[Discuss] [semi-OT] "Right to Own" law

[Drew Van Zandt]

To require things to be documented, you have to specify WHAT documents.
Anything you don't specify won't be documented.

Have you ever done a pro hardware design?  The documentation is different
at every single place I have worked.  The systems are often proprietary
file output.  Paper schematics?  I've worked on designs with 300 pages of
11x17 schematics.

*
Drew Van Zandt
Artisan's Asylum Craft Lead, Electronics & Robotics
Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld)
Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D.  Masquerade aVST
*



On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Mark Woodward <markw at mohawksoft.com> wrote:

>  On 06/27/2012 09:06 AM, Drew Van Zandt wrote:
>
> Increases the barrier to entry in business.
>
> I took some to think about this response, and the more I think about it,
> the more I see it as FUD. This is the type of answer corporations that want
> to extend their control over our property give. Seeing as this is a
> discussion, I get to ask: how? It seems to me, *MORE* effort needs to be
> made to lock down these devices than it does to open them up.
>
>
>  That's bad for small businesses, matters less for large ones.
>
>
> Again, the words "bad" "small business" but no facts. No argument. Just
> FUD.
>
> Maybe this is what discourse is in 21st century USA, but it is still an
> empty non-argument.
>
>
> *
> Drew Van Zandt
> Artisan's Asylum Craft Lead, Electronics & Robotics
> Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld)
> Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D.  Masquerade aVST
>  *
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 9:03 AM, Mark Woodward <markw at mohawksoft.com>wrote:
>
>> We've heard the ads on the radio for and against the "Right to Repair"
>> law. This is a law that is intended to require automobile manufacturers to
>> publish the technical specifications and the codes that the computers in
>> your car produce for troubleshooting and repair.
>>
>> I was thinking, what about a "Right to Own" law, that requires that *all*
>> electronics be documented, all "general purpose" computers i.e. not
>> embedded like a microwave, but everything from video games to iphones,
>> tablets and computers be "user serviceable." No locking out a user from
>> doing what ever they want with stuff they own.
>>
>> Writing this law would be very tricky because you need a lot of legal
>> intuition about the sort of attacks that will come at it from the likes of
>> Apple and Microsoft, but also a lot of technical savvy to carefully define
>> what is "general purpose" and what is "dedicated" and what the actual
>> limits are. We want to protect innovation, but not at the expense of civil
>> rights of ownership. For instance, we don't need to see the source code to
>> Windows 8, be we damn well should be able to boot Linux or FreeBSD or
>> whatever. We should be able to run what ever program we want on an iPhone
>> or Android. These devices are our property, we paid for them, we are
>> legally responsible for what is on them, we should have the ability to
>> control them.
>>
>> When I was a kid, almost *all* devices, from washing machines to
>> televisions, had a schematic inside the case. CP/M came with the source
>> code. We have lost a lot of freedom to the corporations locking up our
>> property. How much crap that would have otherwise been semi useful have we
>> had to throw away?
>>
>> This is clearly a case where the invisible hand of capitalism will not
>> help and an obvious case where regulation must. Agree? Disagree? it would
>> be hard to find a politician who would even back such a bill, but maybe we
>> can get a referendum on the ballot.
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>>
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