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4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product o

4. Excludes motor vehicle manufacturers, manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment, or motor vehicle dealers and medical devices or a digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings. For all the bravado about standing up to powerful interests, this shows you who the most powerful interests are in that space.

neallindsay 5y ago
Plus it gives Apple an out as soon as they release a car, which is extremely weird.
- nolok 5y ago
  If that metric is true doesn't that already give google, lg, samsung, ... an out ? "manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment" is sufficiently large to include everyone we want that law for.
fitchjo 5y ago
Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired could impact a life.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  You’ve used a grey argument. Apple themselves have argued that one of the reasons they have to limit repair is for public safety (someone could have a battery explode if they pierce it, for example), whereas we could also argue the other side: that if someone modifies their own medical device and gets hurt because of it that they legally only hurt themselves because they had the right to make that choice. IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual?
  - eganist 5y ago
    > that if someone modifies their own medical device and gets hurt because of it that they legally only hurt themselves because they had the right to make that choice. Well, while this applies to medical devices, worth noting this doesn't apply to cars, for which safety inspections have existed in many states for quite a while.
    - joshspankit 5y ago
      I’d argue that it does apply to cars as safety inspections don’t apply when you keep a vehicle within the bounds of private property.
      - noizejoy 5y ago
        Would that be similar to having an iPhone never connected to the Internet?
  - Wowfunhappy 5y ago
    > IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual? This is a really great way to put it, and it applies broadly to so many fundamental disagreements in the tech world. I firmly believe it’s better to trust the individual—so I think users should be able to sideload iOS apps (only if they want to) and install their own root certificates. Others think individuals can’t be trusted, and so we should let tech companies dictate what is safe for everyone else.
    - wiz21c 5y ago
      > IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual? In the US, I think, some companies sell weapons and nobody seems to care if people can hurt themselves with them.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  These laws obligate the manufacturer to release maintenance and repair manuals, like the ones they provide to the authorized service centers; and ban all litigation related to someone providing unauthorized services, etc... Depending on the law, it may also require more documentation, ban on total lockdown of devices and obligation to sell spare parts(but you often can buy genuine spare parts through service centers) Right to fix also doesn't cover warranties, as you will loose your warranty when doing it yourself. For cars or medical equipment - that's clearly political influence, masquerading as "public safety". There's nothing stopping me from modifying my car to be very dangerous right now, without even affecting my warranty. The difference - I cannot install a third party keyfob, because the protocol is locked down. The kind of medical equipment that hospitals require, already comes with multi-decade support. And your CPAP device can be serviced by someone without manufacturer specific training(that costs a fortune, for little practical value).
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    > Right to fix also doesn't cover warranties, as you will loose your warranty when doing it yourself. The Magnussen-Moss warranty act of 1975 states (IANAL) that a repair cannot void the warranty unless the manufacturer can prove that your repair caused the damage in question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
    - kube-system 5y ago
      This is correct. Those "warranty void if broken" stickers are only worth as much as they mislead people into not bothering to push for warranty claims. (and if it's on something that's not a "consumer good")
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- valine 5y ago
  Also right to repair obviously can't apply to an implanted device. Those devices are hermetically sealed and disposed of after explant.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    Medtronic insulin pumps are routinely hacked by their owners: https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-hacking-diabetes-people-insulin-alternative.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-... Sorry for the Google amp link. There’s also this kind of medical device hacking (again not black hat): https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/diy-dongle-breathes-life-into-broken-ventilators/ https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/diy-dongle-breathes-life-int... And open-source ventilator software: https://hackaday.com/2020/03/30/professional-ventilator-design-open-sourced-today-by-medtronic/ https://hackaday.com/2020/03/30/professional-ventilator-desi...
    - zeusk 5y ago
      Right to repair isn't exactly supporting homebrew software although it'd help to have schematics.
- syshum 5y ago
  Public Safety is never a reason to oppose Right to Repair, to the extent there are safety concerns they can be elevated with out needing to curb independent or self repair That said, Safety is red herring that the industries use to justify their anti-consumer actions with zero actual data to back their position. The Record are cars is clear and estiblished people self repair and use independant repair all the time to fix mechnical safety systems like breaks with no systemic issues or damage to public safety For medical devices I have yet to see any data the independent repair causes any harm, in fact I believe the the US Government has a study that states Independent Repair of Medical Equipment is critical to maintaining the US Health System, so in the case of Health Care prohibitions on independent repair may CAUSE public health issues by taking critical equipment out of service waiting on "authorized" repair or parts
- Causality1 5y ago
  Would you rather have amateur repairs being done by someone who has access to proper documentation or by someone who does not?
  - waych 5y ago
    This assumes that the first party seller is competent, motivated and capable of using their first party documents to good effect performing repairs. Consider the Apple Genius bar for an easy counter example. edit: may have misinterpreted what you wrote. Nobody should have to have amateurs perform repairs, whether they are first party or not.
    - Causality1 5y ago
