23 ms·

Steve Wozniak backs right-to-repair movement

477 points by gcoguiec 5y ago

ecmascript 5y ago
Woz seems like a good guy IMO. Too bad the company he started is pretty much a worst offender in this case but it is a good move by him that gives the industry a strong signal that they're doing something very unethical.
MiddleEndian 5y ago
Right to repair would be massively improved by a full repeal of the DMCA. Tragically it will never happen.
- rjzzleep 5y ago
  Why do you think that?
  - pmlnr 5y ago
    DMCA is often used to take down service manuals. Try to find the service/repair manual for a Pentax K20D, you'll end up in the darkest corners of the internet.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      User guide and service manuals should be a legal requirement to sell a product, and exempt from copyright.
      - Tsarbomb 5y ago
        I think there is a happy middle ground where they are still required to be easily provided. I'm thinking about avoiding situations such as when huawei used to provide copied Nortel manuals for their knockoff/IP-theft equipment.
    - geofft 5y ago
      But even without the DMCA, having unauthorized copies of copyrighted documents is still illegal, right? The DMCA creates a liability shield for sites that accept uploads and creates a procedure for takedowns. But without the DMCA, the company's lawyers could still send a nasty letter to the web hosting site, and they'd be even more incentivized to prevent unreviewed uploads from users in the first place because they wouldn't have the liability shield. Also, the takedown / liability shield parts of the DMCA are also only relevant when the people running the site are not the people who uploaded the content. If you want to host your own website and claim that you're republishing the manuals because of fair use, that part of the DMCA doesn't affect you at all. (The DMCA does meaningfully interact with right-to-repair in its anti-circumvention provisions, though.)
      - kelnos 5y ago
        I don't think the original poster is talking about the DMCA copyright takedown notice/counter-notice procedure. They're probably talking about the DMCA's anti-circumvention bits, which make distributing tools to circumvent copyright protections (even on hardware you own) illegal.
        MiddleEndian 5y ago
        Correct. Not necessarily a fan of those either but not what I'm referring to on this topic.
      - rasz 5y ago
        >But even without the DMCA, having unauthorized copies of copyrighted documents is still illegal, right? it is, but schematics are not copyrightable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behringer#Legal_cases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behringer#Legal_cases : On 30 November 1999, the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, dismissed Mackie claims that Behringer had infringed on Mackie copyrights with its MX 8000 mixer, noting that circuit schematics are not covered by copyright laws.
        geofft 5y ago
        Sure, but manuals are. Data has never been copyrightable. Copyright has only ever protected creative expression. Draw your own diagrams and write your own explanations and you're fine. (See iFixit, for instance.) It's just like how you can't post a copy of The Matrix online but you can definitely write a plot summary without infringing anyone's copyright. Whether it makes sense that manuals (and firmware, for that matter) are considered as worthy of copyright protection as The Matrix is a separate question, but the law sees them the same way.
    - userbinator 5y ago
      Or laptop schematics - they're all leaks.
  - mimsee 5y ago
    In the future, spare parts will no longer connect mechanically but also digitally, requiring the part and the system to perform a cryptographic handshake. If you make a part that's "unofficial" and reverse-engineer the connection, the OEM could argue you are in violation of DMCA's DRM clause. For example, think of printer ink, or phone batteries, car tires, anything replaceable, really.
  - MiddleEndian 5y ago
    The current legal approaches are based around requiring companies to provide manuals and such. I am in favor of that, but I also have no doubt that companies will do their best to provide the bare minimum or even provide inaccurate information. You're relying on them to do the right thing and comply with the law. Meanwhile, if someone manages to reverse engineer a product, there is no reason why they shouldn't be able to fix their own product or offer a service for others to fix their products. But currently that is illegal due to the DMCA, and it should not be. Both of these things should change in parallel.
personjerry 5y ago
Of course he would. He was a regular hacker. If you've read Steve Jobs' biographies they all describe Woz wanting to keep things open and hackable and Jobs pushing through for the vertical integration they have now. Woz made the altruistic decision most of us would've "preferred" but Jobs made the decision to create the most valuable company in the world instead. Hard to say who was right, really.
- ffggvv 5y ago
  idk if those things are fundamentally oppoosed. i’m not sure if apple was a little more open it would suddenly massively hurt sales
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  In terms of providing value to Apple shareholders I think Steve Jobs clearly made the right decision. I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. Of course Apple has provided a lot of value to users and the world but much more limited than if everything was hackable and repairable. I guess my point is that I suspect, if you could add up the additional value of an 'open Apple' for every individual, you would end up with a considerably larger amount than the current market cap of Apple. Let's do some math. Apple market cap is $2.4T right now. Let's say a third of the world could use their products in some form, that's $2,4T divided by 2.7B people or $900 per potential user. If I could extend the life of my iPhone by 4 years with repairs I've already recouped "my share". And that's without mentioning any other product or the added value of being able to customize and repurpose old stuff. Of course some of Apple's achievments wouldn't have been possible without their business model, but I think there should be a pressure on companies to open source technology after a certain period of time. It would be to the benefit of society.
  - traveler01 5y ago
