Massachusetts Senate Passes Resolution to Do In-Depth Study on Right-to-Repair

Massachusetts Senate Passes Resolution to Do In-Depth Study on Right-to-Repair

5 years ago
Anonymous $RBasgWKaIV

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xq4zz/massachusetts-senate-passes-resolution-to-do-in-depth-study-on-right-to-repair

We live in a world where everyone uses technology and manufacturers don’t want anyone to repair their own stuff. Companies such as Apple maintain strict control of the tools and methods it uses to service broken devices. Farmers across America are hacking their tractors because manufacturer John Deere doesn’t want them to fix them themselves. The right-to-repair movement has been fighting against big tech’s repair monopoly for years and, in Massachusetts, it just took an important step towards busting that monopoly.

On July 25, the Massachusetts Senate approved a Resolution that would create a special commission that would research the feasibility of forcing device manufacturers to treat customers and independent repair shops the same as officially licensed repair outlets. According to the proposed study, that means providing customers and independent repair shops with “repair technical updates, diagnostic software, service access passwords, updates and corrections to firmware, and related documentation.”