Re:Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’
by iamstupidsimple on Sunday January 23, 2022 @05:24PM
(#30051147)
Stallman and FSF predicted this decades ago, but they failed to foresee not many people really care about being able to control their computers as much as big expensive hardware purchases like vehicles. DRM and general lack of free-software rights is the root-cause.
Re:Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’
by rkagerer on Sunday January 23, 2022 @08:59PM
(#30052790)
Part of the problem is consumers bought this increasingly cloud-based junk back when they had a choice.
Re:Alabama farmer sues John Deere for ‘right to repair’
by jbkiv on Sunday January 23, 2022 @05:24PM
(#30051150)
I agree with you say verisimi. Pretty sad.
As much as I hate trial lawyers, as of today we would not be better off without them. Bad corporations will squeeze money out of you as much as they can.
But step back - how is any of that morally right? Why should people have to fight corporation in court to get a basic right to repair the thing they bought? Its insane!
Surely, if there was any sense to this, the presumption would be in favour of the purchaser by default! Regardless of any service contract or other legal agreement. That it should be for the corporation to argue in court that there are some special circumstances that mean that default ruling does not apply, even though you bought (not rented) their product.
The fact it is this way round tells you all you need to know. At best, the consumer can waste time (10 years?) and money (lots) to hopefully (but perhaps not) prove the obvious case. OTOH, there is no incentive for the corporation not to try the dirtiest most unfriendly tactics they think they can get away with. Esp. if they have a near monopoly in their domain (eg John Deere).
For this reason and others, I see governance and law as captured entities - they are captured by corporations and we the consumers are there to have our wealth extracted from while retaining very few rights. Frankly, it is neo-feudalism. Or fascism (corporate+government together).