[Nottingham] Legalising tinkering

Martin martin at ml1.co.uk
Tue Dec 2 22:58:09 UTC 2014


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On 02/12/14 20:05, Jason Irwin wrote:
> I like to tinker, you like to tinker, our mechanic likes it when we
> tinker because they see pound signs....
> 
> My motorcycle is so old that it's carb'd and I can do amazing 
> things like change the bulb without having to remove the front 
> wheels and slaughter a virgin goat to the gods of DRM like ones 
> does with a modern machine.
> 
> With that in mind...the EFF is picking up the gauntlet: 
> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/11/eff-librarian-congress-let-car-owners-look-under-hood


...
> 
For my view, that's a good one and very much needed against
incredible 'overarching overreach'. Really? We are all deemed illegal?

See, touch, anything, and you're illegal? Really?!


> I don't want to to do every job myself. Some require specialist 
> skills or, at least, an enclosed area. Bleeding brakes in the 
> pouring rain is no fun! I like knowing that, push come to shove, I 
> can look a few things up and then sort it with the tools I have 
> here.
> 
> At they very least I think that the ability to do basic repairs 
> (bulbs, fuses, wheels adjustments) should form part of the specs. 
> e.g. being able to change a bulb in under 5 mins *by hand alone*.
> 
> Or am I just a knuckle dragging Luddite and all the cool kids
> would post a pictorial diary to Tumblr?

Nope...

There is a very worrying trend of dumbing down the population so that
we then all forcibly become victim to franchise extortion because
noone can or dare tinker any longer.

There are the various examples of how some manufacturers deliberately
make their products non-serviceable. Not even for upgrading memory or
replacing batteries... Really, a £1000 graphics pad is to be treated
as a one or two years "disposable item"?!


Do we really want a world where everyday living becomes tangled like
vines with bureaucracy, "health and safety", ambulance/litigation
chasing lawyers, the music/media mafia and car park goons sending out
very threatening speculative invoices and arbitrary 'fines', and the
DCMA being stretched so far as to litigate what you are 'allowed' to
think and experience...?

What a strange world we allow others to create for us.

Indeed, ever more tangled like vines... If allowed to grow...


Hopefully the EFF and others can combat the bureau-legalistic shackles
of hell...

And then there is "copy-left"... ;-)



Cheers,
Martin


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