
The Right to Repair could help address a critical shortage in school computers - elorant
https://uspirg.org/blogs/blog/usp/right-repair-could-help-address-critical-shortage-school-computers#new_tab
======
Abishek_Muthian
I feel sad that we need to educate and demand 'The Right to Repair'.

Yesterday, I accidentally noticed that my iPad Air 2 which I 've been using as
a external display for ~ a year has its battery bulged and even pushed out the
display[1]. If I hadn't noticed this, It could have ended really bad.

But now I have to wait for the heat gun to arrive to remove the battery for
safely discarding it, as Apple has made it really hard to change batteries. I
don't intend to replace the battery, as I think any device with battery and
without charging pass-through feature is a potential fire hazard when using
for any application which involves charging constantly. I have removed other
such devices (incl. iPhone) preemptively.

More over I'm tired of spending money on expensive hardware which I don't own
completely. There's absolutely no reason for not making user-replaceable
batteries other than planned obsolescence, which are bad for the consumers as
well as for the planet.

I will vote with my wallet for Fairphone, Pine64 like brands here after.

[1][https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152](https://twitter.com/heavyinfo/status/1302310594423345152)

~~~
samatman
Right to repair and user-replaceable batteries have _nothing to do with each
other whatsoever_.

This misconception comes up every week on HN. I don't know where it came from,
but I wish it would go back there.

Right to repair is important! Farmers have been suing John Deere to make it
legal to replace the controllers in their tractors with an open-source board,
because the company sells tractors with a license that requires farmers to use
their 'authorized' repair networks.

Car companies get into this same game, and pushback is important: the playing
field for repair should be level, when you buy a physical object, you should
own it, and so on; all of this is good. Apple has lobbied against this sort of
legislation, and shame on them.

But from where on Earth do you derive the right _to repair your tablet easily
and without any specialized tools_ from this?

How does that follow? What right do you have to demand that things be
manufactured in a particular way?

I don't want my tablet's battery to be user replaceable! not as much as I want
it to be thin, and solid, and resistant to splashes.

It's great that you want to buy those things. I don't. We should both fight
for the right to be legally allowed to repair our gizmos, for the right of
third parties to do that work, and even demand that companies which sell a
manufactured good also sell the consumable components of that good, for some
reasonable period after commencing manufacture.

And we should stay out of each other's way on matters of personal preference,
such as whether batteries are glued in place or kept in a bay behind a door.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
> "But from where on Earth do you derive the right to repair your tablet
> easily and without any specialized tools from this?"

Suppose you have passed your right to repair. I can design a device so that it
takes unreasonable effort and eqipment to repair it. Makes it more expensive
to repair than to buy a new one. You would have achieved nothing.

This has already happened - have a Samsung A50 with a broken screen, and you
can buy a new screen for £40. However the phone is basically a glue sandwitch,
and it costs the same to repair and to buy a new one.

On another note, Microsoft Surface laptop is unrepairable -
[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2017/6/17/15824670/microsoft-
surface-teardown-ifixit-impossible-repair)

If you pass right to repair without any provisions for ease of repair, it will
be a toothless, useless tragedy of a law.

~~~
ben-schaaf
> Suppose you have passed your right to repair. I can design a device so that
> it takes unreasonable effort and eqipment to repair it. Makes it more
> expensive to repair than to buy a new one. You would have achieved nothing.

No-one is going to buy a car or tractor that can't be repaired at all. And
it'll hit pretty hard if people realise even apple can't replace their screen
and they'll need to buy a new thousand-dollar device every time the screen
breaks. Apple and John Deere have a huge incentive to make devices repairable,
they just want to monopolize that repair business. That's the problem here.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
Oh boy, do you know that device manufacturers are actually refusing to repair
plenty of devices - I am not talking about warranty shenanigans, but refusing
to repair for any money at all:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-NU7yOSElE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-NU7yOSElE)

I have taken my A50 to Samsung, and they are not fixing it no matter how much
I pay them. On my Withings smartwatch the glass cracked, and was considered
under warranty. They explicitly told me it is unrepairable, and replaced the
watch with a new one! How the F __k are they unable to replace glass on a
watch?

