Ask YC: To continue, or not to continue ... how do you know? - <AUTHOR>

I've been trying to put together a startup for a bit more than a year now based on an idea I've juggled in my head for about 6 years or so. At about the same time as I had the idea, I was able to observe it's application in an area where most people who would be capable of developing the idea would never even think to look. For the longest time I've had the hardest time even getting people to understand the relevance of what I was talking about. Plus finding people to help develop it is challenging as programmers seem to be in short supply these days.
I was just about to shrug the whole last 6 years off as a huge waste of my life, but I just learned that IBM recently put together a research group specifically dedicated to this idea. But no matter how much money or manpower they have, I know enough about this area to know that they missed some windows of observation that will neve be repeated, and I can count on one hand the people (aside from myself) who have intelligently documented this phenomenon and have given it enough thought to gain some possibly practical insight into the topic. So in a way, I finally feel vindicated.  As weird as the idea is, at least I'm not the only one who thinks it may have some profitable, practical application.
To throw in the towel in this uphill battle, or not?  Or pick up the phone and call IBM and see if they'll give me a consulting gig? In other words, something that 99% of people I've come across have considered a completely useless area of specialty has suddenly become interesting and I feel like I have the advantage since the insights I've gained are the result of unique events that will never be replicated.
I feel vindicated, yet the last 6 years or so have been soooo frustrating trying to convince people of something that seemed so intuitive and obvious to me, but left most people I spoke to scratching their heads.  And yet, I imagine that in the next few years, even more people will be looking into this area.
Anybody have any ideas?  Any perspective and experience in a similar position would be appreciated.  The "I told you so" factor is good ... but I've spent soo much time and personal resources on something that has progressed at a glacial pace. I guess what I'm saying is, throw in the towel and call IBM, or keep trying the startup attempt route? <comment><USER2> You spent 6 years on this idea with nothing to show for it[red flag]. You say your bottlenecks are programmers, and that you couldn't convince anyone to join you [red flag]. Why did they not buy into it?

Instead of having you convince people, why not have some evidence to do the talking for you? Learn to put ideas into UI flow charts, functional specs. Show a paper prototype to customers and see if it is something they would pay for. Do whatever you can so that other programmers won't look at you like a "dreaded idea guy that wants 99% equity."

As for call IBM or try the start-up route, I would at least call them to see where they are with their research.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's my take on the question as well as few of your responses throughout.

Stop worrying about programmers. If you have been toying with this idea for 6 years, take another one year and learn how to program. if you're cash strapped there are plenty of online tutorials and good old manuals. If have some cash outsource it to india or elance. if people are paid with money, they sometimes tend not to 'care' what they are working on, but give results.

The fact that IBM is doing research in this field means that they think that it might be worth it to work on this.

I think you need to act on it and if you spent that amount of time mulling it over, checking into things. get it done and see what people think, let the market decide. If someone doesn't get it, explain to them why they should. people thought blogs were stupid, all the other search engines didn't buy into google, now they wish they had.

I was in a similar thought process when i started my site, after i started it i kept coming across competitors i never even heard of. the fact that people are using my site and getting results was my 'vindication', after all there are a lot of other services that guarantee so much but didn't work for some people.

as far a i know ideas are worthless. pg talks about it some where. put it out there and see what happens, if IBM looks into what you are doing and blatantly copies you, sue them, but expect a long drawn-out legal battle that you won't win.

Lastly, people might have a hard time helping you out here if you don't talk about your idea. People might be interested in helping you out, by closely guarding your idea people might not help out.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you couldn't pull it off in six years, do you think another year or two will be enough? Do you think you can pull it together faster than IBM (and the dozen other competitors that will spring up once IBMs work becomes more widely known)? Ideas are worth practically nothing--you have no monopoly on your idea, unless it sucks, and even then, you probably aren't the only person working on it.

I ran my previous business for nearly seven years, before throwing in the towel. It was profitable for about six of those seven years, and it kept me in food and houses...but it wasn't a success, by my definition, and I won't twice make the mistake of continuing a business that I don't believe can win in its market...not just get by, but win. Perhaps you're not making that mistake, but I'd suggest you change your tactics immediately. Six years is an awful long time to have nothing to show.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why don't you share your idea. This is might be a great place to find your tech co-founder?!

