On the other hand - being overly critical about a new entrant that is attempting to address the right-to-repair market for not getting everything perfect from the get go might send the wrong signals about the right-to-repair market to the rest of the industry.
It seems like a delicate balance might be wise. Having module level repairability for LCD panels, connectors, drivers, memory is a pretty big step relative to the other OEMs.
Perhaps the best analogy would be Raspberry Pi schematics which are also reduced [1] and IMHO, the RPi has generally been a plus for the open source hardware/software community. Similarly I could definitely see Intel having some trade secrets as you get closer the CPU.
[1] https://datasheets.raspberrypi.com/rpi4/raspberry-pi-4-reduc...
* Mainboard partial schematics, drawings, and pinouts: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard
* Expansion Card reference designs: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
* Embedded Controller firmware: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController
On the list of things that we are exploring ways to improve on in the future:
* More of the schematics, including of modules beyond the Mainboards.
* Moving to open UEFI/BIOS solutions.
Unrealistic purity tests ruin all sorts of attempts to make the world a better place. We should celebrate attempts to change the status quo.
Now, maybe there's a great reason for this. Maybe they're under NDA and can't reveal part of the schematics. Maybe releasing these schematics would make it super easy for a competitor to completely steal everything. Maybe they are going to release the full schematics and we're waiting on their engineering team and legal team to review them.
The problem here is that Framework hasn't communicated any of this. Every time they're asked they don't seem to give any reason and just dodge around with "we'd love to release the full schematics". Well, why haven't you then? Please tell us.
I guess I'd question 'fear of competitors' being a "good" reason, but I'd agree with you otherwise. Regardless of what the need for secrecy is, unless it's "we're forbidden by the state" and there's some kind of national security letter involved or "We're doing something illegal and we'd get sued if it were known to the public", why not just tell the public why they can't release the full schematics? What else would prevent someone from talking about why they couldn't talk about something? Refusing to even explain themselves just makes it all seem more suspicious.
I'm not arguing this is a good thing, just trying to share some perspective.
The strongest interpretation of "we'd love to release the full schematics" the subtext: but we can't / don't want to due to "reasons*, none of which are likely to satisfy everyone, so we'll try to avoid that discussion as it would help distract us all rather than getting on with our goals.
>Our main manufacturing partner is Compal, who makes laptops for many other large US notebook makers.
>Apart from off the shelf modules like the SSD, RAM, WiFi, and LCD, the Framework Laptop is entirely custom to us, and we own all of the design and tooling.
If you locate Acer Swift 3 SF313-53 diagram it will be 90% same thing, just shuffled around with different mechanical design.
Sure, QR stickers and a bunch of new/incompatible iteration of good old ExpressCard are nice to have, thank you, but that doesn't make all that big of a difference to repairability.
I’m confident any device following these guidelines would be DOA in the larger market, though. Even _if_ you could source things like LCD assemblies that fit your criteria, the expected density (high) and labor costs (low) people have for modern electronics don’t leave a lot of room for this kind of bespoke design.
I’m extremely impressed with how far Framework got on the path to “full repairability” using off-the-shelf parts without producing something that looks like a late-90s Thinkpad.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the old IBM, Tadpole, Toshiba, et. al. designs, but I don’t think that many people outside this community would be willing to pay 2-3x as much for something 2-3x larger and heavier and several generation behind in terms of performance. (Not to mention wildly incompatible with any non-hobbyist OS.)
OTOH, what you’re describing does sound a lot like why custom, hand-wired audio amplifier builders do. They manage to make a business out of it, mainly by appealing to folks willing to spend effectively unlimited money to get that “special something”.
User-replaceable RAM, SSD and keyboard are all steps in the right direction, of course. But it would be quite a stretch to give product full marks on repairability based on that alone.
Laptop in question does use partial through-hole connectors for all 4 USB-C ports - notice 6 shiny slots around each such port around 0:25 mark in video. Such connectors are actually harder to rework/replace, but also tougher and less likely to require repair in the first place. So overall, well-done here to framework, even if most everybody else is doing that too.
All those high speed bus interfaces are probably tied directly into the CPU, the chipset, or both, and so are largely gonna be covered by any confidentiality agreement intel imposes on vendors of those parts.