Just about everything has already became either unrepairable, or uneconomic to
repair, from fridges to TVs to phones to smartwatches. The are a few exception
like vehicles or large equipment, but the events so far indicate that people
will buy unrepairable equipment because they have already done so in many
industries. Consumers generally have no way to know how repairable something
is, especially for a new product.

Lastly, a device does not have to be completely unrepairable - it could
require absurdly specialised and expensive equipment, that only the OEM will
ever afford, so you will be back at the monopoly problem.

~~~
spicymaki
I had a slightly different issue. I had a Samsung Smart Watch (Samsung Gear
Live) the charger was a cheap custom POGO pin cradle. After a month of use the
cradle assembly cracked. I contacted Samsung for a warranty repair and they
were going to charge over $50 to replace. I decided not to get it replaced and
sold the device on eBay.

Couldn't they just use a standard USB micro interface or Qi standard charger?

I have not purchased a Samsung device since.

~~~
abawany
I guess usb might have compromised water proofing but certainly a qi charger
interface makes a lot of sense.

------
reaperducer
This is just a group that is using "right to repair" to get attention for
themselves. Nice and topical, complete with a clickbait headline and "think of
the children" plea.

The right to repair won't help the school computer shortage. There aren't
enough broken computers, nor enough people able to repair them, to make a
difference.

I'm in favor of the right to repair. I've been repairing broken computers and
electronics almost my entire life. I have a couple of Apple machines on my
bench right now that I'm bringing back to life. But this is just opportunistic
attention-seeking.

And even if the most extreme ideals of "right to repair" were in place a
decade ago, the situation would be the same as today because the need to
manufacture new machines would have been lower, so we'd still have fewer
available computers to sell or repair now.

~~~
franga2000
> The right to repair won't help the school computer shortage. There aren't
> enough broken computers, nor enough people able to repair them, to make a
> difference.

I don't know what you're basing your prediction on, but we've managed to
provide computers to over half the students that didn't have one here in
Slovenia since the pandemic started, by taking broken or outdated computers
from companies and individuals that were going to throw them away, repairing
them and putting a lightweight Linux on them.

The only reason that was possible is that desktop PC parts are very well
understood and available to everyone.

On the other hand, we also have several shelves stacked with various brands of
laptops and tablets that we get from people in hopes we can repair and donate
them, but even with access to an electronics lab with serious equipment, we
have not been able to repair a single one as the process for that is
currently:

1\. Inspect the board for obviously broken parts 2\. Find the board number and
search a bunch of fishy Russian and Polish sites for a schematic 3\. Buy the
schematic (illegal, btw) 4\. Read through it to find the correct replacement
components 5\. If they aren't passive or something ubiquitous like a 555, you
basically can't get them - cry 6\. If there are non-obvious defects, spend a
week studying the schematics to be able to start probing the board 7\. If you
find a bad part, goto 5., else cry

The vast majority of laptop defects are small things that require very little
effort to fix with decent equipment, but access to the knowledge and parts
required is intentionally made difficult by the manufacturers. With access to
both, more than half of the laptops on those shelves would be in the hands of
students already.

~~~
rasz
> spend a week studying the schematics to be able to start probing the board

Sounds like you lack people with particular skills, no amount of documentation
is going to solve that for you. I emailed you a present, feel free to ask for
more detailed help if you need it.

~~~
GrantZvolsky
If right to repair takes off, it will make room for a Stack Exchange-like site
dedicated to debugging and fixing hardware. That in turn will accelerate
repair just like SO and github accelerate SW development.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
This is also true if we convince more people to start open source hardware
companies. I do strongly support right to repair to make illegal some of the
most egregious things companies do, but I think that should exist alongside
more open source hardware for the things we use in our daily lives.

~~~
franga2000
Any open hardware like that would be extremely to "EEE" (Embrace, Extend,
Extinguish). Just look at how Android (AOSP) went from a nice, open ecosystem,
to a "technically still open source" pile of mandatory proprietary garbage
(Gapps, Play Services, SafetyNet and whatever key attestation-based lock-in is
coming next...).

