[Discuss] [semi-OT] "Right to Own" law

[Drew Van Zandt]

Increases the barrier to entry in business.

That's bad for small businesses, matters less for large ones.

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Drew Van Zandt
Artisan's Asylum Craft Lead, Electronics & Robotics
Cam # US2010035593 (M:Liam Hopkins R: Bastian Rotgeld)
Domain Coordinator, MA-003-D.  Masquerade aVST
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On Wed, Jun 27, 2012 at 9:03 AM, Mark Woodward <markw at mohawksoft.com> wrote:

> We've heard the ads on the radio for and against the "Right to Repair"
> law. This is a law that is intended to require automobile manufacturers to
> publish the technical specifications and the codes that the computers in
> your car produce for troubleshooting and repair.
>
> I was thinking, what about a "Right to Own" law, that requires that *all*
> electronics be documented, all "general purpose" computers i.e. not
> embedded like a microwave, but everything from video games to iphones,
> tablets and computers be "user serviceable." No locking out a user from
> doing what ever they want with stuff they own.
>
> Writing this law would be very tricky because you need a lot of legal
> intuition about the sort of attacks that will come at it from the likes of
> Apple and Microsoft, but also a lot of technical savvy to carefully define
> what is "general purpose" and what is "dedicated" and what the actual
> limits are. We want to protect innovation, but not at the expense of civil
> rights of ownership. For instance, we don't need to see the source code to
> Windows 8, be we damn well should be able to boot Linux or FreeBSD or
> whatever. We should be able to run what ever program we want on an iPhone
> or Android. These devices are our property, we paid for them, we are
> legally responsible for what is on them, we should have the ability to
> control them.
>
> When I was a kid, almost *all* devices, from washing machines to
> televisions, had a schematic inside the case. CP/M came with the source
> code. We have lost a lot of freedom to the corporations locking up our
> property. How much crap that would have otherwise been semi useful have we
> had to throw away?
>
> This is clearly a case where the invisible hand of capitalism will not
> help and an obvious case where regulation must. Agree? Disagree? it would
> be hard to find a politician who would even back such a bill, but maybe we
> can get a referendum on the ballot.
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