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Comment by noahmbarr | Hacker News Reader

In addition to right to repair, couldn’t the military contract based durability / SLA standards?

It talks about the exact transition that caused them to go towards not doing that a few paragraphs in... Corporate consolidation and an move away from developing their own equipment meant the DoD had to become a better customer and accept terms from a corporate supplier.

> In alignment with this new paradigm, policymakers simplified the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 1994 and 1995, exempting “commercial items” from a large portion of the rules (as well as expanding the definition of what is a commercial item to include goods that could be seen as specialized military goods). Congress also encouraged federal agencies to purchase commercial items “to the maximum extent practicable.” These changes fueled high rates of commercial purchases, which, coupled with consolidation in the defense industry, contributed to the Defense Department’s increased use of commercial technology and the negotiation of single-source contracts.

> Ultimately, the power dynamics shifted between the Defense Department and commercial industry, forcing the department to accept warranties, contracts or prices that it could previously avoid — all thanks to changes in research and development funding, regulations and a lack of competition.

Either way I'm glad it's become an issue for the military. Makes me more hopeful it'll be adopted since it can be framed with some good ol' flag waving jingoistic military worship along side the other issues like e-Waste and consumer rights.

Known in government circles as Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS). It's the military's attempt to avoid redesigning the wheel when they need something that the civilian market also needs.

I know from my interactions with the DOD supply chain that few, if any, people think about the warranty implications of COTS hardware beyond making sure there is support from the manufacturer. This isn't too bad when the COTS hardware is a smallish component of a larger system that a unit can replace from spares if there is a failure (which is where the COTS movement started). It's a much bigger deal when the entire larger system is itself a COTS bundle, as is the case in this article.

What I'm a little afraid of is the congress will just carve out a warranty exception for the military as a bandaid to fix this specific issue without addressing right to repair on the whole. I could easily see them passing a law that basically says 'warranties shall not be considered void due to repairs made as part of a military mission' or something similar (wrapped in way more legalese) and leaving it at that or giving the full right to repair, ie: suppliers must provide CAD, board schematics, and make available replacement parts, but only for the military.

I wish I had your optimism. They usually do have those. But when they blow then off, there's usually very little recourse the government can do.

There is usually very little in a contract language for what happens when they get blown off, so the person with the broken Humvee (as an example) has to contact the appropriate government entity (contracting officer) to contact the company rep. So the company gets a slap on the hand. The government can threaten to end the contract, but that is a nuclear option.

The biggest (realistic) stick the government can have is to threaten to not renew a contract, but when you talk about a Humvee (to continue the example), that sadly is totally unrealistic. So the contractor knows they have a monopoly and have no incentive to work harder.

I'll tell you a story on a very large program I was on. We did developmental testing for a very large platform (Billions of dollars). We had a prime (Company A) who gave specifications for a form factor to Company B. For months, we told Company A that the Line Replaceable unit (LRU) that goes into the platform would not fit, and it took us eight months for Company A to admit there was even a problem. We only got them to admit there was a problem because we literally had a general officer come out to the test site and try to fit in the LRU himself.

What ended up being the issue? Company A gave the wrong size specifications to Company B. Guess what happened? The government had to pay to retrofit the design so the LRU would fit. We simply had no stick to make them pay for their mistake. The company said if they had to pay for it, they wouldn't have enough money for the rest of testing. And also guess what? no one in the government wants to be in charge of a failed program.

In addition, while there are fines stipulated in any such contract for breach of SLA, in reality it's almost always cheaper to pay the fine than actually meet the SLA. One would ask "why not increase the fine?". The answer is nobody would sign a contract with you without guaranteed profit. So if the risk outweighs the reward there's no deal.

Couldn't you do something like make (via legislation) any item on commercial sale subject to a minimum 10 year warranty on workmanship [for military purchasers] for repair or replacement, up to a value of X% of company revenue.

When you made a lemon, surely it's then cheaper to replace with a current product than it is to go to court; and being a military supplier would be a high status indication so don't companies (any making products that aren't adjective crap) should still want to make money through creating good products?

You can't be forced to actually work with the government. So if the governmeny makes it too much of a PITA, no one will bid or they will make the contract costs incredibly high.

Actually, yeah you can. Happened in WW2. People can be drafted and stop lossed. Entire factories were taken over, wages were frozen, and product shortages happened due to military need. If people can't make a profit building military units perhaps it's time the military starts building it's own skills again.

That will never happen in a post-Vietnam era, outside of the US fighting for it's existence.

Of course you can put many provisions in contract or law but at some point nobody will work with you because the guaranteed ability to make money from every contract is gone. It's exactly why all outsourcing projects seem to have these disastrous conditions. Without them no MSP will even apply for the bid.

Yes, certainly but that isn't the goal. The Military Industrial Complex is nastily organic in the sense that self-perpetuation is what wins out. In this case the graft in both bueracratic overspeccing mazes and profiteering.

The tail is often wagging the dog, so... maybe?

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