      Nobody should be forced to use an amateur, certainly. I'm saying that if you can't afford a professional repair, you want the amateur to have access to the best information available, whether that person is you or someone else.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Louis Rossman gave an example which I believe really happened. A surgery chair that cost tens of thousands of dollars needed a new riser motor. Just an electric motor to move the chair up and down. But the company that makes the electric motor had an agreement with the chair manufacturer not to sell replacement parts. So the only recourse instead of replacing a $500 motor is to replace an entire surgery chair for tens of thousands of dollars. Given the cost of medical care in this country I think it would be a very good thing if that agreement not to sell parts was against the law. Surely an electric motor to raise a chair up and down could be replaced with the correct part without compromising anyone’s safety.
  - znpy 5y ago
    > Given the cost of medical care in this country although in this specific case in example, if the country you're talking about are the US, having access to the $500 motor only means wider profit margins for the hostpital, not necessarily lower bills for hospitalized people.
    - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
      Perhaps, but it’s clear we must both lower costs (fix repair laws) and provide free medical care for everyone. So fixing repair is one important step towards an end goal of health care for everyone.
      - spicybright 5y ago
        I agree, but I'd also say there's a line between inconsequential things like a chair motor, and something giving life support to someone. It would suck to die because the repair guy didn't solder the wire correctly. It's really tough to draw that line though, and it's in the manufactures interest $ + lawsuit wise to play it safe.
        noizejoy 5y ago
        Money wasted leads to money not available for life support.
- Veedrac 5y ago
  This is the wrong place to regulate that. If buildings need to adhere to certain fire safety requirements, you have a law that says people modifying the property need to follow those requirements. You don't make a law that says only the original builder of the house is allowed to repair the house.
kwiens 5y ago
We excluded autos because the Massachusetts auto right to repair bill (most recently updated in November) covers this, and there's a nationwide MOU. Tesla is the only manufacturer that has not signed this MOU. There is a lawsuit around that ballot initiative, and iFixit and EFF just filed an Amicus on Monday supporting the law. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/eff-files-amicus-brief-defending-right-repair-massachusetts https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/eff-files-amicus-brief... Sometimes it's better to fight the giants one arena at a time.
- slim 5y ago
  What you said does not make any sense. What's the problem if the law is overlapping ?
  - efnx 5y ago
    Instead of fighting the auto industry giants over this bill, they left them out - that way they can focus on fighting the info industry giants. The auto industry giants are still being fought - just not over this bill. I think that if the laws overlap it will be opposed by multiple industry giants and will be harder to pass. At least that’s what it seems from the post above.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Divide and conquer. Attack each enemy on a separate front.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  What about "digital electronic product"? Doesn't that exclude phones and laptops?
  - kube-system 5y ago
    There's no comma after that phrase indicating that it's a separate item in the list. I believe that is intended to be read as "digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings." After all, the description of what the bill does apply to is "digital electronic equipment". Interpreting it to apply to "equipment" but not "products" doesn't really make sense.
TruthSHIFT 5y ago
So, what is actually included? Isn’t everything electronic now?
- inops 5y ago
  It's "digital electronic product...found in medical settings", I'd imagine
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    So how many nurses need an iPhone to exempt Apple? Or would something like a COVID tracking app make it a digital electronic product found in a medical setting?
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    It's comma soup, there's no way to parse this reliably.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      The sole "and" combined with the bill's use of "digital electronic product" outside of section four makes it fairly clear that it's only discussing medical devices. "You have the right to repair digital electronic product's except digital electronic products" doesn't make much sense.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Hard to parse all those commas and conjunctions. Are you sure "digital electronic product" isn't related to medical devices?
vikingerik 5y ago
Let's interpret this the right way: this doesn't mean "we're not going to handle motor vehicles or medical", it means "motor vehicles and medical are out of scope for this measure." They can be handled separately, and that's reasonable given the greater safety concerns of those industries.
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  Right to repair started out as a demand by farmers to be able to repair their John Deere's. This "greater safety" concern is nothing but masquerade.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  The best way to kill something is by saying "yes, we'll get to that next, don't worry!" and then never get to it.
  - spicybright 5y ago
    it can go both ways. Yes you're right, but making huge changes that disturb every industry makes a hell of an opposition to fight.
avs733 5y ago
These are also two classes of consumer facing product that are most regulated and likely to contain electronics (I'm excluding cribs...because my partner laughed at me when I suggested building our crib and told me that was fine as long as I followed all the rules)
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Restrictions on medical devices are very reasonable though. They aren't something people can freely hack on. Errors can cause decisions to be made based on incorrect information, expose people to radioactivity... Even the GPLv3 makes an exception for this class of device.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  > Even the GPLv3 makes an exception for this class of device. Citation very fucking needed, because exceptions for specific fields of work directly contradict the underlying principles of the GPL, and indeed [0] contains no occurence of the word "medical". 0: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    > A "User Product" is either (1) a "consumer product", which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling. The anti-tivoization text in the license applies to these User Products. Medical devices are not included in the definition.
    - a1369209993 5y ago
      If it's "normally used for personal, family, or household purposes" or "designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling", then anti-tivoization applies regardless of whether it's medical in nature. Conversely, if it's not either of those, then it's not a "consumer product", also regardless of whether it's medical. There are problems with that section, but "GPLv3 makes an exception for medical devices" is not one of them.
- Too 5y ago
  This makes no sense, GPL is a big aid, but not a prerequisite to enabling custom repairs. And vice versa, having access to the source code of an x-ray machine doesn't increase risk of modification. Device can still block FW updates based on signatures.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