    I love how hypocritical these companies are. Environment friendly they say: - Force people to buy a part separately that could easily be included in the box (wasting less packaging in the process). - Force people to replace unnecessary parts when repairing their products (my gfs MacBook broke the screen internally, without applying much strenght to it, and Apple repair solution is to replace the entire top end of the laptop for 600€) - Make stupid expensive for people to repair their products, and almost impossible for third party shops to repair them. And this isn't just Apple, most brands are going the same route. Meanwhile world its sinking in garbage, but shareholders are happy I guess.
ChrisRR 5y ago
Of course he would. He was the brains behind Apple, the guy who could design a computer out of his bedroom and seems to have kept that tinkerer mindset.
throwawayswede 5y ago
'Apple co-founder
qwerty456127 5y ago
Why didn't he take over Apple as Steve Jobs died? UPDATE: this is another comment which got heavily up-voted first and heavily down-woted shortly after. I always find such fluctuations curious.
- silviot 5y ago
  Why didn't you?
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Because I have severe ADHD (to which I attribute the fact I'm not nearly as awesome as Steve Jobs was even though we have much in common otherwise) and little-to-no knowledge of Apple internals. If I had co/founded the company I most probably would.
    - zabzonk 5y ago
      > to which I attribute the fact I'm not nearly as awesome as Steve Jobs was There are lots of other possible reasons.
    - silviot 5y ago
      What I meant with my comment is that your question sounded like "Why didn't Albert Einstein become the president of the United States?", and I believe it's not a "good" question, just like "why doesn't water explode when you dissolve salt in it?". I doubt Apple stakeholders would have wanted Woz. And I doubt Woz would have wanted to do it. The same is incredibly likely for most people (including you and me). I probably came across as rude, and I apologize about that. I hope expanding my thoughts as I did above helps.
      - qwerty456127 5y ago
        > "why doesn't water explode when you dissolve salt in it?". Because you have to melt the salt first. > I doubt Apple stakeholders would have wanted Woz. They didn't want Steve Jobs either but it turnt out they were wrong. > I probably came across as rude Not at all, you came across as original and fun. Boring and/or rude people just downvote silently, cool people say something interesting or provoking. You did. I ended up thinking about that in more details and although I'm not taking the idea of taking over something as big seriously I feel inspired to fix some things and achieve more.
undfg 5y ago
Apple founder Steve Wozniak backs popular thing to stay at the spotlight at all costs
- traveler01 5y ago
  Lol what. He clearly believes that, you just have to study a bit of his story.
- eptcyka 5y ago
  It's not nearly as popular as you might think it is, IMO. Louis Rossmann probably won't get to do a direct ballot initiative like he wanted, because he'll be underfunded. Politicians don't want to take this fight, because they don't feel like there's enough backing from the public. The issue needs clear cut support from the layperson, not unanimous approval from the tech literate.
- vaylian 5y ago
  Why do you think that this is his motivation?
  - undfg 5y ago
    Because he won't shut up and he never says anything original or worthy of discussion.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      I never thought we'd see Tim Cook in here. Welcome?
- misnome 5y ago
  What part of this is contradicting the way he has acted and behaved previously?
- cmsj 5y ago
  Cynical orange site commenter takes cheapest pot shot at nice guy agreeing with reasonable thing, to..... actually I don't know why you did that, but you do you, I guess.
fsflover 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27770302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27770302
acd 5y ago
Thanks Woz! Great that you promote right to repair and also help better environmental foot print of electronic. Also it foster hackability.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
least 5y ago
Woz also got into hacking about computers at an ideal time. Not long before then it would have been impossible to build a sophisticated computer in your garage. Years later, miniaturization has continued to progress and many things that were once relatively simple to replace have become much harder. When most parts on a computer were through-hole components and relatively large integrated circuits that could easily be hand soldered, the skill required to participate in the repair process was much lower. Today, even relatively open hardware like a desktop PC has a ton of added complexity that would make people far less likely to ever want to attempt a repair on their own. While I've reflowed solder on a faulty GPU in the oven before, that's not exactly a good idea. A person is usually going to replace the things that have been component-ized like the RAM, GPU, SSD, motherboard, etc. rather than try to actually repair them. Granted, when a component like that breaks on a PC you can just pop it open and replace it, rather than having to find a specialist to repair a laptop or phone where all the parts are glued in or soldered. While I can sympathize with people that do want that (there are projects out there trying to bring products in this category to market), I'm personally okay with that being the niche that it is. Most people didn't hack their computers back then and to this day most people don't hack on their computers. There probably should be components available for experts like Louis Rossman who can replace these parts. There probably should be schematics available so they can more easily make these repairs and they can have businesses like his who can specialize in doing these sorts of repairs (they already do exist, clearly). Companies like Apple absolutely should not be using any sort of DRM to prevent use of third party hardware components in repairs. Going out of your way to make your devices difficult to repair is unethical. But I think we're well past the point that someone without specialized skills should be able to expect to repair any device that they purchase.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
>He also credited an open platform with the success of the Apple II, which he said had shipped with schematics and designs. It had been, he said, the only source of profits at Apple for the company's first decade. "How was Apple hurt by the openness of the Apple II?"
