European Parliament Votes For Right To Repair (theverge.com) 110
In a landmark move, the European Parliament voted today to support consumers' Right to Repair. The resolution was adopted with 395 in favor and just 94 against, with 207 abstentions. iFixit reports: "By adopting this report, the European Parliament sent a clear message: harmonized mandatory labelling indicating durability and tackling premature obsolescence at EU level are the way forward," said Rapporteur David Cormand, MEP from France. The vote calls for the EU Commission to "develop and introduce mandatory labelling, to provide clear, immediately visible and easy-to-understand information to consumers on the estimated lifetime and reparability of a product at the time of purchase."
The EU motion calls for a repair score, similar to the scores that iFixit has been assigning to gadgets for the past fifteen years. According to a recent EU survey, 77% of EU citizens would rather repair their devices than replace them; 79% think that manufacturers should be legally obliged to facilitate the repair of digital devices or the replacement of their individual parts. Matthias Huisken, Director of Advocacy for iFixit Europe, said "This is a huge win for consumers across Europe. This vote will set in motion a wave of new repair-friendly policies, from repair scores at retail to product longevity disclosures."
The EU motion calls for a repair score, similar to the scores that iFixit has been assigning to gadgets for the past fifteen years. According to a recent EU survey, 77% of EU citizens would rather repair their devices than replace them; 79% think that manufacturers should be legally obliged to facilitate the repair of digital devices or the replacement of their individual parts. Matthias Huisken, Director of Advocacy for iFixit Europe, said "This is a huge win for consumers across Europe. This vote will set in motion a wave of new repair-friendly policies, from repair scores at retail to product longevity disclosures."
just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force that (Score:2)
just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force that with import / export blocks
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Good. Then new small companies can begin anew and will be there for people who want to save some money.
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some things are too hard for small companies to make, I'll throw out example of multifunction printer/copier/scanner. ain't happening, anyone talking out of their ass about making one is ignorant of engineering and manufacturing.
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I guarantee that 2 guys/gals(or less) with enough motivation(money) can create any fucking thing. Pretty sure that is how it has been for thousand of years.
Ask Pythagoras or the Wright brothers.
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Re:just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force t (Score:5, Informative)
I guarantee that 2 guys/gals(or less) with enough motivation(money) can create any fucking thing. Pretty sure that is how it has been for thousand of years.
What if the Wright brothers tried making a modern aircraft? They would have to understand hydraulics, engine design, 3D modeling and fluid dynamics, embedded programming, client/server programming, realtime programming, networking, electrical engineering, engineering (including material science, adhesives, welding, and coatings), user interface design, ergonomics, metallurgy, and the list goes on.
There is also a serious argument that there is not any single person that knows the entirety of how to make a pencil. That was discussed here: https://freakonomics.com/podca... [freakonomics.com]
Obviously one person could make their own variety of commercial airliner (or pencil), but it would probably not perform to the specifications of the original. Two people alone could not even reproduce all the functionality of a complex computer application.
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I guarantee that 2 guys/gals(or less) with enough motivation(money) can create any fucking thing. Pretty sure that is how it has been for thousand of years.
What if the Wright brothers tried making a modern aircraft? They would have to understand hydraulics, engine design, 3D modeling and fluid dynamics, embedded programming, client/server programming, realtime programming, networking, electrical engineering, engineering (including material science, adhesives, welding, and coatings), user interface design, ergonomics, metallurgy, and the list goes on.
There is also a serious argument that there is not any single person that knows the entirety of how to make a pencil. That was discussed here: https://freakonomics.com/podca... [freakonomics.com]
Obviously one person could make their own variety of commercial airliner (or pencil), but it would probably not perform to the specifications of the original. Two people alone could not even reproduce all the functionality of a complex computer application.
So, are you suggesting that I must not be allowed to replace a next-to-dead battery in my touch screen cellphone? My cellphone has no moving parts, and thus, no mechanical switches to wear out. Why can I not have the battery replaced for $50.00, instead of having to buy a new phone for 12 times that amount?
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So, are you suggesting that I must not be allowed to replace a next-to-dead battery in my touch screen cellphone?