The Pi4 CM is a much more modest device by comparison. It has no ram expansion and only a few lanes of PCIe, USB3, and some other fairly standard IO interfaces otherwise.
Realistically, the frame.work mainboard is the compute module. You plug it into the equivalent of a CM carrier board with the TB4 ports.
Being so vague and listing no reasons doesn't seem helpful to me.
The watch industry used to vet repair Watch Repair shops on the guise of "Quality Assurance". They would require Watchmakers buy their expensive cleaning machines, and a bunch of other pricy tooling, and requirements; in order to procure parts. 90% of watchmakers couldn't get a parts accout, and the watch companies loved it. it meant more after sales/warranty business.
This was because they didn't want to sell parts to anyone. They wanted to do the repairs
For a few years, certain Watchmakers kept up with the demands from Rolex, and The Swatch Group.
We were just happy to be able to get parts.
About 15 years ago the watch companies just decided not to sell parts to anyone.
That whole Vertical Intregtation consumer ripoff.
I am very leary of any company that wants to vet their repair shops for anything, other than maybe medical equipment.
They will supply the schematics, but they don't want to make it easy.
(I'm pretty sure I'm hellbanned again?)
What if it is really not good enough?
Should everyone just accept someone's claims that they addressed a problem when they might be actually making it worse by pretending it's solved when it isn't?
I recall the days of old when no laptop supported linux, and the impact there was when a model showed up with claims it indeed supported linux. I bought one based on those claims (don't recall the make-model, might have been an Acer) and I still recall the disappointment I felt when I discovered critical stuff like wifi did not worked at all. There were a few comments like "It boots, right?" followed by "for some subset of users you will never be good enough" when critical problems were pointed out, but the truth of the matter was that a purchase was made based on a feature that was advertised but was in fact not offered.
This is optimistic. They'll lampoon you and call you hypocrites for claiming to be helpful but not doing the zillions of things they have in mind, while giving the unfriendly incumbent a pass.
In a recent video they were considering buying a second Framework laptop of their own just to have it displayed in videos as essentially free advertising. If some of these characterizations are about them it seems misplaced tbh.
Same "they" as the parent-- "for some subset of users you will never be good enough, and they’ll complain just as loudly about you as they do the default (far worse) option." Not implying that it's the channel's stance.
On any criterion: ease of repair, privacy, security, good citizenship, etc: there's some subset of critics who treat the best behaved companies and individuals worse than the worst. These are the people who e.g. give Apple a much harder time on privacy than Meta.
yes but... no. if you go half way to do something you will not reap much of the expected benefits. in certain use cases hard thresholds are important to consider. in this case half available schematics is not good enough to do repairs even if its better than no schematics at all.
If they're "secrets", they're probably one of the worst-kept in the industry.
You can already find plenty of other, probably leaked, schematics of laptops using the same if not very similar platform. They are all based on reference designs from Intel, after all. It's inevitable that yours will leak too, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Hence I am strongly siding with the "marketing BS" people here. Claiming to be so strongly in support of RtR, and then turning around and keeping the barely-existing artificial moat up, is practically not much better than all the other laptops that already have schematics available.
Also - w.r.t. to right to repair - I've always gotten from their marketing more of a right to repair at the iFixit level (swap SSD, memory, LCD panels, keyboards, etc.) versus de-popping the Intel CPU.
Knowingly breaching a contract you've already invested many dollars and hours building and understanding, against the advice of your legal council, seems risky.
It's really easy to make speculative quasi-legal decisions when it's not your company.
Parts Removal and Replacement Videos - PCs and Smart Devices - Lenovo Support GB
https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/ht505031-parts-re...
It'd be a huge win in fact for right to repair if Lenovo did do this in response to Framework.
To me, it feels like Framework is creating a lot of extra work and damage to the brand, just for delaying the inevitable.
Instead of lawyers, hire engineers to support the repair shops. Wasn't the whole promise of Framework that it would be repairable?
Or maybe the laptop "that respects your right to repair", and "that respects the planet" and "that's designed to last" is just another load of marketing bs.
As a framework owner I wouldn't personally care if they never released them at all. What makes the framework repairable isn't board-level schematics, its the modularity and access (similar to a desktop). If a part in my framework breaks I'll just replace the individual part. IMO there is no brand damage here outside of some purists calling for things 99.9% of customers don't give 2 shits about.