I don't understand why many people are so determined to keep their ideas secret a secret. First off odds are somebody has also though of the same idea. Not every great opportunity is immediately obvious in the early form of the idea. An idea alone does not make a killer startup imo -- execution is very important. Second, if only you have the expertise to make this idea work then all the more reason to share it and hope to find someone that buys into your dream.

Just my two cents worth. From my experience there is nothing more frustrating then not iterating towards your goal.

</comment><comment><USER6> One solution is to continue trying; Another is to "sell out" to BigCo;

Yet another is to publish your idea and possibly get hero status when someone that understands the relevance of your idea and has the necessary resources/skills to make it happen does so. You'd probably feel good about those 6 years spent thinking about it and researching it not being completely in vain.

I'm a bit freaked out thinking that great ideas can die with their originator if they never publish...

<comment><AUTHOR> Or ... Or ... OOOORRR - you just gave me another idea in a way: What if I go up to BigCo and _THREATEN_ to publish it online for free, thus rendering their money spent on research/subsequent patent-based revenue streams completely useless? Just walk up to IBM and say, "I know what you guys researching, here's what you'll discover, now pay up or I'll write a white paper and just put it on the internet ... or mail it to Microsoft or whatever!"

And since the legal departments of most major corporations use game theory in analyzing transactions, their lawyers would easily tell them it's in their favor to pay me what I ask for just to get me to agree to shut up.

That's just crazy enough to possibly work. I wish I could up vote you like 20 times for inspiring this thought.

<comment><USER6> As far as I can tell, it's probably better for your sanity to end your involvement with this project, one way or another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You did not start a company in 6 years. You have been giving excuses (probably valid) for most advice that people here are giving you. Don't suffer anymore. Call IBM and ask for a job, show them you know more shit about this than all of them put together. If you get hired atleast you will be working on something you really like and also get credit for that.

</comment><comment><USER8> You have a market opportunity validated by IBM, with a 6 year head start in research. Based only on what you've written, with proper support you should be able to kick ass in an important market faster than they can. What's not to like?

If what you know is as important as you say it is, then either (a) IBM should be happy to pay you a handsome sum for it, possibly without needing you to commit an endless day job, or (b) you will be able to raise money and finally get that startup off the ground, provided that you can convince investors of your personal ability to start the company. Both of these options are better than what you had on your plate before IBM joined the fray, so I am puzzled by the attitude that comes across in your writing. You sound like you're sulking, which is not only very unattractive to any would-be co-founders or investors, but also contradictory to a rational account of your situation: didn't you just "win"?

* Also, _talking_ to IBM need not imply agreeing to what they want. Find out what they'd offer for your expertise, and what kind of commitment you'd have to make. If it sounds good, take it. If not, do it yourself. You don't lose any of your advantage until you actually spill the beans. Certainly don't use threatening language. Simply based on how you've written this posting and responded to comments, I already have a strong gut-based bias against working with you.

</comment><comment><USER9> I once spent 2 years on an idea that never got off the ground. I wouldn't do that again. At 6 years you should either do it right now and stop screwing around (what was that post? Do it fucking now?) or put it to bed forever. The try and fail route is more rewarding imho.

<comment><AUTHOR> But what if on the last day of the second year, just as you were about to say, "The hell with this", you found out that people are just starting to look into it? Surely all the insight you gained over the course of your 2 years of trying is useful - question is, what to do with it? Keep plugging away, or "sell out" and go the corporate route?

One of the guys running the project works at an office on Madison Ave. I'd love to start a startup based on this, because I just _know_ it'll be cool, yet I can't say since finding out about this recent development I haven't spent, oh, 5 hours or so since fantasizing about what it would be like to pay off all my credit cards, have health insurance, benefits, etc. and go to work on Madison avenue near Central Park every day.

And instead of arguing with people about the idea, I would be in an environment where people who understand it would appreciate the insights I have. Plus they have a pretty big budget to play with from what I understand.

Just getting paid to do what I've been doing for fun ... and appreciated for once instead of seeing the usual "What the _hell_ are you talking about?" look on people's faces when I've tried to discuss it.