Not at all.
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Oops.
Just remember, the USA is only 4% of the worlds population, So you may produce imperial measured stuff for the USA, you produce metric stuff for export.
Re:just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force t (Score:5, Insightful)
DMCA only applies to the US, if importing of american devices to the EU is blocked then people would still be able to buy from the various asian manufacturers. To use your example, Samsung make printers/copiers and are based in south korea.
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Exactly, and no sane US company will risk loosing the EU market - it's actually bigger than the US market (even without the UK).
Re:just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force t (Score:5, Informative)
The repair information will be available on European websites which Americans can access.
It is unlikely that most companies will produce separate products, one repairable and one not. A big company like Apple could afford to do that, but smaller companies could not.
Re: just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force (Score:3)
They may enforce it through targeted certificates and OTA updates. And make sure that devices sold on a Non-US market only works for a limited time on US market before becoming useless.
Never underestimate how evil and subversive they can be. Replace the display at a third party shop, then 3 months later it's going black or starts to behave badly like dropping calls or whatever.
For phones they can of course decide to make one with a full glass casing that breaks into pieces when opened or damaged and make su
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For universal items like laptops you are right. For whitegoods or electronics like TVs, cars or any device with an even slight requirement for local customisation you'd be absolutely wrong. As it is devices are highly localised so I wouldn't expect the USA to get any major kind of benefit here.
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It doesn't need to. This is a resolution by EU parliament. EU parliament is a rubber stamp institution that has no power to make legislation, only approve or reject what Commission sends to them.
So every once in a while, it makes those resolutions to grandstand and pretend that they have legislative power similar to a typical national Parliamentary body. These resolution have the power of me writing the same thing on a piece of paper and flushing it down the toilet however, so outside the media picking the
Re:just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force t (Score:5, Insightful)
This is wrong. European Commission (https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-commission_en) doesn't set laws. That is the job of Council of the European Union (https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/council-eu_en) and European Parliament. The EU Commission job is the daily run of the EU, lawsuits and law keeping with EU 27 member countries.Only European Parliament (https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/institutions-bodies/european-parliament_en) can set laws in the EU.
European Union is complicated as all international trade and law blocks are. What matter is that EU only acts according to the will of its member countries and does not make its own policy as such. European Parliament doesn't rubber stamp anything.
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What is "set a law?"
The Commission chooses what laws to write and it writes them, then it sends them to the EU parliament to get rubber-stamped (passed).
The MEPs in theory represent constituents of the EU but in reality they really don't give a 4-star what citizens want and are a rubber stamping machine. MEPs don't vote for what their constituents want, they vote for what the voting block they are in wants, those voting blocks have principles which are supposed to govern how they vote but in reality they ha
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Yes, you just described how most parliamentary bodies work. Or do you think that MPs in other countries don't vote mostly with their party ?
The EU may have passed terrible copyright laws in the past (I don't know for sure, but let's say it's true). Maybe it's because their constituents don't give a damn about copyright laws (most people don't you can be sure).
In this case though it's an issue that affects many people (everyone has a device that may need to be repaired), so it's not surprising that politicia
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What is "set a law?" The Commission chooses what laws to write and it writes them,
It's more nuanced. The Council indicates what should be written, and the Commission writes them, and the Parliament votes on them. In many nations it is also the civil service that drafts the details of laws as titular heads of government areas (e.g. Secretary of Defense) don't actually write all the detail themselves. The EU Parliament may yet gain the right to propose laws, but in general it has been felt that direction should come from the elected bodies of the member states via consensus of the Council
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The trouble is that they haven't avoided becoming a federation but they've avoided being democratic whilst doing so.
Democracy at arms length is not democracy the same as it's not democracy when your landlord gets to vote for you.
The EU is not democratic because realistically the citizens of the EU don't have a say in what laws are written. And the EU is undemocratic because the vast majority of citizens don't know what laws are being passed on a day to day basis, the EU is much less democratic than national
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The trouble is that they haven't avoided becoming a federation but they've avoided being democratic whilst doing so.