I'm sure if Louis or another technician told you "I could fix your mainboard, but I don't have the schematics. Buy a whole separate board for $400 and I'll install it for you." You might be a little ticked.
2) Modularity keeps the cost of individual components so low that board-level repair isn't nearly as important. What would Louis charge me? $350 at least for shipping and time according to similar quotes I've seen of his.
I once troubleshot a faulty RF power meter down to a single transistor, and it was incredibly gratifying to see it working after replacing a sub-$1 part but if I was paid by the hour it would’ve been an unprofitable job for sure.
I don't know where you get your numbers, and Louis isn't the only person in the world with the ability to repair this stuff; you can make up a number so that it seems anti-competitive against the idea of modularity and buying a whole new replacement module -- but let it be said that these repairs can be done fairly cheap with some research and a bit of parts gathering. Cheaper than 350 cheap, in most cases.
From https://www.rossmanngroup.com/liquid-damage/. Their pricing is fairly competitive, you won't find many places that are significantly cheaper for good quality work.
> but let it be said that these repairs can be done fairly cheap with some research and a bit of parts gathering. Cheaper than 350 cheap, in most cases.
I don't know about that for component level repairs. Sure you can replace a hard drive, memory, a wifi card or a fan but those can all be done already with the Framework laptop without the detailed schematics. Most people are not knowledgeable enough and even if they were they likely wouldn't feel comfortable doing component level repairs on a motherboard, especially if they have to do any soldering. There's a reason that the vast majority of places computer repair places don't do component level repairs. You need a lot of expertise to do so, and that expertise doesn't come cheap.
you also need tooling. $20 radio shack soldering iron from dad won’t do it for anything that’s worth the labor costs.
if you don’t have any of that you’ll be spending $350 to get the bare minimum to practice the job.
very common for folks to compare the cost of having something assembled for the first time in a low-wage country, to having it disassembled, diagnosed, repaired, and reassembled in a high-wage country.
Not worth the time and money? or the reduced environmental impact?
Having both would be ideal but isn't always practical due to agreements with chip suppliers etc. Framework is a huge step in the right direction and I don't think being puristic about things is helpful for the right to repair movement.
But isn’t that the whole idea of Framework? If you didn’t care about this stuff you’d buy a MacBook like everyone else.
People like that desktops are modular, you can easily replace a single part when it breaks or upgrade a part too. Framework is the equivalent for laptops.
It is really arrogant to proclaim that 99.9% of consumers share your opinion and financial privilidge of not caring about repairs.
Polls consistently show that modt xustomers want repairs and repairability, for laptops >50%, and something like 30% would attempt repairs themselves.
We have a real problem with folks like yourself denying that we, people who want repair, even exist. And companies making parts impossible to get hold of.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/technology/articles-reports/2020...
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/consumer/articles-reports/2021/0...
Stop thinking about the West, the rest of the world exists.
Where do you think your monitor goes when you throw it away because an $1 capacitor has blown? Not into a black hole. Our broken devices get shipped to other countries as e-waste.
There cost of labour is $5 and people want to repair that device and keep it going for 40 years.
If you want ti say 'i dont care about other countries', then you will have to recycle this shit domestically and pay real money for it's disposal- and then repairing will look different economically
Framework only sells in the west and the west (and 1st world/highly developed countries/regions outside of the west) account for pretty much all high end laptop sales - your diatribe doesn't really hold up even so though. The modularity of the framework means less ewaste than the status quo - that is a net positive.
It goes to a second or third world country, where they will try to repair and use it if possible.
Very few institutions in the west actually recycle anything.
That's just wrong. Modularity and repairability are two very different things. They are not interchangeable.
"The Framework Laptop repair guides are free and easily accessible" .. if you sign the NDA somehow missing from that sentence.
why not both?
no one in their right mind can argue that NDAing and walling documentation aids the repair effort.
so.. in other words.. framework is repairable up until the point that it may hurt their bottom-end profits; then you're on your own.
maybe they should get into selling board-level components so that they have a financial incentive to act morally and within their projected image of 'right-to-repair' advocacy.
I have no idea. Don't have a clue. However, given that I don't have any idea, I'm not going to go around making bold definitive claims like 'they do it because they want more money."