cjohansson 5y ago
Woz is a good guy, respect to him
boba7 5y ago
BBC as a source? You ignored my direct source... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773649
EvanAnderson 5y ago
During a public Q&A back in 2017 I asked Woz what he thought about control Apple asserts on their "i-device" hardware. My question was to the effect of "What do you think about how I don't own my iPhone or iPad the way I owned my Apple II?" His answer referenced the openness of the Apple II but also included (not verbatim) "sometimes proprietary is the right thing" in reference to the Apple "app store" and the locked-down nature of the iOS device ecosystem. To have Woz-- the hacker's hacker-- answer like that was really shocking to me. (I was really, really sad to hear one of my childhood heroes answer in that way. I know, I know-- don't meet your heroes...) In this recording his position sounds a lot more reasonable. It makes me glad to have such a well-respected voice out there driving conversation about this topic. As an aside: I recorded my question and Woz's answer (albeit via my phone in my breast pocket, so the audio quality isn't very good) back in 2017. This was from his October 30, 2017 visit to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I didn't find a recording available online with a quick search, so here's this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lLz56N2PKCmPIGrzt1WT9n4B08P3C_Nu/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lLz56N2PKCmPIGrzt1WT9n4B08P...
- swiley 5y ago
  I think even 5 years ago many hackers (especially the pragmatic ones) thought Apple may have been doing the right thing. Woz tends to be on the more pragmatic/accepting side IMO, you have to be if you want to play with/create the newest things.
- eddieroger 5y ago
  I listened to your MP3, and thanks for sharing it. I think Woz's point is more what the App Store enabled, not the fact that it was a walled garden. The rules Apple put in the App Store is what made it feasible for them to exist at all, and then you can create any app you want for the hardware. I think that based on his extension over where the first Tesla Superchargers were - write apps for this hardware that make your life better because they're important to you. For what it's worth, when I think about the openness of the first computers I had, and how many crappy search bars and garbage things snuck past my unsuspecting parents while they used the computer, I'm surprisingly fine with the App Store, too. I don't have to worry about them installing garbage because it's gated by Apple. This is what made it "life changing" by Woz's words, and I agree with him.
deregulateMed 5y ago
Little too late here. But also better late than never. The annoying part is how HN users want right to repair, but not enough to pick such options. I hate to say corporate marketing is stronger than the human brain.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  It's the sociopaths in middle management calling these shots.
  - CubsFan1060 5y ago
    I read that as "people on hacker news say they want open hardware/software, but don't buy hardware options that are currently available and are open"
quijoteuniv 5y ago
I think is a matter of time til they just boo the hell out of Tim Cook in one of those poncy presentation Apple does every now and then. poncy Someone, something or somewhere which is overpriced, over styled, over rated, or thinks more highly of itself than it deserves.
foxhop 5y ago
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVjvKQ5CXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVjvKQ5CXY | A message & thank you to Steve Wozniak by Louis Rossmann the Right-to-repair advocate and organizer.
- dcomp 5y ago
  I was just about to comment about this video that was in my feed. Louis Rossman publicly asking Steve Wozniak to back right to repair because it's faster than finding someone in his social circle etc to pass the message
forgotmypw17 5y ago
I think of it as right to existence and functioning for the device... And right of access for the device-human configuration. It's feasible, and not even very difficult, to make information on a website accessible to every browser since Mosaic, for example. And that's exactly what I do. If your site has a "browser not good enough" message on it for some visitors, I think you should be just a little bit ashamed of yourself for giving up. I think it is the difference between hack and craft.
binarybanana 5y ago
What about the right to repair software? Or the software that runs somewhere on the hardware to make it work? There is so much firmware running on our hardware in some closed off environment and it plays an integral role in making the hardware work. Sometimes it even emulates other hardware components to save costs. To the OS it appears like the real thing, but it's just implemented in firmware code. Today, if there is a bug in your firmware you are pretty much hosed even if there is nothing wrong with it, physically. Some manufacturers are better than others, but some are so bad that flashing anything but some signed firmware image will just produce a brick. Most things that require this firmware to be uploaded at runtime reject unsigned firmware. So again, if there is a bug in there and whoever made it doesn't exist or doesn't care, there is basically nothing you can do. For that reason I think that anything that requires firmware, or has a mechanism to update firmware should be required to allow loading custom firmware somehow. Maybe make it a switch, or require blowing a fuse and voiding the warranty, but it should absolutely be possible to do. Problem is that this is fundamentally incompatible for a lot of hardware with the way DRM is implemented. For example, on Intel systems the motherboard firmware is involved in handling HDCP and there is something similar going on with HD Audio. Same with the GuC/HuC firmware for the iGPU. It't involved with handling hardware decoding and handling HDCP. No way that could be opened up without making the DRM scheme useless. So how do you repair that vulnerability in your CPU when it's already out of support? If you could at least load unsigned microcode you could at least patch it yourself, but you can't, so your CPU remainins unfixable broken even though it's physically fine. Similar things could be argued for regular software, but in the case of hardware repair it goes, or should go hand in hand with repairability. Otherwise you are quite limited in what kinda thing you can repair.