There is a Parliament. The Council is composed of elected leaders of constituent nations and votes. I am not sure how this is significantly less democratic than most nations and their internal politics apart from the sometimes theoretical ability of parliaments to propose laws. In reality, unless the government backs a proposed piece of legislation it's unlikely to get through a national parliament and very few bills proposed from the floor of the various assemblies get through at all.
The EU is not democratic because realistically the citizens of the EU don't have a say in what laws are written.
That's also true of na
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You seem to be making excuses rather than recognising each of these points I made is a multiplying factor in the undemocraticness of the EU.
Each is a step away from democracy and there is a point where the steps add up to a line being crossed. The EU has crossed that line and is not a democratic institution.
True democracy is a system whereby people vote on laws to be passed. The EU is at the other end of the spectrum and it is not democratic.
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True democracy is a system whereby people vote on laws to be passed. The EU is at the other end of the spectrum and it is not democratic.
The other end of the spectrum would be more like North Korea than the EU. Most nations consider representative democracy to be a reasonable compromise and allow direct democracy on some issues. Not even Switzerland of the USA use direct democracy for all law-making, only a small proportion, because of issues of scale.
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Your first sentence doesn't match your links. I'm correct. Read your own links.
Finally, as user below points out, there's no such thing as "setting laws". Laws go through complex system of legislating them, such as being written, proposed, put to a vote and so on. But at no point are they "set". That doesn't exist. Which suggests that you're simply ignorant of how the system works as a whole, and really shouldn't comment about it being "wrong". Especially in the opener.
And the only power EU parliament has i
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I can sum up your comment as reading the letter of a process, without actually understanding it.
MEPs work with the commission to develop laws. While the commission is the only body with legal power to hand the piece of paper over to trigger the voting process, it does not in any way preclude MEPs being involved in the drafting process. This should be obvious on a practical level - there would be little chance of any law passing if the commission didn't work directly with MEPs to ensure the legislation was p
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>MEPs work with the commission to develop laws.
False in principle. Input that MEPs give to Commission is utterly irrelevant and ignored as a matter of routine. There is a lot of public theatre about how MEPs are "working on legislation" however, which is likely what you're citing.
>While the commission is the only body with legal power to hand the piece of paper over to trigger the voting process, it does not in any way preclude MEPs being involved in the drafting process.
They are involved in the same
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Well I have witnessed the process of EU legislation directly as a member of both research and political organisations (including interacting directly with an EU commissioner and MEPs). With all due respect, you clearly have no first hand knowledge of the process and the interactions involved.
I hope you enjoyed beating up your strawman "remoaner" in lieu of actually having a reasoned argument. It is pretty evident you also don't completely understand the principle of democratic representation and I suggest y
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>Well I have witnessed the process of EU legislation directly as a member of both research and political organisations (including interacting directly with an EU commissioner and MEPs).
You're an aristocratic partisan who prides in rubbing shoulders with politicians and looks down on the people who haven't as ignorant because they don't know people in high places. In a functional societies like here in the Nordics, people are ashamed of presenting such opinions. It's considered a universal vice hold such
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I'm not seeing any real insight in your posts, just a massive chip on your shoulder. There is no benefit engaging with your further.
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"When it is in person's direct interest not to be able to see facts, it's very hard to make them see facts".
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I work for the Commission, the Parliament and God Emperor of Man. You are wrong.
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This is the sort of anti-democratic drivel that gets disseminated on the regular among the elites combined with openly genocidal pan-Europeanism of the kind that manifested in two World Wars that started on our continent.
First of all, by this insane definition of "democracy", feudal European states were democratic. As selection of aristocrats was originally a function of various elders, who through many steps were selected by each community. And "you have no right to self determination, you will be assimila
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Thank you for that exhaustive explanation as to what is wrong with my understanding.
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Your lack of knowledge on the fact that you should explain what you're talking about for your argument to have more weight than that of a three year old saying they deserve candy for dinner because they want it is one of the least troublesome things you're ignorant of.
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Yes, I understand that you choose to remain silent and let world wonder if you're an idiot, rather than speaking out and removing all doubt.
