One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks

Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by walrus01 on Sunday May 23, 2021 @06:25PM (#27259207)

I mentally make a distinction between "counterfeit" products which are actually authentic and good quality, unlikely to hurt the consumer, but arguably cause some harm to apple's IP, and "counterfeit" products which are actually poor quality clones made by inferior production lines. It's unfortunate that the same term is used for both.

Presumably a high volume and skilled third party repair shop and its purchasing people will be a crucial role in buying and distinguishing between the two types of hardware.

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Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by TheSpiceIsLife on Sunday May 23, 2021 @07:13PM (#27259481)

The term counterfeit is here being used by some people to mean 'genuine parts sold off-license', which is much more like a bootleg copy[1]. That is, it's the same item sold off-license.

To some extent words mean what people who use them intend to mean, but in my opinion we shouldn't be calling parts from the same production line counterfeit, because the word implies forgery.[2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleg_recording

2. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/counterfeit

Edit: changed a word for clarity.

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Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by lmm on Sunday May 23, 2021 @08:53PM (#27260070)

> To some extent words mean what people who use them intend to mean, but in my opinion we shouldn't be calling parts from the same production line counterfeit, because the word implies forgery.[2]

If they had a particular QC standard marking, but had not been manufactured in accordance with that level of QC, that would be forgery, right?

If they bear the trademark of a company that demands certain QC standards, but were produced without those checks, it seems like the same thing in a way.

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Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by TheSpiceIsLife on Sunday May 23, 2021 @10:47PM (#27260662)

I think you're intentional straining to disagree with me.

You don't have to do that.

You're probably partly right some of the time, and my perspective probably has some value perhaps maybe.

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Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by lmm on Sunday May 23, 2021 @11:07PM (#27260752)

I'm straining to rationalise my own position tbh. I'm not going out of my way to disagree with you, this kind of practice feels viscerally counterfeit-like to me and I'm trying to work through why I think that.

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Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by TheSpiceIsLife on Monday May 24, 2021 @09:24PM (#27271696)

That's a way more honest response than I expected.

I respect that a lot.

In the absence of a legal after market or licensed / genuine / third party parts ecosystem, this is, or should be, the expected natural response: off license / bootleg / counterfeit parts ecosystem.

In my opinion, then, the fault lies with Apple, and / or the absence of a regulated market for those parts and the necessary documentation.

People will find a way to source what they want. How you approach or deal with those problems is probably a political / ideological thing.

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Re:One man’s fight for the right to repair broken MacBooks by lmm on Monday May 24, 2021 @11:39PM (#27272354)

That seems like an orthogonal question. Maybe Apple has set up their system in a way that (intentionally or not) encourages or necessitates counterfeiting. But those parts may still be counterfeit in the ways that matter to the end user (e.g. not necessarily as safe as they appear to be certified to be).

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