477 points by gcoguiec 5y ago

Woz seems like a good guy IMO. Too bad the company he started is pretty much a worst offender in this case but it is a good move by him that gives the industry a strong signal that they're doing something very unethical.

MiddleEndian 5y ago

Right to repair would be massively improved by a full repeal of the DMCA. Tragically it will never happen.

rjzzleep 5y ago
Why do you think that?
- pmlnr 5y ago
  DMCA is often used to take down service manuals. Try to find the service/repair manual for a Pentax K20D, you'll end up in the darkest corners of the internet.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    User guide and service manuals should be a legal requirement to sell a product, and exempt from copyright.
    - Tsarbomb 5y ago
      I think there is a happy middle ground where they are still required to be easily provided. I'm thinking about avoiding situations such as when huawei used to provide copied Nortel manuals for their knockoff/IP-theft equipment.
  - geofft 5y ago
    But even without the DMCA, having unauthorized copies of copyrighted documents is still illegal, right? The DMCA creates a liability shield for sites that accept uploads and creates a procedure for takedowns. But without the DMCA, the company's lawyers could still send a nasty letter to the web hosting site, and they'd be even more incentivized to prevent unreviewed uploads from users in the first place because they wouldn't have the liability shield. Also, the takedown / liability shield parts of the DMCA are also only relevant when the people running the site are not the people who uploaded the content. If you want to host your own website and claim that you're republishing the manuals because of fair use, that part of the DMCA doesn't affect you at all. (The DMCA does meaningfully interact with right-to-repair in its anti-circumvention provisions, though.)
    - kelnos 5y ago
      I don't think the original poster is talking about the DMCA copyright takedown notice/counter-notice procedure. They're probably talking about the DMCA's anti-circumvention bits, which make distributing tools to circumvent copyright protections (even on hardware you own) illegal.
      - MiddleEndian 5y ago
        Correct. Not necessarily a fan of those either but not what I'm referring to on this topic.
    - rasz 5y ago
      >But even without the DMCA, having unauthorized copies of copyrighted documents is still illegal, right? it is, but schematics are not copyrightable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behringer#Legal_cases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behringer#Legal_cases : On 30 November 1999, the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, dismissed Mackie claims that Behringer had infringed on Mackie copyrights with its MX 8000 mixer, noting that circuit schematics are not covered by copyright laws.
      - geofft 5y ago
        Sure, but manuals are. Data has never been copyrightable. Copyright has only ever protected creative expression. Draw your own diagrams and write your own explanations and you're fine. (See iFixit, for instance.) It's just like how you can't post a copy of The Matrix online but you can definitely write a plot summary without infringing anyone's copyright. Whether it makes sense that manuals (and firmware, for that matter) are considered as worthy of copyright protection as The Matrix is a separate question, but the law sees them the same way.
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Or laptop schematics - they're all leaks.
- mimsee 5y ago
  In the future, spare parts will no longer connect mechanically but also digitally, requiring the part and the system to perform a cryptographic handshake. If you make a part that's "unofficial" and reverse-engineer the connection, the OEM could argue you are in violation of DMCA's DRM clause. For example, think of printer ink, or phone batteries, car tires, anything replaceable, really.
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  The current legal approaches are based around requiring companies to provide manuals and such. I am in favor of that, but I also have no doubt that companies will do their best to provide the bare minimum or even provide inaccurate information. You're relying on them to do the right thing and comply with the law. Meanwhile, if someone manages to reverse engineer a product, there is no reason why they shouldn't be able to fix their own product or offer a service for others to fix their products. But currently that is illegal due to the DMCA, and it should not be. Both of these things should change in parallel.