There's no way a small open hardware company can compete with industry giants
that are backed by armies of patent lawyers and overseas child labor. This is
simply not something capitalism is designed to sustain and therefore requires
(admittedly tasteless) things like mandatory standardisation and certain user
freedoms (to modify, repair, resell...). Sadly, this issue is not technical,
but entirely political.

~~~
imtringued
That's true. Unless the user assembles the device himself there is no way for
a small company dedicated to opensource to survive. Unfortunately I absolutely
dislike assembling manufacturer provided kits. You can't really review a kit
because any potential problems could be caused by incorrect assembly. Scummy
manufacturers have an easier time to get away because they don't have to
promise a final product.

If you get stuck halfway because of bad instructions that's on you to figure
out.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
I’m replying to everyone individually so I apologize for repeating myself, but
wouldn’t Prusa 3D printers prove your point wrong? The company has grown quite
a lot year over year. They acquired a company that designed SLA printers and
open sourced it. They directly compete with clones. And then there’s all the
open source software projects which survive despite zero sales revenue.

------
formalsystems
The 1 million laptop shortage in California was reported by the Sacramento Bee
after polling school districts. I worked with school boards and school
districts in California for 3 years selling education software, and I have to
say that the people in administration are the _most_ unaware of what the
district's technology needs really are. For every heartwarming story of a
school setting up a maker lab for its students, there is another school which
was allocated funding for a hackerspace, bought all the necessary equipment,
and then stuck it in a closet until the right person came along to set it up.
I have seen brand new 3D printers grow obsolete sitting in a public school's
storage room and shelves stocked with brand new Chromebooks as a "strategic
reserve".

The other thing about public school administration in California is the
attitude that parents and rich benefactors will make up for any
budget/equipment shortfall that a school faces. Administrators have an
incentive to underreport their school's technology assets, since their
requests are filled one way or another.

~~~
specialist
This mirrors my direct experience as well.

Teaching and computers don't mix. Certainly not before eighth grade.

Maybe give every student an iPad every year. Tell Apple to just gift them for
the tax write-off and goodwill.

Maybe have computer labs, whatever curriculum units are called. Starting with
logo turtles. Along side chemistry and other science units. Then maybe grant
access to desktops and printers starting in ninth grade.

Never provide internet access.

I'd be okay with a computer skills class starting in middle school if there's
a motivated teacher to staff it. So kids can play with Scratch, other proto
programming stuff, some art stuff. Whatever's cool. Treat this like music,
art, woodshop, and other electives.

I'm VERY on board with a school sponsored, hosted "hackers" club. Like math,
debate, young entrepreneurs, cheerleading, etc. clubs.

~~~
sokoloff
Programming is fairly difficult (beyond some very basic exercises) without
internet access at this point, even just for reference material.

~~~
giantrobot
There's these things called books, think of them like a paper backup of a
webpage. So anyways these books can have all sorts of information in them.

I have heard about, but not seen, books about computers and programming.
Apparently some were entire reference manuals for various programming
languages! Can you imagine? These books don't even need to be charged to use
them!

I know it sounds crazy but they're real things. I once met an old guy, you
know over 25, and he told me that before YouTube and StackExchange that people
learned to program entirely by using books and typing at their computers.

~~~
MiroF
> There's these things called books, think of them like a paper backup of a
> webpage. So anyways these books can have all sorts of information in them.

Read: Only children who can afford a computer + internet outside of school can
use the (obviously superior for beginners) tools available online, everyone
else relegated to books.

~~~
giantrobot
It's not a given (or obvious) that online tools are superior to books for
learning to program. Even _if_ that was objectively true it's trivial for a
school to make online resources available to students without external
Internet access.

The point the GP was making is schools can provide technology to students but
don't have to let them goof off on the Internet. Students definitely don't
_need_ Internet access to learn to program. Generations of programmers learned
to program quite well without YouTube tutorials.

------
supernova87a
But the story is totally vague. All he says is that there's a shortage, and
that ability to repair _could_ help.

How exactly? Would it help in a comprehensive view of things?