neallindsay 5y ago

Plus it gives Apple an out as soon as they release a car, which is extremely weird.

nolok 5y ago
If that metric is true doesn't that already give google, lg, samsung, ... an out ? "manufacturer of motor vehicle equipment" is sufficiently large to include everyone we want that law for.

fitchjo 5y ago

Am I being a bit naive to think that this has more to do with public safety? In theory, there is some increased level of regulation/review of the car and medical device manufacturers that limits the risk these repairs aren’t done to an appropriate standard? You can make a trade-off between standard of repair and price for your iPhone that only impacts the device, but cars and medical devices not properly repaired could impact a life.

joshspankit 5y ago
You’ve used a grey argument. Apple themselves have argued that one of the reasons they have to limit repair is for public safety (someone could have a battery explode if they pierce it, for example), whereas we could also argue the other side: that if someone modifies their own medical device and gets hurt because of it that they legally only hurt themselves because they had the right to make that choice. IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual?
- eganist 5y ago
  > that if someone modifies their own medical device and gets hurt because of it that they legally only hurt themselves because they had the right to make that choice. Well, while this applies to medical devices, worth noting this doesn't apply to cars, for which safety inspections have existed in many states for quite a while.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    I’d argue that it does apply to cars as safety inspections don’t apply when you keep a vehicle within the bounds of private property.
    - noizejoy 5y ago
      Would that be similar to having an iPhone never connected to the Internet?
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual? This is a really great way to put it, and it applies broadly to so many fundamental disagreements in the tech world. I firmly believe it’s better to trust the individual—so I think users should be able to sideload iOS apps (only if they want to) and install their own root certificates. Others think individuals can’t be trusted, and so we should let tech companies dictate what is safe for everyone else.
  - wiz21c 5y ago
    > IMO it comes down to this: do we advocate for laws that give companies the ability to decide what is right/safe for the public, or do we advocate for laws that reflect trust in the individual? In the US, I think, some companies sell weapons and nobody seems to care if people can hurt themselves with them.
JAlexoid 5y ago
These laws obligate the manufacturer to release maintenance and repair manuals, like the ones they provide to the authorized service centers; and ban all litigation related to someone providing unauthorized services, etc... Depending on the law, it may also require more documentation, ban on total lockdown of devices and obligation to sell spare parts(but you often can buy genuine spare parts through service centers) Right to fix also doesn't cover warranties, as you will loose your warranty when doing it yourself. For cars or medical equipment - that's clearly political influence, masquerading as "public safety". There's nothing stopping me from modifying my car to be very dangerous right now, without even affecting my warranty. The difference - I cannot install a third party keyfob, because the protocol is locked down. The kind of medical equipment that hospitals require, already comes with multi-decade support. And your CPAP device can be serviced by someone without manufacturer specific training(that costs a fortune, for little practical value).
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  > Right to fix also doesn't cover warranties, as you will loose your warranty when doing it yourself. The Magnussen-Moss warranty act of 1975 states (IANAL) that a repair cannot void the warranty unless the manufacturer can prove that your repair caused the damage in question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
  - kube-system 5y ago
    This is correct. Those "warranty void if broken" stickers are only worth as much as they mislead people into not bothering to push for warranty claims. (and if it's on something that's not a "consumer good")
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
valine 5y ago