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I must admit, this is a novel and as a result funny enough way to getting out of an argument that I'll allow it.
Well done.
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I'm sure that if you pulled those books out and read them, provided they're actual books on history rather than fiction, they would correct your faulty memory. Until then.
Stay healthy.
Right to repair bureaucracy (Score:2)
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The DMCA doesn't apply outside the US, so no it's not going to kill this.
No sane US company will risk loosing one of their biggest markets and import / export blocks ain't gonna do it either (import / export restrictions can go both ways).
Re: just wait for the DMCA to kill this and force (Score:3)
Sorry, that game is dying.
GDPR also wasn't killed.
USB ports on all phones also wasn't killed. They are even specifically extending it to kick Apple's ass for thinking they can cheat.
Not all things are truly insane anymore.
I know. Can't believe it either.
Finally! (Score:5, Insightful)
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The throw-away culture emerged because it became cheaper to buy new than to repair. Even simple repairs, once you include the cost of hourly wages and parts with their supply lines, shipping and handling, in the Western world this quickly enters the repair in the realm of full replacement cost.
When you can buy a 65" TV for $300, repairing it is no longer an option. If you want to make them repairable, you raise the cost by adding in extra plastic, extra parts and extra weight for the 0.01% of the population
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the throw away culture is more about convenience than cost. Years ago I bought a wide screen TV that had spent its early years advertising Disney DVDs at a K-mart. The price was right and it hadn't been burned in. I had it fixed twice due to power surge problems and both times it was in the shop for a weeks even though they had parts in stock. The expensive repair was $70 and took two weeks. The TV that replaced that was under $400 but only took about an hour to drive to a shop, buy the TV, return and set it up. It took about the same time to take the old TV to the shop but I also need to collect it latter. Repair cost me 4 times more time but a new tv cost me 4 times the money of a repair.
Re:Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)
The EU is seeking to address this problem. New products will be required to put the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) on the box. If there is evidence that the product generally does not live up to the stated MTBF then consumer laws kick in for (partial) refunds.
Obviously manufacturers are not going to want to put "our crappy TV will probably only last 2 years" on the box so they will have to work to improve reliability.
Having said that many places in the UK already offer a 5 year warranty on TVs. It's partly down to competition, and partly down to existing consumer laws that say goods must last a "reasonable length of time", which for TVs is generally 6 years. So if your TV breaks after 2 years you would get a 66.6% refund, but in practice most places have just decided to do a 5 year warranty.
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The throw-away culture is also exaggerated in a market where things are changing rapidly.
Your $300 65" tv would have cost 10x that a few years ago, as well as lacking support for newer features (which the buyer may never use, but they want them anyway because ooh shiny).
If your $300 1080p 42" tv that you bought a few years ago dies, you can replace it with a 65" for the same price that now supports 4k etc. The old one is no longer worth $300, its value (even if fully working) is virtually nothing.
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If it served me fine yesterday, it would today if it was working. If a new one just like it cost virtually nothing, that would be an option, but nobody wants to sell something for virtually nothing even if they could turn a profit. The repair part SHOULD cost virtually nothing if I could order one.
I SHOULD be able to order one.
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You can, through places like eBay.
But if you expect the manufacturer to hold onto a part for a 1 year old TV they don't make anymore and to pay for warehousing costs for someone who m
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In many cases, the parts in the new model are the same as in the old model. More LCD TVs were declared dead because of backlight failure than anything else. Not the 'interesting' part of the tech, so not redesigned with every new model.
There is very little in this years model that actually NEEDS to be incompatible with last year's model. Sure, the new board has a faster CPU or more RAM so they could cram in a couple extra features, but there's no reason the new board shouldn't integrate with last year's mod
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The two most common failures on TVs are backlights and t-con boards.
The backlight is often a real pain to fix because it's part of the LCD panel assembly and not easy to access. When you get inside it's often an easy repair replace one LED or one resistor.
The t-con board is usually easier. It stands for timing controller and basically takes the serial video signal and converts it into individual row and column driving signals for the panel. Often the board itself is fine and it's just the massive flat flex
Re:Finally! (Score:4, Insightful)
IMO that's a wrong calculation.
