laptop-shortage-amid-covid-19/ https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/us-faces-back-to-school-laptop...
- valuearb 6y ago
  Again, does every kid need a school procured laptop or pc? Mine didn’t, they had their own. My guess is most kids do so if schools just focused on the kids who didn’t already have computers the backlog would likely disappear.

arminiusreturns 6y ago

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The right to repair requires the right to root!

randyrand 6y ago

Low end computers cost peanuts compared to what we spend on education in the USA. Any perceived computer shortage is due to lack of will, not lack of funds.

bArray 6y ago
Agreed, there are plenty of retired machines out there. Hell, if they organized properly I am sure office companies would happily give them computers when they do their cycling every few years. I imagine their local firms probably refresh at least every 5 years. How many Windows/Linux laptops are as locked down as the iPad anyway? It seems that right-to-repair is specifically a war with Apple at the moment as they make vendor specific components and glue the thing together. Most off the shelf laptops use off the shelf user replaceable parts? To be honest I don't think we should encourage children into the Apple ecosystem until they sort their shit out. With so many credit-card sized computing devices, I don't know why we're not yet building laptops where you can just drop in some semi-standard computing device into the middle and simply plug in a HDMI screen, 5V USB power connector from a battery and USB peripherals. Kids don't need the slimmest, fastest computing device ever created, they need something robust and reliable. Maintaining these machines is often as simple as just having the ability to swap parts to build working machines - make it so that somebody not trained in tech can do it.

aaron695 6y ago

Not sure why this blog spam has so many upvotes? If you think IT repair and refurbishment in education is an amazing solution you're either naive or so brilliant no one else in the industry can see it. Random thought, physical destruction of hard disks is often required, as it should. If you could find a way to do it electronically and be auditable, it might be step one. The erasing is easy, the auditing is hard.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

I feel we need the manufacturers to provide a design lifespan for each device, and that should mean that at least half the devices sold must reach or exceed that age without significant degradation -> like a half-life. Nobody wants to buy a laptop that will only last 2 years, so the manufacturers would either have answer some tough questions, or design things to last, and to be repairable (because that's one way of making them last). Obviously careful through is needed towards the fine print - one should allow some parts to be replaced, like batteries, but not accept that a device lasts 10 years if you spend more on repairs than the device has cost in the first place.

foobar1962 6y ago

I don't see much about "right to repair" in the article. As @samatman says: "Right to repair and user-replaceable batteries have nothing to do with each other whatsoever." Some commenters mention how specialised tools are needed, and how a lot of things are glued together making repair difficult. This is a consequence of the engineering choices made between, say, a thin notebook and something like a Dell Latitude, and the purchasing preferences consumers have that drive those design choices.

rootsudo 6y ago

Wasn't aware of a shortage of school computers, imo growing up in Florida it was more of a shortage of competent IT staff. In middle school I was able to use Net Send, granted this was pre SP2 for WinXP but that was a great way to have fun, meanwhile in highschool it was veritas backup software, open network directories and simple permissions that, should've been locked down vs any semi competent kid could do, nefarious stuff. Of course, I never did. Ever. But the computers were never that used, I don't think we even had AD for unique user names, and we did not have email addresses. Computers were on a domain and there were some user names, but simple simple stuff like logging in as admin was possible (by default no password on Pre SP2.) For the article, they cover refurb, and IMO that's the best answer - Microsoft gives away O365/M365/W10 for school basically free (if not free) and there's entitlements via techsoup for any non-profit, that basically mean if you file a non-profit llc, you get it if you provide a resale license and state leter of incorporation. (Resale license is pretty common for most non-profits, and allows you to waive sales tax on most purchases, because, its' for sale and ultimately will increase tax revenue for the state/county) And an 5-7yr, maybe 10yr old i3, i5, i7 is all a student needs - a majority of students just need a basic laptop that should have good parts bin because it's probbaly to get damaged, vs having something new and not having that secondary resale/used/chinese market propping up parts. Old Dell Latitudes, XPS's, For email, office apps, browing, and general computing, I don't see an issue. Especially w/ an SSD. Now, macbooks, the resale market is strong on these, 2013 macbook airs are still selling for 400$+. Yeah. Right? 2013 Dell's and Lenovos, $100'ish. And they're great computers. Most of the time the users don't even know the differences, just have Windows 10 and have it O365 ready and look in "good" shape.

zxcb1 6y ago

Perhaps there should also be a Right to Virtualize? In this way there is less dependence on hardware and app ecosystems, as everything can co-exist and run everywhere; in the cloud or on refurbished hardware.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

phobosanomaly 6y ago

Public purchasing of refurbished computers by low-income school districts implemented on an accelerated time scale? There is no way that doesn't just turn into a feeding frenzy of people scamming school districts.

ThinkBeat 6y ago

This is one problem that the self proclaimed philanthropists of Silicon Valley could easily solv. Jeg buy 6 million computers. Easy. A lot might even come from gear they are replacing a anyways. Hopefully they will step up

rbanffy 6y ago

Fascinating. This looks like the kind of problem the OLPC was created to avoid - it was inexpensive, durable, open, standardized, and trivially easy to repair. It'd also be given to each and every student.

doggydogs94 6y ago

Maybe for the next pandemic ...