personjerry 5y ago

Of course he would. He was a regular hacker. If you've read Steve Jobs' biographies they all describe Woz wanting to keep things open and hackable and Jobs pushing through for the vertical integration they have now. Woz made the altruistic decision most of us would've "preferred" but Jobs made the decision to create the most valuable company in the world instead. Hard to say who was right, really.

ffggvv 5y ago
idk if those things are fundamentally oppoosed. i’m not sure if apple was a little more open it would suddenly massively hurt sales
Swenrekcah 5y ago
In terms of providing value to Apple shareholders I think Steve Jobs clearly made the right decision. I terms of providing value to the world at large they should have gone with Wozniak. Of course Apple has provided a lot of value to users and the world but much more limited than if everything was hackable and repairable. I guess my point is that I suspect, if you could add up the additional value of an 'open Apple' for every individual, you would end up with a considerably larger amount than the current market cap of Apple. Let's do some math. Apple market cap is $2.4T right now. Let's say a third of the world could use their products in some form, that's $2,4T divided by 2.7B people or $900 per potential user. If I could extend the life of my iPhone by 4 years with repairs I've already recouped "my share". And that's without mentioning any other product or the added value of being able to customize and repurpose old stuff. Of course some of Apple's achievments wouldn't have been possible without their business model, but I think there should be a pressure on companies to open source technology after a certain period of time. It would be to the benefit of society.
- traveler01 5y ago
  I love how hypocritical these companies are. Environment friendly they say: - Force people to buy a part separately that could easily be included in the box (wasting less packaging in the process). - Force people to replace unnecessary parts when repairing their products (my gfs MacBook broke the screen internally, without applying much strenght to it, and Apple repair solution is to replace the entire top end of the laptop for 600€) - Make stupid expensive for people to repair their products, and almost impossible for third party shops to repair them. And this isn't just Apple, most brands are going the same route. Meanwhile world its sinking in garbage, but shareholders are happy I guess.

ChrisRR 5y ago

Of course he would. He was the brains behind Apple, the guy who could design a computer out of his bedroom and seems to have kept that tinkerer mindset.

throwawayswede 5y ago

'Apple co-founder

qwerty456127 5y ago

Why didn't he take over Apple as Steve Jobs died? UPDATE: this is another comment which got heavily up-voted first and heavily down-woted shortly after. I always find such fluctuations curious.

