"Right to Repair" - Potentially great news for DIY!

[kelemvor]

What is strange about this law is that a big proponent of right to repair are farmers that cannot service their own machinery because of industry practices.

The farmers did it to themselves. They want a law just for them. I think they didn't believe the current raft of laws being enacted across the country would happen or some such.

 

[Jeff_O]

The farmers did it to themselves. They want a law just for them. I think they didn't believe the current raft of laws being enacted across the country would happen or some such.

Micky D's had soft-serve ice-cream machine needing repair. Customers complained. They were told repair could not be done without manufacturer. It is gonna take some time.

If only an independent repair person could do this. If the special code was available to them yes. The proprietary software that prevents anyone except manufacturer to do repair was in the way.

Another company, not Mfr, came to rescue with software work around. They got slapped with a law suit. Have to see how that turned out.

The Cold War Over Hacking McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines

Secret codes. Legal threats. Betrayal. How one couple built a device to fix McDonald’s notoriously broken soft-serve machines—and how the fast-food giant froze them out.

www.wired.com

 

[Addison Snyder]

The farmers did it to themselves. They want a law just for them. I think they didn't believe the current raft of laws being enacted across the country would happen or some such.

Many farmers are just blindly following their farmers bureaus which are oftentimes working against them in right-to-repair (see here).

What is strange about this law is that a big proponent of right to repair are farmers that cannot service their own machinery because of industry practices.

There's a particularly strong lobbying effort against R2R in that area, maybe this was a 'foot in the door' for expanding to other areas. Same concept as vehicular R2R in Massachussetts. No, it didn't immediately give everyone schematics to electronics (or whatever end personally benefits you), but when other stuff is being debated and a lobbyist says your microwave will explode, one can point to how R2R for vehicles hasn't caused cars to swerve off of roads or China to take control of them.