> The try and fail route is more rewarding imho.

I suppose you're right in a way. Maybe both? Maybe, "I've tried, it didn't work out because of timing, but now I can apply my insights and sell out in style!" (?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've had a similar experience that you may learn from.

In 96 I did my first startup, based on an algorithmic way of sorting links. Basically somewhere in between Google and del.icio.us. Me and my partner thought that Altavista, which at the time was the best search engine out there, fell short. We secured seed founding in the amount of ca. $100.000 and developed a working prototype of the technology. After this we needed venture capital to create and promote the product. This proved impossible to get. We talked to every VC out there, but the result was the same: "nobody needs another search engine", and "you can't make money on that" I was, however, convinced that the idea was sound so I carried on for almost 1½ years after funding ran out. In the end I had to give up.

It seems to me like you are in a similar situation.

Based on my experience what I think you should do is assess the situation seriously, and have someone you trust help you do this. When you're in the middle of it it is really hard to see the pitfalls and shortcomings of an idea. Look at what alternatives you have, try and write them down with pros and cons of each. Then take a decision. And do it.

Most important: Once you've made the decision don't look back.

</comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps one of the reasons that you haven't been able to drum up interest is because you won't share what it is. If you indeed have this great knowledge and insight that no one can replicate, then there should be absolutely nothing holding you back from telling us what this idea or field is. This would really allow us to help you in a way that is meaningful.

Another observation I'd like to point out is that in 6 years, you could have learned to program and done it yourself. I've learned to program and started 3 companies in the past 4 years.

So, my question for you is, do you really believe in this idea enough to do what it takes to make it happen? If not, then go to IBM and milk what you can of it.

</comment><comment><USER12> OK, I may be missing something, but the fact that they put together a research group doesn't mean that they just started; or that the other people in the research group are less interested or motivated or experience than you. Maybe explain your special circumstances.

When I started, I was initially a bit distraught at the fact that there were a lot of people taking, and making a lot of money in my space; Everybody with any experience told me "They are solidifying the fact that there is value in that space, go do it better"; If you honestly believe that you can do it better, and you have the option, eh, why not?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, they could be motivated and interested, but I doubt they have the experience, otherwise they would have, with their resources, started a long time ago.

About the do it better part, a bit harder. They have resources, but if they're just now starting to figure out what to do ... I know exactly what to do, but ... kinda hard to do it. So far it's a draw outcome wise, but they're making nice salaries doing something I like, meanwhile I lose interest in my gig while I spend more and more time doing this as a side project for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What's your idea?

<comment><AUTHOR> How does that make a difference? Let's just say it's something that I know more about than however many PhDs they have looking into it and no matter how smart they are or what their budget is, it will be impossible to replicate the conditions that led to the insights I've gained about why things developed as they did and how to apply it to the business world.

Not saying it's because I'm smarter or anything, it's just a freak accident that resulted from my background and personal interests which came together in some unexpected ways to give me insight into what was worth paying to in this area while most people would have dismissed the whole area as not worth paying serious attention to to begin with.

So - question is:

a) Screw it, it's taking too long

or

b) It may be an uphill struggle but this is a good sign that it's at least worth continuing

<comment><USER14> Think about your life now, and your life at 75. What decision do you think your 75 year old self would wish you had made? Do what the old man tells you to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> But that's the thing. My life now sucks because I've spent most of my spare time researching this. And progress has been so slow. Friends have drifted away, etc.

If I give up and sell out, at least I'll have a comfy position at a respectable company where people smarter than me would respect what I have to offer because I have 6 years worth of thinking about the problem on them.

But the startup route ... hell I can't even find any programmers to put a demo together ...

I could make a career out of this "there" ... or just keep fumbling in the dark making teeny tiny progress (if any) while my personal/professional life suffers.

I don't know anymore. That's why I posted this, I guess.

Quite frankly the "75" year old me is saying, "Do what you want, but keep in mind you're going to need good health insurance as you grow older."

<comment><USER14> _If I give up and sell out, at least I'll have a comfy position at a respectable company where people smarter than me would respect what I have to offer because I have 6 years worth of thinking about the problem on them._

No they won't. You'll be a part of a dispirited bureauacracy, and nobody will care. They probably won't even finish the project.

