[Nottingham] Legalising tinkering

Jason Irwin jasonirwin73 at gmail.com
Tue Dec 2 23:34:54 UTC 2014


On 2 December 2014 at 22:57, Martin <martin at ml1.co.uk> wrote:

> See, touch, anything, and you're illegal? Really?!
>
Y'all better respeckt da freedoms! What are yah, some kind of commie
terroist?

>
>   '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...


This is not new. I give you IBM's "0-ohm resistor". Even I had enough high
school physics to go "Wait....WTF?"


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

I have no issue with complex problems requiring complex answers. Even
sorting an air-breather can require a dyno run at a few hundreds of pounds.
I do not object to paying for skill/knowledge, I object to covering the
cost of lock-in. My motorcycle can be serviced by any moron (even me) but
well...there's a reason why I give a certain person a rather large wedge.

And then there is "copy-left"... ;-)
>
Seems Yahoo! likes a bit of copyleft, but those who licensed their wo rk
copylet now regret it.

J.
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