That might help if the component packs had a decent loyalty markup. I'm sure repair shops and DIY'ers would love to have access to guaranteed-exact-same-components. Just buying the same number from the datasheet doesn't always guarantee identical electrical characterization across different manufacturers and batches.
The primary issue Framework is facing (AIUI) is that if they release the complete board-level schematics, enterprises in Shenzhen will immediately release Framework clones (and sub-module clones) which are part-for-part compatible with the actual Framework laptops. This could undercut their business model at a very high-risk time for their company. They're incredibly capital-constrained and need to meet their pricing/sales targets just to survive (not even considering making their investors happy). Framework is a bit of a "Tech Fad" at the moment, and consumers have historically been known to be incredibly price-conscious, even sometimes demonizing the companies who did the original innovation after they can't meet or beat the clones prices or functionality (I recall this with Arduino). This would make me super wary of releasing the full schematics as well.
I would be very suprised if Rossmann Repair was unaware of the NDA. I suspect Framework are being very very magnanimous in their communications here. Rossmann Group probably omitted that context in slightly bad faith to pressure Framework a bit more. That's normal for zealots -- and it is still a symbiotic ecosystem...Rossmann Group laid so much of the foundation needed for Framework to thrive! Also some of Framework's investors (Linus of Linus Tech Tips) were directly responsible for mediating/facilitating/negotiating the current schematic NDA arrangement after listening to Rossmann's critiques as a pre-condition to investing their money, time, and reputation. It would be strange if that story had somehow slipped past Rossmann Group...
[Edit: According to others, Louis has a video where he acknowledges the current situation and empathizes with Framework about it, so clearly Rossman is aware. Other people have since mentioned that Framework may be legally unable to release the schematics because they are based on licensed designs from an ODM or chipset/component supplier. In which case, perhaps this video from Rossmann group is designed to help the public put pressure on those upstream IP stakeholders.]
I do agree with 'LeonM. Eventually the detailed schematics they provide to repair shops will leak or be stolen or whatever anyways. But I understand Frameworks concerns.
There's a need for truly open source hardware. Please support the projects at CrowdSupply[0] ... many of which do have truly open source hardware+software+schematics+PCB Layout Files. And they are nearly all very very small "cottage industry" side-gigs which desperately need the financial enthusiasm and participatory enthusiasm of early adopters in order to thrive.
RAM, SSD, battery, keyboard(but in many laptops the whole top panel has to be replaced), track pad, wifi card, display(framework has the better way only over here).
I mean buying a tongfang OR a system 76 is a way better option than going for framework due to its QR codes I don't understand why.
I'm not shitting on framework this is just what I've been wanting to ask for so long
No. Many laptops, particularly in the compact category come with soldered RAM and SSDs.
While you may be right, the trade secret value of the schematics decreases by the day. If they can delay schematic leaks for months or even a year, that's still a big win. They'll be on to the next generation by then.
While it may seem futile in the end, delaying the inevitable leak and demonstrating to your partners that you made a best effort attempt to keep them confidential is actually a huge win.
If one of the repair shops leak the schematics, it's probably fine for them — it means Framework isn't the one on the hook for any liabilities of the leak. Heck it wouldn't be surprising if they were (unofficially) happy about it.
Somebody can & will co-opt their production & magically sell it for less if they completely open source things. Cuz third world country labor n shit.
They made something pretty cool, they definitely deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor for a bit.
This doesn't make sense to me. If it was because of a legal agreement I imagine they'd just publicly say that they can't "for legal reasons" and everyone would just shut up about it because, hey, it's not strictly their fault, so why give them grief about it? An easy way to snip the whole "no schematics" controversy in the bud. "Sorry, we can't release them publicly for legal reasons, but for future products we'll try to negotiate with the vendors to allow it." And they're done.
But the only thing we get is radio silence, so either they don't want to explicitly say that it's "for legal reasons" (which, again, doesn't make sense to me), or because it's due to something else.
I bet Framework has a legal agreement with someone not to publish the schematic so they're sharing it with repair shops under NDA so they're not liable when it leaks.
Lack of published schematics means that the Chinese cloners will not be able to copy the design in 2-3 weeks as usual. Instead it will take them at least 14-21 days.