silviot 5y ago
Why didn't you?
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Because I have severe ADHD (to which I attribute the fact I'm not nearly as awesome as Steve Jobs was even though we have much in common otherwise) and little-to-no knowledge of Apple internals. If I had co/founded the company I most probably would.
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    > to which I attribute the fact I'm not nearly as awesome as Steve Jobs was There are lots of other possible reasons.
  - silviot 5y ago
    What I meant with my comment is that your question sounded like "Why didn't Albert Einstein become the president of the United States?", and I believe it's not a "good" question, just like "why doesn't water explode when you dissolve salt in it?". I doubt Apple stakeholders would have wanted Woz. And I doubt Woz would have wanted to do it. The same is incredibly likely for most people (including you and me). I probably came across as rude, and I apologize about that. I hope expanding my thoughts as I did above helps.
    - qwerty456127 5y ago
      > "why doesn't water explode when you dissolve salt in it?". Because you have to melt the salt first. > I doubt Apple stakeholders would have wanted Woz. They didn't want Steve Jobs either but it turnt out they were wrong. > I probably came across as rude Not at all, you came across as original and fun. Boring and/or rude people just downvote silently, cool people say something interesting or provoking. You did. I ended up thinking about that in more details and although I'm not taking the idea of taking over something as big seriously I feel inspired to fix some things and achieve more.

undfg 5y ago

Apple founder Steve Wozniak backs popular thing to stay at the spotlight at all costs

traveler01 5y ago
Lol what. He clearly believes that, you just have to study a bit of his story.
eptcyka 5y ago
It's not nearly as popular as you might think it is, IMO. Louis Rossmann probably won't get to do a direct ballot initiative like he wanted, because he'll be underfunded. Politicians don't want to take this fight, because they don't feel like there's enough backing from the public. The issue needs clear cut support from the layperson, not unanimous approval from the tech literate.
vaylian 5y ago
Why do you think that this is his motivation?
- undfg 5y ago
  Because he won't shut up and he never says anything original or worthy of discussion.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    I never thought we'd see Tim Cook in here. Welcome?
misnome 5y ago
What part of this is contradicting the way he has acted and behaved previously?
cmsj 5y ago
Cynical orange site commenter takes cheapest pot shot at nice guy agreeing with reasonable thing, to..... actually I don't know why you did that, but you do you, I guess.

fsflover 5y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27770302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27770302

acd 5y ago

Thanks Woz! Great that you promote right to repair and also help better environmental foot print of electronic. Also it foster hackability.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

least 5y ago

Woz also got into hacking about computers at an ideal time. Not long before then it would have been impossible to build a sophisticated computer in your garage. Years later, miniaturization has continued to progress and many things that were once relatively simple to replace have become much harder. When most parts on a computer were through-hole components and relatively large integrated circuits that could easily be hand soldered, the skill required to participate in the repair process was much lower. Today, even relatively open hardware like a desktop PC has a ton of added complexity that would make people far less likely to ever want to attempt a repair on their own. While I've reflowed solder on a faulty GPU in the oven before, that's not exactly a good idea. A person is usually going to replace the things that have been component-ized like the RAM, GPU, SSD, motherboard, etc. rather than try to actually repair them. Granted, when a component like that breaks on a PC you can just pop it open and replace it, rather than having to find a specialist to repair a laptop or phone where all the parts are glued in or soldered. While I can sympathize with people that do want that (there are projects out there trying to bring products in this category to market), I'm personally okay with that being the niche that it is. Most people didn't hack their computers back then and to this day most people don't hack on their computers. There probably should be components available for experts like Louis Rossman who can replace these parts. There probably should be schematics available so they can more easily make these repairs and they can have businesses like his who can specialize in doing these sorts of repairs (they already do exist, clearly). Companies like Apple absolutely should not be using any sort of DRM to prevent use of third party hardware components in repairs. Going out of your way to make your devices difficult to repair is unethical. But I think we're well past the point that someone without specialized skills should be able to expect to repair any device that they purchase.

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

>He also credited an open platform with the success of the Apple II, which he said had shipped with schematics and designs. It had been, he said, the only source of profits at Apple for the company's first decade. "How was Apple hurt by the openness of the Apple II?"

cjohansson 5y ago

Woz is a good guy, respect to him

boba7 5y ago

BBC as a source? You ignored my direct source... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773649

EvanAnderson 5y ago

During a public Q&A back in 2017 I asked Woz what he thought about control Apple asserts on their "i-device" hardware. My question was to the effect of "What do you think about how I don't own my iPhone or iPad the way I owned my Apple II?" His answer referenced the openness of the Apple II but also included (not verbatim) "sometimes proprietary is the right thing" in reference to the Apple "app store" and the locked-down nature of the iOS device ecosystem. To have Woz-- the hacker's hacker-- answer like that was really shocking to me. (I was really, really sad to hear one of my childhood heroes answer in that way. I know, I know-- don't meet your heroes...) In this recording his position sounds a lot more reasonable. It makes me glad to have such a well-respected voice out there driving conversation about this topic. As an aside: I recorded my question and Woz's answer (albeit via my phone in my breast pocket, so the audio quality isn't very good) back in 2017. This was from his October 30, 2017 visit to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I didn't find a recording available online with a quick search, so here's this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lLz56N2PKCmPIGrzt1WT9n4B08P3C_Nu/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lLz56N2PKCmPIGrzt1WT9n4B08P...

