European Parliament vote takes another big step toward ‘right to repair’ | Hacker News Reader

European Parliament vote takes another big step toward ‘right to repair’

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124 pointselorant28 comments

This seems big: Mandatory labeling re estimated lifetime and repair ability, and increased availability of spare parts. While the devil is in the details, it looks a very nice proposal.

France will begin labeling electronics with repairability ratings in January

https://www.gsmarena.com/france_will_begin_labeling_electron...

This isn't a big deal. The European parliament can only suggest laws to the comission, it has no real power to enact them. Unfortunately the US media doesn't report this part of it and often sees these votes as legally binding (another example was the recentish vote on USB-C charging).

I think the best was to explain the EU parliament to US readers is that the parliament only has veto control, much like the US president (if anything, less, since the president can issue executive orders, which the EP can't). It's basically inverted.

You are reading the letter of the treaties but not their application.

The EU Parliament successfully leverages its powers in all sorts of ways. Simply stated: Council, Commission and Parliament have to work together, or nothing moves. Each element can block the others. This means that each element has an incentive to actually work with the others and give them what they want, to have any hope of "bringing home" something of what it wants.

If MEPs want something badly enough, they will get it, because otherwise they'll start sabotaging stuff Council (i.e. national governments) and Commission (the bureaucratic machine) care about, by wielding their veto powers and their electoral mandate.

Votes like this might not have an effect today, but they are part of a conversation that The Powers That Be (the Council) have to participate in. It states a political will that has to be somehow accomodated into the agenda, and it grants political cover for the Commission to put forward actual directives that the Council are not particularly interested in. It's basically like getting second base.

I understand and completely agree with what you are saying. All I was meaning was that many publicatons (especially N American), write stories about EP votes as if they were closer to 'national' votes.

You make my point exactly by saying 'If MEPs want something badly enough'. Yes, they will get their way if it is of "important" European interest, but I sincrely doubt that the EP will bring the comission to a standstill over USB C charging for phones or right of repairability.

My point really was these stories often get published without caveating they are basically non binding votes with no real meaning.

And even if the EU would introduce a right to repair directive, it would be kicked back to the individual countries who then would have to come up with their country specific law on how to achieve this goal. If no law was implemented within a timeframe, there will be sanctions, eventually, or not, depends.

This isn't quite true. While only the Commission can draft laws, both Parliament and the Council can amend them, and (in the general case) both must approve a proposed regulation or directive for it to become law.

The European parliament has always seemed like to me what the US's Articles of Confederation was. There was no centralized authority and states could defy policies as they saw fit.

The idea is nice but already the project excludes some types of devices. And also requires delivery of spare parts to professional repair centers. It seems like it will facilitate monopoly for authorized service centers rather than give a real right to repair.

Also since the right to repair is a closed catalog it liberates other manufacturers from providing the right.

At the end it may be a law that will do repair not easier but even harder.

I don't really get where the idea about this applying only to phones, tablets and laptops comes from as the actual proposal says products and not those specific categories. It also specifically mentions "independent repairers" as well as consumers themselves should have access to all the tools/information/parts. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-9-2020-0318...

Wow, look at point 7 for digital goods. As I understand it

* Security patches help determine the lifetime of the goods

* Feature changes must be reversible and can't diminish performance/responsiveness

So you can buy a smartphone, and if it says 3 years expected lifetime, the company must patch it for 3 years. If the company adds an antifeature, you reverse it.

> Feature changes must be reversible and can't diminish performance/responsiveness

Wish that was around when Sony removed the ability to run Linux on the PS3. ;)

The document is vague and open for interpretation. It does not necessary explain how to final directive will look like. What happens way too often.

Can I have regulatory capture for 500 Alex?

This is has been my experience often when the government tries to push legislation that deals with complicated topics. It turns out that they don't really know the field so they turn to some "industry experts" who are experts precisely because it is their livlehood and then they push an expansion of their ability to monopolize their part of the market.

Ultimately a bunch of concerned citizens and hobbyist are unlikely to match the time, effort, and motivation of those who depend on something for their livelihood.

This proposal is completely unrealistic and dangerous for startups who want to manufacture hardware devices. If this gets through it will make europe unattractive for hardware companies. It advocates for the accessability of replacement parts, and that devices have to be designed with commonly available and easy to replace parts even though none of that is the responsibility of the device designer / manufacturer, but rather the responsability of parts manufacturers. So this makes it impossible to design devices with cutting edge electronics, which are only made by one company, for example (e.g. an ARM SoC or a display module). There is also the requirement to share details about your hardware design with repair 3rd parties which means you could be forced to reveal your IP. Europe already over-burdens hardware companies with ROHS/WEEE and with organizations who have the exclusive right (by being appointed by the government) to ask for recycling fees (which you need to become a member of, which costs $$$), and with very strict and expensive to fullfill EMC compliance requirements.

> by encouraging standardisation of spare parts for the sake of interoperability and innovation, while upholding product safety requirements;

Encouraging is not the same as required.

> by giving actors of the repair industry, including independent repairers, and consumers access free of charge to the necessary repair and maintenance information, including information on diagnostic tools, spare parts, software and updates, needed to perform repairs and maintenance, while keeping in mind the imperatives of consumer safety, without prejudice to Directive (EU) 2016/943;

> Directive (EU) 2016/943 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2016 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) against their unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure.

You sound like the companies who are against right of repair by claiming copyright as an issue while changing a battery or a screen in a smartphone has nothing to do with your IP.

I am not against the right of repair. What I am against, is the government introducing laws that make innovation impossible, or extremely difficult, for companies based on europe, with the end result being that they cannot compete with companies based elsewhere, where standards for compliance or certification or not as strict.

Unless the companies based elsewhere don't want to sell their products in the worlds 2nd largest market your argument makes no sense. A product from outside of EU still needs to comply with the EU standards so where is the advantage?

in reality there is all kinds of importing happening under the radar, so in a sense those based outside the EU are not complying with the same requirements as those based in the EU, in practice.

The regulatory modus operandi of the EU has always been to raise the standards and force others to follow rather than the other way around.

yeah, and we've seen how well that has worked for innovation and entrepreneurship.

EMC compliance in the EU is not particularly different from other regions. RoHS isn't a burden in any measurable way.

I have experience manufacturing hardware devices in europe and in the US ...

I mean you have a point to supply chain and warehousing headache this law could involve if passed as is. But overall hardware development, certification and manufacturing in Europe is just as uneventful as anywhere else.

I've done hw development with teams on Taiwan, in Eastern and Northern Europe. We sell our products to all continents and are getting regional approvals as necessary. It is a barrier but rather uniform all over. Fact is hardware development and manufacturing is never going to be as forgiving or cheap as software. There is cost, permanence and obligations when you cross over into physical realm.

OK, so you actually have not personally taken a product through certification, that you yourself developed. I have actually done that, in europe, and I can tell you it was far from "uneventful". If you work for a company with lots of resources to handle all of that process for you, and all you need to do is shuttle a few emails back and forth, then your experience is irrelevant.

No, I did that for a number of products, I have no idea how you deduced that. At some point I was the only engineer in the company! I can still perfectly recall dating back 15 years how each product was tested and what the issues were. Am always on the lab floor when tests are administered, doing the setup work myself and sometimes fixing the issues as they arise. In the teams, all electronic designs are reviewed and signed off by me.

Hate to be blunt, but if you can't push your product past the baseline EMC tests (like 47 CFR 15b or EN55032), your designs have no business being out there in the wild.

If this prevents a new generation of absolute trash electronics designed to end up in a landfill I’m all for it.

Unfortunately, laws like these have other side effects you didn't consider.

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