5 ms·

Serious question: could anyone please share why this plea for repairable tech is so heavily downvoted by this community?

dylan604 5y ago
Apple makes hardware that runs macOS. They do not make hardware to run Windows/*nix. They do not need/want to support those other OSes, else, they would make a product that would do that. They have theirs and they feel it is perfectly fine for the product they are offering "thank you very much". Since day one of Apple, the Steves argued open/closed system. Up to the Apple II, Woz won. With the Macintosh and ever since, Jobs won. It is now Apple's ethos. It is theirs to decide. You are free to not like it. Others don't like it, shrug their shoulders and choose to do it anyways. Some of them will even share what they've learned, and some of those will even do that well. If you choose to follow, thank them, and join the movement. Complaing that a company isn't doing exactly what you want just seems sad and pathetic to me.
salawat 5y ago
Besides the sheep bit, there's two unsaid parts that ring out to me. Understanding IC's to repair them is a failing prospect. They are black boxes by nature. If you can't actually repair it without the factory, why should they write you a manual to help you repair it? Beyond that though, there is a degree of Power lost through dispelling the blackbox (information asymmetry is Power, never forget). Explaining how it works opens up PR doors places would rather not have to deal with, and cuts off avenues of development that companies in the space thrive on. See Nvidia graphics cards for an example. Nvidia doesn't "sell" you the card, in the sense of allowing you to do whatever you want with it because they can't. They are contractually required to hide implementation details around things like HDCP and the in hardware foundations of many streaming related DRM technologies. Then you have other aspects, like their move to requiring Nvidia signed firmware to access the power control of modern cards. This ensures only their driver can feasibly compete in the market and locks out any potential competition that may be able to pull off a true innovation using their own hardware platform (see nouveau and the signed firmware issue). All of this would be undone by actually being required to support user firmware implementation, and disclosing how everything works. https://docs.nvidia.com/drive/drive_os_5.1.6.1L/nvvib_docs/index.html#page/DRIVE_OS_Linux_SDK_Development_Guide/Windows%20Systems/security_fskp.html https://docs.nvidia.com/drive/drive_os_5.1.6.1L/nvvib_docs/i... The above is a link to an offering for a self-driving processing offering (therefore safety-criticality somewhat justifies the absurd guarantees of firmware lockdown), but my experience tells me that once ypu nail down a tricky process like that, you worm it into as many parallel business vehicles as you can. Just knowing another company is even capable of doing something like that is a signal of demand to competitors. Hence the desire to hide everything possible as no one else's business.
- varispeed 5y ago
  I think you are missing the point. I don't need to know what's inside the black box, but how to communicate with it. Nobody wants documentation that you could send to a factory and said "make me this". Nobody asks for firmware source code either. In the software world, companies are happy to release API documentation - it does not reveal any secrets, but lets customers use the product in many other ways. The same goes with chips.
anoncake 5y ago
Because for some reason, many here believe companies have the right to do things not in the interest of their customers.
blendergeek 5y ago
Probably partly because it uses the word, "sheep". The word "sheep" is often considered a derogatory non-argument that serves only to rally up believers rather than a substantive piece of rhetoric.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  To be fair, the words "Apple" and "sheep" are so closely associated in the tech world at this point that it's hard to fault someone for using it. I get what you're saying, but there's a reason nobody is in these comments defending Apple for being conscious engineers or helpful to third-party repair shops.
- userbinator 5y ago
  You may find the Rossmann Group logo amusing - it's a black sheep.
smoldesu 5y ago
Perennial Apple users are attracted to HN like moths to a flame. The typical cycle involves upvoting random articles with "M1" in the title, and then serial downvoting anyone who asks questions/criticizes the article or Apple. I wish I could say it was anything else, but given that none of them leave comments on these downvoted replies, it's hard to tell what their gripes are.
Jtsummers 5y ago
Probably the repeated insistence on "force" and "forcing" this result. It's not a practical requirement or an enforceable one in the end unless nearly every government (and every government for every country with a significant manufacturing industry) goes in on this together.
- varispeed 5y ago
  It only takes one government to make it happen (or even a state that is large enough that manufacturers will not choose to stop selling products there). If this was passed e.g. in California, that would open the access up for almost anyone in the world.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    It would be practically unenforceable if CA did it, or even the US. The market in both is large, but not large enough, and it's hard to force compliance on companies from other countries. The result would be similar to the protectionist trade policies that hamper market entry for foreign produced goods in India and some Latin American countries like Argentina. There are enough customers elsewhere whose governments wouldn't give a thought to this that non-CA/US companies would safely ignore CA/US in this case. It would only work with coordinated effort. There are also other second order effects not considered by a policy like this. What's the timeline and what's the company scale that this levies? Is the documentation expected on day 1? Great, Apple and Google and Sony and others will squash all small competitors. You will never see another small (< 20) person hardware startup (not that we see them often anyways) because the cost to produce this kind of documentation is non-zero, and the big players can easily absorb it into their processes. Additionally, small players would literally be handing the design to competitors. OK, maybe patents and things like that stop some companies from being bad actors and reproducing the product in short order, but it won't stop everyone especially in countries with laxer or no enforcement of patents. Additionally, problems would be created if designs were produced in non-compliant countries. If I start up a hardware company and make a new device, but half my components are designed in Taiwan and they've decided to explicitly reject this, am I non-compliant for not releasing documentation I don't have the authority to release? And if I'm able to become exempted because of a 3rd party component, everyone else would start shifting their design departments to contractors (if necessary) in those countries or shift a portion of their company there.
Cloudef 5y ago
I dont think its the community. Its just that the people who read/comment on apple related articles tend to be the kind of demographic that dont value those aspects as much. They are looking for a service, not a product.
- criddell 5y ago
  It is the community, but not because we don't care about it. It's because in a thread on an article like this it's not a very valuable comment. The comments it generates (including yours and mine) has nothing to do with the SPRR or exception levels.
- Toutouxc 5y ago
  > They are looking for a service, not a product That's an unfortunate choice of words. I'm definitely looking for a product, not a service (which is why I bought my MacBook instead of leasing it), but everything I need the machine for overlaps with what Apple envisions me doing with the machine. I don't want my machine to be amateur-repairman friendly and my OS to be infinitely customizable and tinkerable, because we already have that, it's called Linux on a ThinkPad and to me that's the antithesis of a Mac and I consciously decided not to use that kind of setup. (I'm not strongly for or anti right-to-repair, but I tend to be against tight regulation when avoidable.)
- mlindner 5y ago
  I'm a lifelong Mac user (born in the late 80s, and have used macs my entire life). I'm absolutely buying a product and not a service.
- Cloudef 5y ago
  I'm glad to be proven wrong here with the many replies
setpatchaddress 5y ago
I'm not voting on it either way, so I can't say, but I personally find it off topic. TFA is a technical article; there are plenty of articles that discuss right-to-repair etc. Edited to add: the author doesn't seem to themselves be heartbroken. This level of detail suggests enthusiasm.
- svenpeter 5y ago
  > Edited to add: the author doesn't seem to themselves be heartbroken. This level of detail suggests enthusiasm. Absolutely not! Reverse engineering is a lot of fun to me! Especially the moment of clarity when all the unknown pieces eventually fall together and I finally get the whole picture.