Certain aspects of making hardware affordable (for a given design) is being
integrated and somewhat harder to repair.

If manufacturers were required to make their stuff repairable, would that
increase the costs of production and the price of laptops? Would fewer people
be able to afford them? Would the specs of computers have to change in order
to fit/enable removable parts?

Are people likely to buy refurbed old computers at $200 versus $300 for a new
one? Would the price of new computers go from $300 to $400 if this were
required?

None of these things are answered.

The article/author is otherwise just advocating for something he desires (and
I could go so far as to say using Covid as an cover, given the lack of detail)
without being responsible for its implementation or feasibility.

If the details were addressed, I could get on board with requiring companies
to do so.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> If manufacturers were required to make their stuff repairable, would that
> increase the costs of production and the price of laptops?

No. The difference in the manufacturing cost would be trivial, because the
primary costs are in the high value components, e.g. CPU and display.

> Would fewer people be able to afford them?

No, because the costs would not materially increase. Moreover, the people for
whom cost is a primary concern buy from the second hand market anyway, and
increasing availability there would reduce prices by supply and demand.

> Would the specs of computers have to change in order to fit/enable removable
> parts?

We have some good evidence of this already, because repairable devices do
exist even though they don't represent the majority of the market, and the
specs are... basically identical.

> Are people likely to buy refurbed old computers at $200 versus $300 for a
> new one?

Yes, that's kind of the point.

> Would the price of new computers go from $300 to $400 if this were required?

Does increased competition usually result in _higher_ prices? If anything they
would need to take thinner margins in order to compete with the refurbished
market. Which is why they don't want to do it.

~~~
supernova87a
I don't know that most of your blanket assertions are true.

Just taking one example, the cost of manufacturing electronics is not just the
raw cost of the component. And you seem just fine to have increased costs
passed along to manufacturers and not believe it would have an effect on them,
but then state that such small $ differences would have a big effect on people
buying the stuff.

But anyway, why should companies be required _by law_ to build a product a
certain way, for a feature that's not safety/public health/deceptive
advertising related?

If your statements are true, go out there and offer such a great product, and
let it take the market.

Otherwise, I don't agree with the logic of having laws intrude into the
_design_ choices of products that are voluntarily manufactured and purchased.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Repairability is public health related, unless you can live in 40°C winters
and breath under water. /s

You know the resources of the planet aren't limitless.

~~~
sokoloff
What _isn’t_ public health related by that measure? Should everything be
subject to government mandate?

------
lacker
There’s no supply shortage of Chromebooks, you can buy them on Amazon and have
them delivered Thursday. Maybe schools don’t have money allocated for this,
but refurbishing old PCs isn’t really going to solve that problem. A
chromebook is pretty cheap compared to the overall cost of education in the
US, so a school that claims it has a computer shortage is probably just not
prioritizing the acquisition of additional computers, rather than being
totally unable to acquire them.

~~~
simple_phrases
I have computers that are over 15 years old and still work today because they
were designed to be upgraded and to last.

There are many Chromebook lines that are similar to phones in that you can't
just install Linux or a new version of Windows once Google stops supporting
your hardware.

~~~
YetAnotherNick
I have used many different computers in past 20 years, and all of them becomes
unusable after 4-5 years at max. And this happens to all the people that I
know of. You are likely lucky that your hardware is in working condition for
15 years.

~~~
GordonS
Counterpoint: I have used many different computers over the past 30 years, and
none of them has become unusable within only 5 years.

------
bserge
There's a notable lack of refurbishment/recycling businesses in western
Europe. The UK is leading here, the Netherlands is also decent, but Germany,
France, Belgium are surprisingly behind. Sure, there's quite a few small
outfits that do it, but very few companies doing it at scale.

I'm looking at possibly opening such a factory somewhere between FR/DE/BE,
though it would ideally need some investment to get it up and running fast.

We need to get rid of this stigma of buying used/refurbished. Nothing wrong
with an older appliance that has been fixed, tested and cleaned properly. And
the environment benefits.

