Unrealistic purity tests ruin all sorts of attempts to make the world a better place. We should celebrate attempts to change the status quo.
Now, maybe there's a great reason for this. Maybe they're under NDA and can't reveal part of the schematics. Maybe releasing these schematics would make it super easy for a competitor to completely steal everything. Maybe they are going to release the full schematics and we're waiting on their engineering team and legal team to review them.
The problem here is that Framework hasn't communicated any of this. Every time they're asked they don't seem to give any reason and just dodge around with "we'd love to release the full schematics". Well, why haven't you then? Please tell us.
The strongest interpretation of "we'd love to release the full schematics" the subtext: but we can't / don't want to due to "reasons*, none of which are likely to satisfy everyone, so we'll try to avoid that discussion as it would help distract us all rather than getting on with our goals.
All those high speed bus interfaces are probably tied directly into the CPU, the chipset, or both, and so are largely gonna be covered by any confidentiality agreement intel imposes on vendors of those parts.
The Pi4 CM is a much more modest device by comparison. It has no ram expansion and only a few lanes of PCIe, USB3, and some other fairly standard IO interfaces otherwise.
Realistically, the frame.work mainboard is the compute module. You plug it into the equivalent of a CM carrier board with the TB4 ports.
Being so vague and listing no reasons doesn't seem helpful to me.
>Our main manufacturing partner is Compal, who makes laptops for many other large US notebook makers.
>Apart from off the shelf modules like the SSD, RAM, WiFi, and LCD, the Framework Laptop is entirely custom to us, and we own all of the design and tooling.
If you locate Acer Swift 3 SF313-53 diagram it will be 90% same thing, just shuffled around with different mechanical design.
Sure, QR stickers and a bunch of new/incompatible iteration of good old ExpressCard are nice to have, thank you, but that doesn't make all that big of a difference to repairability.
Laptop in question does use partial through-hole connectors for all 4 USB-C ports - notice 6 shiny slots around each such port around 0:25 mark in video. Such connectors are actually harder to rework/replace, but also tougher and less likely to require repair in the first place. So overall, well-done here to framework, even if most everybody else is doing that too.
I’m confident any device following these guidelines would be DOA in the larger market, though. Even _if_ you could source things like LCD assemblies that fit your criteria, the expected density (high) and labor costs (low) people have for modern electronics don’t leave a lot of room for this kind of bespoke design.
I’m extremely impressed with how far Framework got on the path to “full repairability” using off-the-shelf parts without producing something that looks like a late-90s Thinkpad.
Don’t get me wrong: I love the old IBM, Tadpole, Toshiba, et. al. designs, but I don’t think that many people outside this community would be willing to pay 2-3x as much for something 2-3x larger and heavier and several generation behind in terms of performance. (Not to mention wildly incompatible with any non-hobbyist OS.)
OTOH, what you’re describing does sound a lot like why custom, hand-wired audio amplifier builders do. They manage to make a business out of it, mainly by appealing to folks willing to spend effectively unlimited money to get that “special something”.
User-replaceable RAM, SSD and keyboard are all steps in the right direction, of course. But it would be quite a stretch to give product full marks on repairability based on that alone.
The watch industry used to vet repair Watch Repair shops on the guise of "Quality Assurance". They would require Watchmakers buy their expensive cleaning machines, and a bunch of other pricy tooling, and requirements; in order to procure parts. 90% of watchmakers couldn't get a parts accout, and the watch companies loved it. it meant more after sales/warranty business.
This was because they didn't want to sell parts to anyone. They wanted to do the repairs
For a few years, certain Watchmakers kept up with the demands from Rolex, and The Swatch Group.
We were just happy to be able to get parts.
About 15 years ago the watch companies just decided not to sell parts to anyone.
That whole Vertical Intregtation consumer ripoff.
I am very leary of any company that wants to vet their repair shops for anything, other than maybe medical equipment.
They will supply the schematics, but they don't want to make it easy.
(I'm pretty sure I'm hellbanned again?)
I guess I'd question 'fear of competitors' being a "good" reason, but I'd agree with you otherwise. Regardless of what the need for secrecy is, unless it's "we're forbidden by the state" and there's some kind of national security letter involved or "We're doing something illegal and we'd get sued if it were known to the public", why not just tell the public why they can't release the full schematics? What else would prevent someone from talking about why they couldn't talk about something? Refusing to even explain themselves just makes it all seem more suspicious.
I'm not arguing this is a good thing, just trying to share some perspective.
What if it is really not good enough?
Should everyone just accept someone's claims that they addressed a problem when they might be actually making it worse by pretending it's solved when it isn't?
I recall the days of old when no laptop supported linux, and the impact there was when a model showed up with claims it indeed supported linux. I bought one based on those claims (don't recall the make-model, might have been an Acer) and I still recall the disappointment I felt when I discovered critical stuff like wifi did not worked at all. There were a few comments like "It boots, right?" followed by "for some subset of users you will never be good enough" when critical problems were pointed out, but the truth of the matter was that a purchase was made based on a feature that was advertised but was in fact not offered.
This is optimistic. They'll lampoon you and call you hypocrites for claiming to be helpful but not doing the zillions of things they have in mind, while giving the unfriendly incumbent a pass.
In a recent video they were considering buying a second Framework laptop of their own just to have it displayed in videos as essentially free advertising. If some of these characterizations are about them it seems misplaced tbh.
Same "they" as the parent-- "for some subset of users you will never be good enough, and they’ll complain just as loudly about you as they do the default (far worse) option." Not implying that it's the channel's stance.
On any criterion: ease of repair, privacy, security, good citizenship, etc: there's some subset of critics who treat the best behaved companies and individuals worse than the worst. These are the people who e.g. give Apple a much harder time on privacy than Meta.
yes but... no. if you go half way to do something you will not reap much of the expected benefits. in certain use cases hard thresholds are important to consider. in this case half available schematics is not good enough to do repairs even if its better than no schematics at all.