dylan604 5y ago

Apple makes hardware that runs macOS. They do not make hardware to run Windows/*nix. They do not need/want to support those other OSes, else, they would make a product that would do that. They have theirs and they feel it is perfectly fine for the product they are offering "thank you very much". Since day one of Apple, the Steves argued open/closed system. Up to the Apple II, Woz won. With the Macintosh and ever since, Jobs won. It is now Apple's ethos. It is theirs to decide. You are free to not like it. Others don't like it, shrug their shoulders and choose to do it anyways. Some of them will even share what they've learned, and some of those will even do that well. If you choose to follow, thank them, and join the movement. Complaing that a company isn't doing exactly what you want just seems sad and pathetic to me.

salawat 5y ago

Besides the sheep bit, there's two unsaid parts that ring out to me. Understanding IC's to repair them is a failing prospect. They are black boxes by nature. If you can't actually repair it without the factory, why should they write you a manual to help you repair it? Beyond that though, there is a degree of Power lost through dispelling the blackbox (information asymmetry is Power, never forget). Explaining how it works opens up PR doors places would rather not have to deal with, and cuts off avenues of development that companies in the space thrive on. See Nvidia graphics cards for an example. Nvidia doesn't "sell" you the card, in the sense of allowing you to do whatever you want with it because they can't. They are contractually required to hide implementation details around things like HDCP and the in hardware foundations of many streaming related DRM technologies. Then you have other aspects, like their move to requiring Nvidia signed firmware to access the power control of modern cards. This ensures only their driver can feasibly compete in the market and locks out any potential competition that may be able to pull off a true innovation using their own hardware platform (see nouveau and the signed firmware issue). All of this would be undone by actually being required to support user firmware implementation, and disclosing how everything works. https://docs.nvidia.com/drive/drive_os_5.1.6.1L/nvvib_docs/index.html#page/DRIVE_OS_Linux_SDK_Development_Guide/Windows%20Systems/security_fskp.html https://docs.nvidia.com/drive/drive_os_5.1.6.1L/nvvib_docs/i... The above is a link to an offering for a self-driving processing offering (therefore safety-criticality somewhat justifies the absurd guarantees of firmware lockdown), but my experience tells me that once ypu nail down a tricky process like that, you worm it into as many parallel business vehicles as you can. Just knowing another company is even capable of doing something like that is a signal of demand to competitors. Hence the desire to hide everything possible as no one else's business.