If the TV was good enough for me yesterday (even if it does not have 4K or whatever - maybe I can only get TV channels in 1080i or 576i), then it will be good enough for me once I repair it. If I can repair my current TV for $30 instead of buying a new (and somewhat better) TV for $300, I get to keep the $270 difference. The value would only matter if I was planning to sell the TV.
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Problem is most people can't repair their TV for $30. Okay the part might only cost $30 if you are lucky, but most people will need someone to diagnose the fault and fit the new bit.
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And that would probably bump the price up to $100. Still, paying $100 to repair the TV instead of buying a new one for $300 means I keep $200.
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I think you misunderstand how much people charge per hour. What does your average car mechanic cost? $125/h? $150/h? $300/h at the dealership (no, that is not hyperbole)? Then typically for electronics you need to include shipping as well, if not for the parts, for the whole device, which could easily cost $20-100/part.
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I got two blown speakers (a midrange and a tweeter) rewound and paid 45EUR IIRC, though I do not really know how long it takes to rewind a speaker. "Shipping cost" was probably 1L of gas to drop them off and then come pick them up. I don't know about other prices because I can repair most of other stuff myself (speakers are the exception).
I'm pretty sure replacing some caps (probably most common failure that does not result from abuse/damage) would not be THAT expensive and caps themselves are not THAT expe
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I don't remember paying 100EUR for wheel alignment, but, then again, I did that a while ago so what do I know. Maybe in Germany it is more expensive.
Re: Finally! (Score:3)
It's only cheaper because we keep parts of the world deliberately poor. And excuse m, but some kid in China looking forward to a life of slave labor while I don't get to do that type of job anymore ... what kind of shitty lose-lose deal is that?
I'd rather create some machine that assembles phones, and use my now spare time that that machine creates wealth for me, to give free education to everyone, so Chinese kid can afford to buy phones from *me*.
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This is not a law, but a pointless resolution. EU Parliament has no power to make legislation. It only has power to approve or deny whatever Commission deigns to let them vote on.
This is basically EU Parliament once again finding themselves with nothing to actually do, so they need to remind the media that they still exist. They make these resolutions every once in a while as PR stunts. They have no power of law and are utterly irrelevant.
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Why are you spreading so much false information on a huge amount of topics, be it coal power or the EU matters? Are you actually paid for this by some organisation or are you just a Dunning-Kruger victim?
The EU parliament does make legislation, but all legislation has to go through the comission (the EU civil service) first so it can check whether the EU doesn't overstep its mandate.
Re: Finally! (Score:2)
We don't pay our drones. No need. :D
We program them. To *want* what we want.
They still believe in free will. Can you believe it?
Singed,
the assholes of the world.
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>Why are you spreading so much false information on a huge amount of topics, be it coal power or the EU matters? Are you actually paid for this by some organisation or are you just a Dunning-Kruger victim?
Bold start. Let's see if you have the chops to back it up or you're just projecting your own problems onto me.
>The EU parliament does make legislation, but all legislation has to go through the comission (the EU civil service) first so it can check whether the EU doesn't overstep its mandate.
Projecti
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who can actually order affordable replacement parts
It's not about the parts is about the cost of labour. The cost of labour for skilled trades, which is what your repair man will be, is pretty high here in the west. Paying someone $30-$50/hr is reasonable if the thing they are repairing is expensive. For things like your house, your car, etc. it makes sense. Paying a mechanic $100 for 2 hours of work plus parts on a $30,000 car makes sense. But it doesn't make much sense for a TV that was $300 4 years ago.
Repair culture didn't go away because the spare par
good for users and for waste (Score:4, Interesting)
The amount of waste we generate through replacing products that could be repaired has got to be significant. We have way too many throw-away electronic devices. Companies need to be at least somewhat accountable for building something that is designed to die rather than be easily repaired and have its life extended.
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The amount of waste we generate through replacing products that could be repaired has got to be significant.
The volume of discarded cellphones is negligible compared to things like food containers and disposable diapers.