~~~
ciupicri
Nothing wrong with an older appliance, except that you get what you pay. It
might be too power hungry or hot, it might be unsupported/obsolete [1][2] or
too slow, e.g. Core 2 Duo can barely play FullHD YouTube videos; AV1 and H265
are also too slow on the first generations of Core CPUs (i5-520M, i3-2120).

For these reasons I've recently avoided buying anything before Haswell - the
first generation with AVX-2 instructions. I would have preferred Broadwell or
Skylake because of the new Intel graphics Linux driver [3], but they were too
expensive.

[1]: "Intel drops plans to develop Spectre microcode for ancient chips",
[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/intel-drops-plans-
to...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/intel-drops-plans-to-develop-
spectre-microcode-for-ancient-chips/)

[2]: "Support timeframes for Unix legacy GPU releases",
[https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/s...](https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3142/~/support-
timeframes-for-unix-legacy-gpu-releases)

[3]: [https://github.com/intel/media-driver](https://github.com/intel/media-
driver)

~~~
bserge
Core 2 Duo is ancient. But people are tossing 2-4 year old machines, and
they've got everything one needs. Not to mention smartphones and tablets,
which get old in 6 months. That's ridiculous.

It's even worse with home appliances, which do not have any significant
improvements yoy, or indeed, any improvements at all. Nothing but the design
changes. They can be easily fixed and will last just as long as a new
appliance.

~~~
znpy
> But people are tossing 2-4 year old machines

This! Think of companies that replace their laptops every 3-5 years. A five
years old laptop is still fully functional (believe me, I run a 2014-2015
ThinkPad T440 as a personal machine and it works fine). A three years old
laptop... Even better.

------
giantg2
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about right to repair... or maybe it
just means different things to different people.

It's one thing to make a machine that is difficult to repair - like removing
the screen to get to the battery. The real problem is when a company won't
provide replacement parts and have patented the parts to eliminate third party
manufacturers. The laws around the auto industry got it pretty much right - if
the manufacturer mandates that you use a specific part, then they must make it
available, and I believe they have to stock replacement parts for 20 years or
something reasonable like that. It doesn't mean it's necessarily easy to make
the repair (ever do transmission work?).

------
ed25519FUUU
The only actual issue listed in this article is a screenshot of a tweet, that
says there’s 5 million activation locked iPads sitting in lockers.

I’m a HUGE fan of RTR, but I don’t really see how it helps anybody in this
situation. You’re legally allowed to unlock/root iOS devices. Nothing legally
stopping you. Now there are strong technical barriers indeed, though I bet
most of these iPads are vulnerable to rooting.

~~~
vondur
If you have proof of ownership, Apple will unlock the devices for you.

~~~
ericabiz
No, you need the original proof of _purchase_ for Apple to unlock a device for
you, and it has to be in your name. I run repair shops and we have had this
conversation hundreds of times from customers. People buy iCloud locked
devices from Craigslist, FB Marketplace, and eBay constantly. Apple will not
help in these cases, and if they paid cash or used an app without purchase
protection, they got screwed.

We have even had people who have presented death certificates to Apple to get
devices unlocked from someone who died, and that is hit or miss. It’s
incredibly frustrating.

------
wiseleo
I can buy used Chromebooks that clearly came from schools for $69 at retail
and substantially less in container load quantities. At the same time, schools
say they can’t buy Chromebooks. There’s a disconnect here - these devices are
supported by Google longer than the schools are keeping them.

Schools need to stop trashing perfectly functional devices as e-waste and
should make them available to other schools and cities.

I use my HP G4 11” Chromebooks every day for software development. They are
certainly good enough for school work.

I support right to repair, of course, but this article can cause harm to that
cause. It mentions overriding activation locks. That’s bypassing security
measures on functional products, which is not truly repair.