swiley 5y ago
I think even 5 years ago many hackers (especially the pragmatic ones) thought Apple may have been doing the right thing. Woz tends to be on the more pragmatic/accepting side IMO, you have to be if you want to play with/create the newest things.
eddieroger 5y ago
I listened to your MP3, and thanks for sharing it. I think Woz's point is more what the App Store enabled, not the fact that it was a walled garden. The rules Apple put in the App Store is what made it feasible for them to exist at all, and then you can create any app you want for the hardware. I think that based on his extension over where the first Tesla Superchargers were - write apps for this hardware that make your life better because they're important to you. For what it's worth, when I think about the openness of the first computers I had, and how many crappy search bars and garbage things snuck past my unsuspecting parents while they used the computer, I'm surprisingly fine with the App Store, too. I don't have to worry about them installing garbage because it's gated by Apple. This is what made it "life changing" by Woz's words, and I agree with him.

deregulateMed 5y ago

Little too late here. But also better late than never. The annoying part is how HN users want right to repair, but not enough to pick such options. I hate to say corporate marketing is stronger than the human brain.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
It's the sociopaths in middle management calling these shots.
- CubsFan1060 5y ago
  I read that as "people on hacker news say they want open hardware/software, but don't buy hardware options that are currently available and are open"

quijoteuniv 5y ago

I think is a matter of time til they just boo the hell out of Tim Cook in one of those poncy presentation Apple does every now and then. poncy Someone, something or somewhere which is overpriced, over styled, over rated, or thinks more highly of itself than it deserves.

foxhop 5y ago

Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVjvKQ5CXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hVjvKQ5CXY | A message & thank you to Steve Wozniak by Louis Rossmann the Right-to-repair advocate and organizer.

dcomp 5y ago
I was just about to comment about this video that was in my feed. Louis Rossman publicly asking Steve Wozniak to back right to repair because it's faster than finding someone in his social circle etc to pass the message

forgotmypw17 5y ago

I think of it as right to existence and functioning for the device... And right of access for the device-human configuration. It's feasible, and not even very difficult, to make information on a website accessible to every browser since Mosaic, for example. And that's exactly what I do. If your site has a "browser not good enough" message on it for some visitors, I think you should be just a little bit ashamed of yourself for giving up. I think it is the difference between hack and craft.

binarybanana 5y ago

What about the right to repair software? Or the software that runs somewhere on the hardware to make it work? There is so much firmware running on our hardware in some closed off environment and it plays an integral role in making the hardware work. Sometimes it even emulates other hardware components to save costs. To the OS it appears like the real thing, but it's just implemented in firmware code. Today, if there is a bug in your firmware you are pretty much hosed even if there is nothing wrong with it, physically. Some manufacturers are better than others, but some are so bad that flashing anything but some signed firmware image will just produce a brick. Most things that require this firmware to be uploaded at runtime reject unsigned firmware. So again, if there is a bug in there and whoever made it doesn't exist or doesn't care, there is basically nothing you can do. For that reason I think that anything that requires firmware, or has a mechanism to update firmware should be required to allow loading custom firmware somehow. Maybe make it a switch, or require blowing a fuse and voiding the warranty, but it should absolutely be possible to do. Problem is that this is fundamentally incompatible for a lot of hardware with the way DRM is implemented. For example, on Intel systems the motherboard firmware is involved in handling HDCP and there is something similar going on with HD Audio. Same with the GuC/HuC firmware for the iGPU. It't involved with handling hardware decoding and handling HDCP. No way that could be opened up without making the DRM scheme useless. So how do you repair that vulnerability in your CPU when it's already out of support? If you could at least load unsigned microcode you could at least patch it yourself, but you can't, so your CPU remainins unfixable broken even though it's physically fine. Similar things could be argued for regular software, but in the case of hardware repair it goes, or should go hand in hand with repairability. Otherwise you are quite limited in what kinda thing you can repair.