Re: good for users and for waste (Score:3)
However electronic devices generates a much more complex waste and also requires many different resources to make. So that's a factor to take into account when thinking about being possible to recycle or repurpose.
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They're on that one too ... https://ec.europa.eu/environme... [europa.eu]
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The cost and energy of adding 'replaceable parts' (think of all the screws, extra connectors, bigger plastic casings etc) generally outweighs the carbon impact of having something be repairable.
"Most" devices last 10-15 years, the smaller, less capable ones just get cycled down to family, bedrooms, kids etc, the few that break down. It costs the manufacturer a lot of money to handle broken down devices, the customer service and then ship back-and-forth either parts or full replacements, so the total breakdo
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And even then, WHO is going to repair these things? Most people don't own a proper set of tools, let alone have the skills to not break things while "repairing" their device.
I have a full time job repairing electronic equipment. Lots of people could if the culture changed so that repair information was more accessible. There is a piece of John Deere equipment in the queue at work right now that is "too new" so I am eventually going to have to call the customer and tell them it is 'unrepairable' because I can't get tech docs for it from JD.
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How much do you charge per hour? Add shipping - How much does a new TV cost?
I have used similar services to yours for medical equipment, but even there, the cost of medical devices has come down so much and most of it simply computerized, it's not worth in many cases to send it out for repair.
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Shipping is cheap if the customer is local - just the price of a couple liters of gas. As for hourly rate - well, if the device is designed to be more repairable, then the guy will spend less time repairing it instead of having to reverse-engineer the device first it the problem is something else than just bad capacitors.
Re:good for users and for waste (Score:5, Insightful)
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There should be a rule that anything consumable must be user replicable, or the manufacturer must offer replacements for 15 years at nominal cost. Batteries are the prime example, many devices from phones to toothbrushes are designed to be very difficult to open for no good reason.
Don't give me that IP68 waterproofing nonsense, they don't need to glue it all together just for that.
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iFixit is making a pretty good business model of providing the tools and the replacement parts, so I'm not sure the economic argument stacks up. It is likely not as profitable as selling new devices but that's a big part of what these laws are about: allowing repair to compete with new. Let the free market and the consumer decide for themselves.
We'd have to see some solid data on energy use and waste volume to understand the other half of that argument. The whole point of the EU directives here are to halve
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iFixIt had $21 million in revenue. That's a (VERY) small business. It fills a niche, sure, but they are not competing with Samsung or Apple or LG to fix their devices where a single version of a release of a device has an order of magnitude more PROFIT, let alone revenue.
And it's not like iFixIt is being threatened, even things they find hard to repair are relatively easy to repair (at least to me as a degreed industrial electronics bozo)
So let's say it costs $1 more per device to facilitate iFixIt to fix t
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The comparison I made there is just for repairing cell phones. If it costs dollars more per device, all the repair facilities in the world wouldn't make up for it.
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The main accusations boil down to anti-competitive tactics like designed obsolescence (through hardware or software) and restrictive licensing of repair tools and processes. Addressing those doesn't necessarily increase the underlying cost of making the device. Pentalobe screw heads are a great example of a design choice that appears to have zero merit beyond locking down the ability to repair. That choice itself caused an increase to both manufacturing AND repair costs.
I otherwise agree that we shouldn't b
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Most devices *should* be able to continue working 10-15 years or more. However manufacturers these days often make devices that require security updates, or depend upon a server which they can shut down at any time, even when the hardware is still fully functional.
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Yes, but my question is still - besides us geeks, who really cares? If a device like a TV stops working because of lack of updates, people simply plug in a Roku or Amazon stick for $25, the fact that it's still connected to their WiFi doesn't matter one iota to the majority of customers.
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Device without updates does not really matter to me. A device that stops working because of some counter (like some printers) or a phone that stops working after the screen is replaced - matters a lot.
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The amount of waste we generate through replacing products that could be repaired has got to be significant. We have way too many throw-away electronic devices. Companies need to be at least somewhat accountable for building something that is designed to die rather than be easily repaired and have its life extended.