Should the manufacturer have a process to factory reset low value equipment?
Of course. Still, I wouldn’t want to conflate that with right of repair

------
greentimer
People who read this would probably be interested in one laptop per child,
which was a nonprofit effort to provide $100 laptops to students throughout
the third world. There is no need to buy cheaper used laptops when the laptops
can just be manufactured more cheaply to begin with. A lot of what people are
spending their money on is the software like that of the operating system
which is not strictly necessary for young students. The actual components of a
barebones computer are dirt cheap.

~~~
wmf
I don't think OLPC has much if any advantage over Chromebooks today. IIRC the
OLPC laptop (not tablet) never reached $100; it was more like $200 with specs
(e.g. VIA processor and 7.5" screen) that were weaker than even the cheapest
$200 Chromebook.

------
hu3
"The irony is that I’d like to do the responsible thing and wipe user data
from these machines, but Apple won’t let me. Literally the only option is to
destroy these beautiful $3000 MacBooks and recover the $12/ea they are worth
as scrap."

[https://twitter.com/DebraMoxon/status/1251537062278332416](https://twitter.com/DebraMoxon/status/1251537062278332416)

------
walshemj
Not sure that refurbing pc's had a problem with a right to repair.

Some bandwagon jumping going on

------
ClumsyPilot
I feel we need the manufacturers to provide a design lifespan for each device,
and that should mean that at least half the devices sold must reach or exceed
that age without significant degradation -> like a half-life.

Nobody wants to buy a laptop that will only last 2 years, so the manufacturers
would either have answer some tough questions, or design things to last, and
to be repairable (because that's one way of making them last).

Obviously careful through is needed towards the fine print - one should allow
some parts to be replaced, like batteries, but not accept that a device lasts
10 years if you spend more on repairs than the device has cost in the first
place.

------
foobar1962
I don't see much about "right to repair" in the article. As @samatman says:
"Right to repair and user-replaceable batteries have nothing to do with each
other whatsoever."

Some commenters mention how specialised tools are needed, and how a lot of
things are glued together making repair difficult. This is a consequence of
the engineering choices made between, say, a thin notebook and something like
a Dell Latitude, and the purchasing preferences consumers have that drive
those design choices.

------
valuearb
Is there really a shortage of school computers? Unrequested: my kids got sent
a chrome book and MSFT surface for school this year, when they already had
better home computers.

The US has never spent a higher percent of GDP on education,

[https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending](https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending)

so why is this a problem and what does it have to do with Right to Repair?

~~~
wmf
"Lenovo, HP, and Dell have told school districts they have a shortage of
nearly 5 million laptops"

[https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/us-faces-back-to-school-
laptop...](https://nypost.com/2020/08/23/us-faces-back-to-school-laptop-
shortage-amid-covid-19/)

~~~
valuearb
Again, does every kid need a school procured laptop or pc? Mine didn’t, they
had their own. My guess is most kids do so if schools just focused on the kids
who didn’t already have computers the backlog would likely disappear.

------
Const-me
I maintain and repair my electronic devices when needed. Some hardware vendors
are better than other. Some of them publish service manuals for open access,
and even have youtube channels with videos like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=Pro...](https://www.youtube.com/c/hpsupportadvanced/search?query=ProBook+445+G7)

------
Animats
The trouble with using recycled computers is that they're all different. That,
in a school setting, is hell.

 _" Every child a sysadmin"_

------
m0zg
I wonder why there is a "shortage in school computers" still. Computers
haven't significantly improved in the past decade, and most of the ones
manufactured would still work fine at a local school. All you need to do is
put in a $100 SSD into them and they're good to go. I have 3 older machines
collecting dust around the house and I don't know what to do with them.

------
fortran77
I'm all for a sensible "Right to Repair" but I'm not sure there's a "critical
shortage of school computers"

------
randyrand
Low end computers cost peanuts compared to what we spend on education in the
USA.

Any perceived computer shortage is due to lack of will, not lack of funds.

~~~
bArray
Agreed, there are plenty of retired machines out there. Hell, if they
organized properly I am sure office companies would happily give them
computers when they do their cycling every few years. I imagine their local
firms probably refresh at least every 5 years.

How many Windows/Linux laptops are as locked down as the iPad anyway? It seems
that right-to-repair is specifically a war with Apple at the moment as they
make vendor specific components and glue the thing together. Most off the
shelf laptops use off the shelf user replaceable parts? To be honest I don't
think we should encourage children into the Apple ecosystem until they sort
their shit out.

