Not in a legal sense, but in a practical one, companies had no effective way of locking you out of repairing your own machines, unlike today. No need for a round of pedantry.
Ah, well if we can divorce ourselves from facts, then yes, we can believe anything.
What legal way am I locked out? There are exemptions in US (and other law) for copyright, patents have not changed, trademarks don't stop me.
There are zero items in my house (and I have all sorts of tech) that I cannot take apart (and routinely do) and fiddle with and hack on and change and repair if I feel so inclined.
Sure, the average person with low tech skills and low tech tools has a harder time, but the things being worked on are simply much more specialized and complex. I bet the average person has been unable to repair a fine watch for a century - that's needed a specialist, since it was high tech a century ago.
Or do you mean repair has gotten more complex as technology has gotten more complex? That has been and always will be the case. Repairing an axe is always going to be easier than repairing an iPhone.
> What legal way am I locked out? There are exemptions in US (and other law) for copyright, patents have not changed
Please point out to me which copyright exemption will enable me to get hold of firmware for a microcontroller in my washing machine if the current one gives up the ghost. I can buy an identical microcontroller, and solder it in place of the current one, but without firmware the device is dead. The same applies to all appliances, from toasters to cars, it has nothing to do with skill.
This was not the case a few decades ago.
Additionally, you clearly haven't been paying attention to recent events. John Deer literally shuts down your tractor, and even if you repair it, it won't start untill you pay their mechanic to come over and reset it. It is not a matter of skill - the machine is locked and only their mechanics have authorisation to rest it. The same is happening with phones, computers and domestic apliances.
>Please point out to me which copyright exemption will enable me to get hold of firmware for a microcontroller in my washing machine if the current one gives up the ghost.
Oh, now you're confusing right to repair with ease of repair. No country has ever forced manufacturers to give you every single item to suit your heart's desire.
Rip the firmware out of the MCU. Decap it and read the bits out, literally with a microscope, as some have done. "Oh, but that's too hard!" Exactly - and there is no legal thing stopping you. You simply don't want to develop the expertise and tools to repair. You want it handed to you in a simple manner, which has never been the case.
As I said above, as things become more complex, so does repair.
>This was not the case a few decades ago.
Yes, a few decades ago people complained about different parts they could not simply buy, since at no point in US history could you simply get any part you ever desired from a manufacturer. There has always been a few things you could buy, a repair man market for some things, and the effort to repair other things difficult enough that almost nobody tried to do it.
Because again, we have more complex items now.
>Additionally, you clearly haven't been paying attention to recent events
Yes, I've read all that stuff. Both sides in many of these cases, including the JD, have decently valid points. If someone causes a large machine to hurt others, you bet JD will get dragged into courts. For that balance, it is reasonable for courts to decide how to balance.
Should individual commercial pilots be allowed to flash the software on their flights because they're interested in hacking their planes?
>Getting around some of these restrictions can land you in jail|
No one, zero, count them, have gone to jail for that. Zero. Why do you spout this type of nonsense? "Think of the children!" right?
>John Deer literally shuts down your tractor
No, they don't. "As things stand, Deere has the technical ability to remotely shut down a farmer’s machine anytime—if, say, the farmer missed a lease payment or tuned a tractor’s software to goose its horsepower, a common hack widely available through gray-market providers. A Deere spokesman says many manufacturers can remotely control vehicles they sell, but Deere has never activated this capability, except in construction equipment in China, where financing terms require it to." [1]
Also, there is literally zero they did that someone could not reverse engineer and fix.
All of this is you want things to be as easy to fix as a kid can do. That will never happen as devices become more complex.
But all of this, even John Deere tractors, can be fixed.
Based on your resorting to making claims that are simply lies, I'm done. Feel free to continue.
"Rip the firmware out of the MCU. Decap it and read the bits out, literally with a microscope, as some have done. "Oh, but that's too hard!" Exactly - and there is no legal thing stopping you."
"Based on your resorting to making claims that are simply lies, I'm done."
You are the one presenting a total lie!
If I read firmware out of my BOSH washing machine and sell it to repair stores so that they can fix more washing machines, I will get shut down withing days. If start making and selling motors identical to the one in this machine, no-one can stop me.
Failing to recognise this distinction indicates you are not interested in an real coversation, but just want to push your ideology.