Also right to repair obviously can't apply to an implanted device. Those devices are hermetically sealed and disposed of after explant.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  Medtronic insulin pumps are routinely hacked by their owners: https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-hacking-diabetes-people-insulin-alternative.amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-... Sorry for the Google amp link. There’s also this kind of medical device hacking (again not black hat): https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/diy-dongle-breathes-life-into-broken-ventilators/ https://hackaday.com/2020/07/15/diy-dongle-breathes-life-int... And open-source ventilator software: https://hackaday.com/2020/03/30/professional-ventilator-design-open-sourced-today-by-medtronic/ https://hackaday.com/2020/03/30/professional-ventilator-desi...
  - zeusk 5y ago
    Right to repair isn't exactly supporting homebrew software although it'd help to have schematics.
syshum 5y ago
Public Safety is never a reason to oppose Right to Repair, to the extent there are safety concerns they can be elevated with out needing to curb independent or self repair That said, Safety is red herring that the industries use to justify their anti-consumer actions with zero actual data to back their position. The Record are cars is clear and estiblished people self repair and use independant repair all the time to fix mechnical safety systems like breaks with no systemic issues or damage to public safety For medical devices I have yet to see any data the independent repair causes any harm, in fact I believe the the US Government has a study that states Independent Repair of Medical Equipment is critical to maintaining the US Health System, so in the case of Health Care prohibitions on independent repair may CAUSE public health issues by taking critical equipment out of service waiting on "authorized" repair or parts
Causality1 5y ago
Would you rather have amateur repairs being done by someone who has access to proper documentation or by someone who does not?
- waych 5y ago
  This assumes that the first party seller is competent, motivated and capable of using their first party documents to good effect performing repairs. Consider the Apple Genius bar for an easy counter example. edit: may have misinterpreted what you wrote. Nobody should have to have amateurs perform repairs, whether they are first party or not.
  - Causality1 5y ago
    Nobody should be forced to use an amateur, certainly. I'm saying that if you can't afford a professional repair, you want the amateur to have access to the best information available, whether that person is you or someone else.
TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Louis Rossman gave an example which I believe really happened. A surgery chair that cost tens of thousands of dollars needed a new riser motor. Just an electric motor to move the chair up and down. But the company that makes the electric motor had an agreement with the chair manufacturer not to sell replacement parts. So the only recourse instead of replacing a $500 motor is to replace an entire surgery chair for tens of thousands of dollars. Given the cost of medical care in this country I think it would be a very good thing if that agreement not to sell parts was against the law. Surely an electric motor to raise a chair up and down could be replaced with the correct part without compromising anyone’s safety.
- znpy 5y ago
  > Given the cost of medical care in this country although in this specific case in example, if the country you're talking about are the US, having access to the $500 motor only means wider profit margins for the hostpital, not necessarily lower bills for hospitalized people.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    Perhaps, but it’s clear we must both lower costs (fix repair laws) and provide free medical care for everyone. So fixing repair is one important step towards an end goal of health care for everyone.
    - spicybright 5y ago
      I agree, but I'd also say there's a line between inconsequential things like a chair motor, and something giving life support to someone. It would suck to die because the repair guy didn't solder the wire correctly. It's really tough to draw that line though, and it's in the manufactures interest $ + lawsuit wise to play it safe.
      - noizejoy 5y ago
        Money wasted leads to money not available for life support.
Veedrac 5y ago
This is the wrong place to regulate that. If buildings need to adhere to certain fire safety requirements, you have a law that says people modifying the property need to follow those requirements. You don't make a law that says only the original builder of the house is allowed to repair the house.