> We also make full schematics and assembly drawings available to repair shops who get Framework products in for repair
But what about individuals who need to repair their own Framework products? If schematics and boardviews are only avaailable to repair shop businesses, that seems to completely contradict most of the copy on the framework site such as:
"Our philosophy is that by making well-considered design tradeoffs and trusting customers and repair shops with the access and information they need, we can make fantastic devices that are still easy to repair"
If the former, what's the criteria that determines whether one is a "repair shop"? Would Honest Achmed's Used Laptops and Certificates[1] qualify if he wanted to repair his cousin Mustafa's laptop?
To be honest (and as a Framework laptop owner) that's a bit disappointing, the 'to repair shops' part and I assume some sort of bar to meet for that, I suppose I understand though. The link you post says pinouts are available, which following through to Github seems to mean just for connectors. I wonder if you could share the BoM and locations perhaps, so not a full schematic, but enough for someone to replace a faulty component like for like or with an equivalent part?
Seems to me that would protect what (I presume) you want to protect, while still giving owner-tinkerer-repairers basically everything they want?
Arguably if the Chinese wanted to, they could've already beaten Framework to the market. All the major OEMs/ODMs are in China (or Taiwan, but let's not get political here...) and I'm almost willing to bet Framework just contracted this work out to one of them. Also, those OEMs/ODMs are very much capable of taking the Intel reference design schematics and fitting them into the requested shape. That's basically how things like the Thinkpad X62 happened: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15274644
Some could already do it, and don't need those; the rest would still be missing schematics, layouts, mechanical drawings, etc. just like a user that wants to know what the unmarked/ambiguously marked chip is in order to try to replace it.
That's not so kosher for repairability.
If I, as the owner of your laptop, can't repair said laptop after a water spill, then I can't call it reparable. Modular, yes. Repairable, NO.
This is why we can't have nice things, y'all keep making unrealistic demands that are seriously disheartening.
This company claims they'll support your right to repair but then doesn't support _certain_ types of repair unless you meet their conditions. That's no different from Google, Apple, or any other tech giants that also will happily let you repair your device if you've got the right contacts and credentials. Even John Deer has repair manuals available.
Repairability and modularity are two distinct concepts. The framework laptop is modular but it is not repairable. At least not any more repairable then my Toshiba or MSI laptops. End of story.
I imagine they can't say this explicitly because the terms of their business relationships are themselves confidential and they don't want to say anything that could jeopardize those relationships.
Is it a requirement from some of your parts suppliers? Is it a self-imposed constraint for internal business reasons?
> it really did show me that a lot needs to change throughout the entire industry ... I respect and understand why they have the concerns that they do, they are real concerns ...
If Louis was convinced that there were valid reasons not to publish the schematics then somehow I doubt it is as simple as Chinese copycat manufacturers, but who knows.
It'd be bad for Framework though.
Bigger tech companies don't have to worry to much about this (given how they operate, legal teams they have, influence they have etc.). For small companies in the bootstrapping phase it's a problem.
Also there might be legal requirements, like some small parts of the layout being based on Intel provided schemas or similar. But that last point is pure speculative and irrelevant as the first point is good enough of an reason (while your company is in the bootstrapping phase).
Unfortunately all industries are slowly boiling away the old standard of shipping schematics and diagrams of products we purchase. It seems layers of bureaucracy, contracts, and misaligned incentives have made it virtually impossible to continue that tradition even if desired. I'm happy with my Framework laptop, I'm glad that you were able to publish the schematics that are available publicly, and I'm glad that you will provide full board views to repair shops that ask for them. I hope you will be able to publish complete schematics for public consumption at some point in the future, even if it's late.
Fingers crossed :)
I'm still very happy with my Framework :-)
Are they perfect in meeting their mission because of this clause? Maybe not.
But are they still by far the most open and most repairable mass produced laptop on the market? They are.
Their mission is extremely ambitious, and they’re trying to drag a massive market in the right direction. Maybe cut them a tiny bit of slack on the way?
https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a...
In this case, we didn't see a request for it come in.
Publicly with no agreement required, we were able to share a sub-set of the schematic focused on the internal and external connectors: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard/blob/main/Ele...
Louis has more context on the latter in an earlier video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cJj8PUY0DU