repair

Credit – Cathryn Virginia

We’ve talked about manufacturers limiting their customers’ ability to work on their own machines and devices before. They use all sorts of excuses, ranging from copyright to deep concern for their customers’ safety, when it’s really a deep desire for their customers’ money. Farmers have pushed back by trying to circumvent the measures used to lock them out. An entity called iFixit is working steadily on finding ways to fix everything and share them with the public. There have been small victories along the way.

Now there’s a new atrocity showing itself. The people manufacturing the ventilators essential to saving lives are trying to make it impossible to repair and re-use them. In this time when we’re supposed to all be in this together, they’re in it for themselves. This is what happens when we let them excuse themselves by saying that their only responsibility is to their shareholders.

Medical care providers are fighting back by hacking ventilators to get them working again. A few quotes from the article at Motherboard:

As COVID-19 surges, hospitals and independent biomedical technicians have turned to a global grey-market for hardware and software to circumvent manufacturer repair locks and keep life-saving ventilators running.

You can’t just take the working parts from different machines to make a working ventilator.

… a functional monitor swapped from a machine with a broken breathing unit to one with a broken monitor but a functioning breathing unit wonâ€™t work if the software isnâ€™t synced.

These fixers have taken a page from the John Deere tractor owners who had to hack their machines to get their work done.

This grey-market, international supply chain is essentially identical to one used by farmers to repair John Deere tractors without the companyâ€™s authorization and has emerged because of the same need to fix a device without a manufacturer’s permission.

It’s getting harder.

… newer medical devices have more advanced anti-repair technologies built into them. Newer ventilators connect to proprietary servers owned by manufacturers to verify that the person accessing it is authorized by the company to do so.

There’s a lot more in the Motherboard article, both infuriating and encouraging. Go ahead.

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The right to open up your stuff is under attack, but DIY fixers are keeping the art of repair alive.

Source: How to Fix Everything | Motherboard

iFixit is spearheading an attempt to make it not only easier, but in some cases legal, to repair your own stuff. The John Deere company tried to use copyright law to make it illegal for farmers to repair their tractors. Fortunately, a lawsuit pushed by iFixit recently resulted in a victory for farmers against this immoral behavior. Apple corporation began using an oddball screwhead to make it difficult, if not impossible, for their customers to even open their devices. If you can’t open it, you can’t repair it.

“That Apple and other electronics manufacturers don’t sell repair parts to consumers or write service manuals for them isn’t just annoying, it’s an environmental disaster,” (Kyle Wiens) says. “Recent shifts to proprietary screws, the ever-present threat of legal action under a trainwreck of a copyright law, and an antagonistic relationship with third-party repair shops shows that the anti-repair culture at major manufacturers isn’t based on negligence or naivetÃ©, it’s malicious.”

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John Deere told the copyright office that allowing farmers and mechanics to repair their own tractors would â€œmake it possible for pirates, third-party developers, and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique expression and ingenuity of vehicle software.â€

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“We decided as a result of our research in the developing world that what the world needed was an open source repair manual for everything,” (Kyle Wiens) said. “There’s two ways of doing thatâ€”you get the manufacturers to open source their documents, or you write a new one. We have not given up on the first one, but we have focused our efforts on the second.”

Small victories give hope that progress will be made in this area, but the manufacturers still seem more intent on locking their customers out than on treating them with respect. Fortunately, we have people like Kyle Wiens and organizations like iFixit watching out for us.

How to Fix Everything article on Motherboard website.

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