With so many credit-card sized computing devices, I don't know why we're not
yet building laptops where you can just drop in some semi-standard computing
device into the middle and simply plug in a HDMI screen, 5V USB power
connector from a battery and USB peripherals. Kids don't need the slimmest,
fastest computing device ever created, they need something robust and
reliable. Maintaining these machines is often as simple as just having the
ability to swap parts to build working machines - make it so that somebody not
trained in tech can do it.

------
tedunangst
How does unlocking an iPad turn it into a laptop?

Second question: how are they planning to turn the million desktop PCs trapped
in offices into laptops?

------
bgorman
How about school districts don't buy non-repairable devices? Enterprise
focused laptops are easy to service.

------
shirakawasuna
A repair mindset can also help with wastefulness and standardization. If you
expect that you'll need to repair an item, having a certification or
expectation that it can even _be_ repaired will force the use of more
standardized components. And less junk thrown into landfills.

------
shmerl
It's surprising there even has to be a "right to repair" to actually repair
things.

~~~
bonestamp2
Yes and no. Yes, I think owners of devices should have much more access to the
parts and tools needed to repair their own equipment. But, there's an argument
in this article that I don't completely agree with, although I can sympathize
with the need.

Those activation locked iPads would be very helpful to address the device
shortage at schools and it would be great if we could find a way to do that.
But, it's not simple either. Activation lock is the problem in this scenario,
but it's also a solution in another scenario.

Activation lock has dramatically decreased theft of Apple phones and tablets.
Right now, there's not much point in stealing one of these devices since it
cannot be used by someone other than the owner. But I can remember a time when
device theft was a daily occurance in public. The problem expressed in this
article is that the legitimate owner has changed, but the lock has remained,
and that is a valid problem.

If a recycler can suddenly unlock them, that solves one problem but creates
two more. Now you've resurrected the black market for stolen apple devices and
created a new black market for the unlocking of these devices. Sure, there is
probably a technical solution to solve that too, but my point is that a
solution needs careful thought and not just free-for-all legislation.

~~~
shmerl
I'd say schools should stay away from the likes of Apple and use devices and
systems that don't have such problem in the first place.

------
rbanffy
Fascinating. This looks like the kind of problem the OLPC was created to avoid
- it was inexpensive, durable, open, standardized, and trivially easy to
repair. It'd also be given to each and every student.

------
zxcb1
Perhaps there should also be a Right to Virtualize? In this way there is less
dependence on hardware and app ecosystems, as everything can co-exist and run
everywhere; in the cloud or on refurbished hardware.

------
phobosanomaly
Public purchasing of refurbished computers by low-income school districts
implemented on an accelerated time scale?

There is no way that doesn't just turn into a feeding frenzy of people
scamming school districts.

------
rootsudo
Wasn't aware of a shortage of school computers, imo growing up in Florida it
was more of a shortage of competent IT staff.

In middle school I was able to use Net Send, granted this was pre SP2 for
WinXP but that was a great way to have fun, meanwhile in highschool it was
veritas backup software, open network directories and simple permissions that,
should've been locked down vs any semi competent kid could do, nefarious
stuff.

Of course, I never did. Ever. But the computers were never that used, I don't
think we even had AD for unique user names, and we did not have email
addresses. Computers were on a domain and there were some user names, but
simple simple stuff like logging in as admin was possible (by default no
password on Pre SP2.)

For the article, they cover refurb, and IMO that's the best answer - Microsoft
gives away O365/M365/W10 for school basically free (if not free) and there's
entitlements via techsoup for _any_ non-profit, that basically mean if you
file a non-profit llc, you get it if you provide a resale license and state
leter of incorporation. (Resale license is pretty common for most non-profits,
and allows you to waive sales tax on most purchases, because, its' for sale
and ultimately will increase tax revenue for the state/county)

And an 5-7yr, maybe 10yr old i3, i5, i7 is all a student needs - a majority of
students just need a basic laptop that should have good parts bin because it's
probbaly to get damaged, vs having something new and not having that secondary
resale/used/chinese market propping up parts.

Old Dell Latitudes, XPS's, For email, office apps, browing, and general
computing, I don't see an issue. Especially w/ an SSD.