varispeed 5y ago
I think you are missing the point. I don't need to know what's inside the black box, but how to communicate with it. Nobody wants documentation that you could send to a factory and said "make me this". Nobody asks for firmware source code either. In the software world, companies are happy to release API documentation - it does not reveal any secrets, but lets customers use the product in many other ways. The same goes with chips.

anoncake 5y ago

Because for some reason, many here believe companies have the right to do things not in the interest of their customers.

blendergeek 5y ago

Probably partly because it uses the word, "sheep". The word "sheep" is often considered a derogatory non-argument that serves only to rally up believers rather than a substantive piece of rhetoric.

smoldesu 5y ago
To be fair, the words "Apple" and "sheep" are so closely associated in the tech world at this point that it's hard to fault someone for using it. I get what you're saying, but there's a reason nobody is in these comments defending Apple for being conscious engineers or helpful to third-party repair shops.
userbinator 5y ago
You may find the Rossmann Group logo amusing - it's a black sheep.

smoldesu 5y ago

Perennial Apple users are attracted to HN like moths to a flame. The typical cycle involves upvoting random articles with "M1" in the title, and then serial downvoting anyone who asks questions/criticizes the article or Apple. I wish I could say it was anything else, but given that none of them leave comments on these downvoted replies, it's hard to tell what their gripes are.

Jtsummers 5y ago

Probably the repeated insistence on "force" and "forcing" this result. It's not a practical requirement or an enforceable one in the end unless nearly every government (and every government for every country with a significant manufacturing industry) goes in on this together.

varispeed 5y ago
It only takes one government to make it happen (or even a state that is large enough that manufacturers will not choose to stop selling products there). If this was passed e.g. in California, that would open the access up for almost anyone in the world.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  It would be practically unenforceable if CA did it, or even the US. The market in both is large, but not large enough, and it's hard to force compliance on companies from other countries. The result would be similar to the protectionist trade policies that hamper market entry for foreign produced goods in India and some Latin American countries like Argentina. There are enough customers elsewhere whose governments wouldn't give a thought to this that non-CA/US companies would safely ignore CA/US in this case. It would only work with coordinated effort. There are also other second order effects not considered by a policy like this. What's the timeline and what's the company scale that this levies? Is the documentation expected on day 1? Great, Apple and Google and Sony and others will squash all small competitors. You will never see another small (< 20) person hardware startup (not that we see them often anyways) because the cost to produce this kind of documentation is non-zero, and the big players can easily absorb it into their processes. Additionally, small players would literally be handing the design to competitors. OK, maybe patents and things like that stop some companies from being bad actors and reproducing the product in short order, but it won't stop everyone especially in countries with laxer or no enforcement of patents. Additionally, problems would be created if designs were produced in non-compliant countries. If I start up a hardware company and make a new device, but half my components are designed in Taiwan and they've decided to explicitly reject this, am I non-compliant for not releasing documentation I don't have the authority to release? And if I'm able to become exempted because of a 3rd party component, everyone else would start shifting their design departments to contractors (if necessary) in those countries or shift a portion of their company there.

Cloudef 5y ago

I dont think its the community. Its just that the people who read/comment on apple related articles tend to be the kind of demographic that dont value those aspects as much. They are looking for a service, not a product.

criddell 5y ago
It is the community, but not because we don't care about it. It's because in a thread on an article like this it's not a very valuable comment. The comments it generates (including yours and mine) has nothing to do with the SPRR or exception levels.
Toutouxc 5y ago
> They are looking for a service, not a product That's an unfortunate choice of words. I'm definitely looking for a product, not a service (which is why I bought my MacBook instead of leasing it), but everything I need the machine for overlaps with what Apple envisions me doing with the machine. I don't want my machine to be amateur-repairman friendly and my OS to be infinitely customizable and tinkerable, because we already have that, it's called Linux on a ThinkPad and to me that's the antithesis of a Mac and I consciously decided not to use that kind of setup. (I'm not strongly for or anti right-to-repair, but I tend to be against tight regulation when avoidable.)
mlindner 5y ago
I'm a lifelong Mac user (born in the late 80s, and have used macs my entire life). I'm absolutely buying a product and not a service.
Cloudef 5y ago
I'm glad to be proven wrong here with the many replies

setpatchaddress 5y ago

I'm not voting on it either way, so I can't say, but I personally find it off topic. TFA is a technical article; there are plenty of articles that discuss right-to-repair etc. Edited to add: the author doesn't seem to themselves be heartbroken. This level of detail suggests enthusiasm.

svenpeter 5y ago
> Edited to add: the author doesn't seem to themselves be heartbroken. This level of detail suggests enthusiasm. Absolutely not! Reverse engineering is a lot of fun to me! Especially the moment of clarity when all the unknown pieces eventually fall together and I finally get the whole picture.