this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
849 points (99.5% liked)

Technology

61263 readers
3811 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
849
IFIXIT: Victory Is Sweet - We Can Now Fix McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines (www.ifixit.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
50 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This is a nice win for self-repair hardware rights.

For context, see their old video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uCpY3tFTIA

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Ah this bit is sad. The exception only covers bypassing DMCA protections to fix your own stuff not distributing the tooling for it.

It is still a crime for iFixit to sell a tool to fix ice cream machines, and that’s a real shame. The ruling doesn’t change the underlying statute making it illegal to share or sell tools that bypass software locks. This leaves most of the repair work inaccessible to the average person, since the technical barriers remain high. Without these tools, this exemption is largely theoretical for many small businesses that don’t have in-house repair experts.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago

Long hard fight.

We take our Ws where we can get them.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Illegal like sharing pirated media.
It can't be commercialised, but if you just "happen" to find the software somewhere, you are allowed to use it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Corpos hate decentralized operations...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They should do like the folks selling weed in DC, where they sell you a $200 cookie or sticker and give you a free ounce of weed with your purchase.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I wonder if someone could invent a new open source machine of some sort along with a tool to fix that, and that tool just happens to also be able to fix the McDonald's ice cream machines?

[–] themoonisacheese 4 points 3 months ago

I mean, you could. The problem becomes "do you have more money and lawyers than McDonald's" to keep pretending it has nothing to do with it in court.