Now, macbooks, the resale market is strong on these, 2013 macbook airs are
still selling for 400$+. Yeah. Right?

2013 Dell's and Lenovos, $100'ish. And they're great computers.

Most of the time the users don't even know the differences, just have Windows
10 and have it O365 ready and look in "good" shape.

------
ThinkBeat
This is one problem that the self proclaimed philanthropists of Silicon Valley
could easily solv.

Jeg buy 6 million computers. Easy.

A lot might even come from gear they are replacing a anyways.

Hopefully they will step up

------
Animats
It's going to be interesting if batteries good for far more charge cycles
become available and the phone makers resist using them because they will
extend device lifespan.

~~~
deafcalculus
At least in the Android market, there is enough competition that this doesn't
bother me.

------
persephonee
My oldest notebook was sold in 2006-2008. I repaired it multiple times. I use
it everyday, a Sony Vaio SZ1m

------
aaron695
Not sure why this blog spam has so many upvotes?

If you think IT repair and refurbishment in education is an amazing solution
you're either naive or so brilliant no one else in the industry can see it.

Random thought, physical destruction of hard disks is often required, as it
should.

If you could find a way to do it electronically and be auditable, it might be
step one. The erasing is easy, the auditing is hard.

------
arminiusreturns
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

The right to repair requires the right to root!

------
doggydogs94
Maybe for the next pandemic ...

------
einpoklum
A great part of the problem is planned obsolescence - through one of many
avenues.

A lot of modern Capitalist economy is based on massive continuous consumption.
So much so that if a company sell a viable, well-manufactured, robust product
- it might be digging its own grave, because people won't need to buy the same
or slightly-better product next year or in a couple of years. So, what does
the economic incentive make manufacturers do?

* Make parts that are sensitive to the elements or to pressure, so they are likely to sustain damage faster.

* Make mechanical parts that are flimsy, thin, or just naturally wear out quickly.

* Use electric components with short lifespans: Batteries that can charge less and less (while consumption is kept high), capacitors that pop and leak, solder spots that heat up and detach etc.

* Write software or promote software that uses ever more computing resources even for the same functionality.

* Invest in advertising, "news" and cultural products which encourage repeated consumption, fashions, disdain for what's older etc.

* In extreme cases like that spoiled-princess company, Apple - they actively sabotage their own hardware with lock-ins, slow-downs on upgrades and other such goodies.

and there's more, I suppose.

~~~
barbecue_sauce
I always see Apple cited as some malevolent king of planned obsolescence, but
I have a 2013 MacBook Pro and an iPhone 6, both under constant use, both of
which I have never had any significant issues with and do not plan to upgrade
any time soon. I know they oppose Right-To-Repair, but so far their hardware
has been fairly robust for me.

~~~
Wingman4l7
They've intentionally made battery replacement more difficult on their laptops
by using strong adhesive on in their batteries (they used to screw them in).

What's more damning IMO is their propensity to solder RAM, and now SSDs, to
the motherboard. If permanently affixing the most commonly upgraded parts for
laptops isn't planned obsolescence, I'm not sure what is.

~~~
Bud
Please don't be obtuse and intentionally ignore all the of the legitimate
reasons why they are doing all these things. You're clearly and obviously
smart enough to know what those reasons are. Hint: they're not "planned
obsolescence" or any such bullshit. It would be better if we could discuss
those issues honestly.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
If you are going to accuse the other person of being obtuse, you should at
least answer the question:

"what would apple have to do for you to admit that they are definately going
for planned obsolescence?"

~~~
Bud
For starters, instead of providing software updates for THREE TIMES AS LONG as
their main competitor in their main product space (iPhone), they'd need to
start providing updates for, say, less long. :)

Then, after that, they would need to start making products which, instead of
holding their resale value for much longer than competing products (which they
clearly and obviously do), hold their value for less long.

I could go on, but really, for anyone paying attention? To the facts which
really matter? This stuff is pretty obvious.

------
citizenpaul
For once I'm on board with a

"PLEASE SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN"

excuse for getting a law passed.