kwiens 5y ago

We excluded autos because the Massachusetts auto right to repair bill (most recently updated in November) covers this, and there's a nationwide MOU. Tesla is the only manufacturer that has not signed this MOU. There is a lawsuit around that ballot initiative, and iFixit and EFF just filed an Amicus on Monday supporting the law. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/eff-files-amicus-brief-defending-right-repair-massachusetts https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/eff-files-amicus-brief... Sometimes it's better to fight the giants one arena at a time.

slim 5y ago
What you said does not make any sense. What's the problem if the law is overlapping ?
- efnx 5y ago
  Instead of fighting the auto industry giants over this bill, they left them out - that way they can focus on fighting the info industry giants. The auto industry giants are still being fought - just not over this bill. I think that if the laws overlap it will be opposed by multiple industry giants and will be harder to pass. At least that’s what it seems from the post above.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Divide and conquer. Attack each enemy on a separate front.
jonny_eh 5y ago
What about "digital electronic product"? Doesn't that exclude phones and laptops?
- kube-system 5y ago
  There's no comma after that phrase indicating that it's a separate item in the list. I believe that is intended to be read as "digital electronic product or embedded software found in medical settings." After all, the description of what the bill does apply to is "digital electronic equipment". Interpreting it to apply to "equipment" but not "products" doesn't really make sense.

TruthSHIFT 5y ago

So, what is actually included? Isn’t everything electronic now?

inops 5y ago
It's "digital electronic product...found in medical settings", I'd imagine
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  So how many nurses need an iPhone to exempt Apple? Or would something like a COVID tracking app make it a digital electronic product found in a medical setting?
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  It's comma soup, there's no way to parse this reliably.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    The sole "and" combined with the bill's use of "digital electronic product" outside of section four makes it fairly clear that it's only discussing medical devices. "You have the right to repair digital electronic product's except digital electronic products" doesn't make much sense.
exporectomy 5y ago
Hard to parse all those commas and conjunctions. Are you sure "digital electronic product" isn't related to medical devices?

vikingerik 5y ago

Let's interpret this the right way: this doesn't mean "we're not going to handle motor vehicles or medical", it means "motor vehicles and medical are out of scope for this measure." They can be handled separately, and that's reasonable given the greater safety concerns of those industries.

JAlexoid 5y ago
Right to repair started out as a demand by farmers to be able to repair their John Deere's. This "greater safety" concern is nothing but masquerade.
ping_pong 5y ago
The best way to kill something is by saying "yes, we'll get to that next, don't worry!" and then never get to it.
- spicybright 5y ago
  it can go both ways. Yes you're right, but making huge changes that disturb every industry makes a hell of an opposition to fight.

avs733 5y ago

These are also two classes of consumer facing product that are most regulated and likely to contain electronics (I'm excluding cribs...because my partner laughed at me when I suggested building our crib and told me that was fine as long as I followed all the rules)

matheusmoreira 5y ago

Restrictions on medical devices are very reasonable though. They aren't something people can freely hack on. Errors can cause decisions to be made based on incorrect information, expose people to radioactivity... Even the GPLv3 makes an exception for this class of device.

a1369209993 5y ago
> Even the GPLv3 makes an exception for this class of device. Citation very fucking needed, because exceptions for specific fields of work directly contradict the underlying principles of the GPL, and indeed [0] contains no occurence of the word "medical". 0: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > A "User Product" is either (1) a "consumer product", which means any tangible personal property which is normally used for personal, family, or household purposes, or (2) anything designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling. The anti-tivoization text in the license applies to these User Products. Medical devices are not included in the definition.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    If it's "normally used for personal, family, or household purposes" or "designed or sold for incorporation into a dwelling", then anti-tivoization applies regardless of whether it's medical in nature. Conversely, if it's not either of those, then it's not a "consumer product", also regardless of whether it's medical. There are problems with that section, but "GPLv3 makes an exception for medical devices" is not one of them.
Too 5y ago
This makes no sense, GPL is a big aid, but not a prerequisite to enabling custom repairs. And vice versa, having access to the source code of an x-ray machine doesn't increase risk of modification. Device can still block FW updates based on signatures.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]