Yes but then people also need to feel accountable for the desires to replace rather than repair. My washing machine breaks down *sad face* go take it to the repair. My laptop breaks *happy face* I get to buy a new shiny one. YAY!
Having said laptop be repairable doesn't change the above. In many cases we throw away things before even needing repair.
Non binding vote (Score:1)
The vote calls for the EU Commission to (...)
In other words, it is a non binding vote, since EU parliament cannot propose a bill. Nothing will happen.
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It's even less than that. EU parliament does these "resolutions" every few months as a PR stunt. These are aimed less at Commission and more at media to remind people in EU that they still exist and pretend really hard that they're worth the expenses.
What's even more sad is that they also use the excuse of "we don't have enough time" when Commission does send legislation to them that has horrible parts, and Parliament doesn't take the time to evaluate the legislation and just rubber stamps it in a voting pr
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The system is specifically designed to make MPs not be able to discern legislation they actually have to vote on
Indeed. I used to follow the blog of a MEP that explained all his votes. Often he noted a vote was cast wrong because he hit the button at the wrong time/p
Halfway there is still nowhere near the goal (Score:3)
While this will probably improve the supply situation for replacement parts to some extent, it's not going to do anything about how e.g. Apple makes a phone out of 90% glue; and it's *absolutely not* going to stop Apple's repair-blocking efforts here in the US.
Laws like this "work" for things like car safety standards etc, simply because it's cheaper to have a single design and single set of tooling that meets all the target markets' standards than it is to split the production run into dozens of variations. But for this, where 99% of the problems are either software - e.g. the Digital Restrictions Mechanism Apple uses to prevent replacement parts working; or are already localised to the US - e.g. Apple paying ICE to have replacement parts deemed Counterfeit etc, it won't have any impact at all. Phones purchased in the EU may have their DRM stubbed out with a "return true", but units sold in the US will keep it active, and Apple will keep using the DMCA etc to block third-party shops from being able to repair devices successfully.
So while this is theoretically good news for the EU (though remember that Apple et al have been more than willing to bypass EU electronic waste laws in the past), US readers shouldn't get their hopes up that it will mean anything at all to them.
Re: (Score:3)
I repair these devices, I write software that's used by a significant portion of people repairing these devices.
While it's definitely popular to kick Apple when we talk about repairability, I do have to say that iPhones are typically a hell of a lot more serviceable than other brands. There's very little glue in them other than some small amounts for the screen/chassis seal and some gasket/bonds with small components such as microphones.
Macbooks are also typically easier to work on than PC laptops, though t
Re: (Score:2)
it's not going to do anything about how
How is almost exclusively reflected on skill. There's a difference between making a device out of glue, and making a device held together by a special pentalobe screw with screwdrivers hard to find and replacement components unavailable.
An iFixit reparability score of 1 does not mean a device can't be repaired. It means that you may need to defer to an expert to do so. On the flip side if the vendor themselves are completely unwilling to provide said expert with a new screen / battery that is a whole differ
This is why EU is great (Score:3)
It's still run by citizens, not corporations.
Re: (Score:2)
I suggest you educate yourself on all the policies passed in EU aimed at protecting consumers, privacy and environment.
Re: (Score:3)
just how meaningless this resolution is.
Equally as meaningless as all other resolutions which have resulted in actionable change to the benefit of consumers... which is to say as demonstrated by past performance it's not meaningless at all.
Whoever the geeks in there are... (Score:2)
I thank you!
Even 10 years ago, this and the GDPR seemed like a wet dream of a "few" "weirdos".
Now I wonder: Who's lobbying for this? Or are there really non-lobbyists in there? Because the rather seems unlikely.
Or is this really the result of the weakening power of some Rockefeller/Trump types of forces? Cause I still jave trouble trusting this.
TL;DR: Sanity? In MY government??
(Well, truly not elected, but still.)
Re: (Score:2)
You can visit some of those geeks at the CCC: https://www.ccc.de/en/ [www.ccc.de]
Re: (Score:2)
Also look at https://noyb.eu/en [noyb.eu]
Will these stickers really make a difference (Score:1)
way to go Europe (Score:2)
Europe is doing the right thing showing the world the right direction.