Your best bet is to get a bunch of young college age programmers to work with you. They are unemployed and are ready to hit it out of the park. If I was in NYC I would hear you out and try to help. Start looking for talent where the people are hungry.

<comment><AUTHOR> > our best bet is to get a bunch of young college age > programmers to work > with you.

Columbia couldn't seem to care less, and the entire NYU structure has so far gotten ... hold your breath ... 2 resumes. Only one of which was remotely relevant, but not experienced enough to take initiative on this.

And since I'm not a programmer, I don't have the experience to provide guidance in that department.

I don't know why, but NY is not very start-uppity at all. People here fantasize about going to work for the IT dept. of Morgan Stanley or something.

<comment><USER15> Give up. You're six years into a development project that requires programmers but you don't have any programmers. You seem to think that a company will hire you because you have experience - if your work is really that valuable why haven't they hired you already?

Get a job and continue to work on this in your spare time. Fund development and be smart about making what you build as generally-useful as possible (an enabling technology rather than a solution). If the market pans out for this other company, there will be opportunities for you... assuming you executed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've had a similar frustration, which is why I'm learning to code. I've never really wanted to code per se, but I want to be able to do things, to mock up a prototype. People seem to understand ideas better when you show them something than when you tell them something, and people want to work with other people who can add value.

And hey, I like applied math, so I'll probably enjoy coding well enough.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you haven't done it in 6 years, I don't think you care enough about this particular idea. I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong though :)

<comment><AUTHOR> If I didn't care I think I would have shrugged it off a long time ago. Not trying to do it until recently has been more the result of massive amount of change in this area which I found I just barely kept up with. I just barely got to the point a year ago or so where I had time to reflect and think how this can translate into something useful.

So it was more like 6 years observation and thinking in a sort of real-world lab experiment, and only the last year or so of "apply lessons learned".

But since I'm not a programmer, and most programmers I've come across are working on their own projects, I couldn't figure out exactly how to proceed ... and based on the limited feed back I got, whether it was even worth proceeding or if I was just fooling myself and seeing an oasis.

Plus regardless of whether I cared enough, now that I found this out I realize it's a valid thing to more than just me. So now I care more. It's just been a long, unrewarding (except the intellectual curiosity part), clumsy, guideless trip so far.

My "adult" self tells me to give up and move on, or perhaps profit from it by working for "the man" ... but then again, what if I wind up 10 years ago in a situation where I say, "Dammit - I should have tried for just one more year - but instead I gave up and _now_ look what happened - it took off right after I gave up and somebody else is doing it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Your situation is seems similar to Guy Kawasaki's Truemors experiment. You have something that you believe is interesting/useful but the market didn't believe you. IBM looking into it signals a market change in your favor. Since that's the case, I say do it.

However, it sounds like you need two things (er...people). A star programmer and a star evangelist. The first can be had (for a price). The second is harder to find. Either you need to become one or you need to hire someone that already is one.

Reference: <http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/by_the_numbers_.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, these are good points. I guess I could do the evangelist part or let someone else do it, but really I think it could speak for itself. As for the article in your link, I could be wrong since I'm not him, but something tells me his reputation had something to do with that "I got my application built for $12,000" equation.

Even if the market hasn't changed yet, I'd say that them devoting brainpower/budgets into looking into it full-time might meand that they, too suspect it may change this way. Quite honestly I can't believe it didn't change this way a long time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey, you have "email me" in your profile info, but a feature of this site is that the email box in your profile only shows up to administrators. So you need to write your email address again in your about me.

</comment><comment><USER16> Do what you can to implement your idea, even if you make less money off of it. People seldom have only one good idea in life, and then you can point to that implementation as an example of what you can do next time around.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why not call IBM? You might enjoy it. More resources. Maybe you can make progress faster.

Going it alone is hard. It's necessary if no one agrees with you, or no one else would do it right. But here? I don't see the compelling reason not to team up with IBM. You'll cooperate with people and see valuable work done; you'll be part of something good and effective.

<comment><AUTHOR> That might work. If it doesn't, I'll threaten to publish everything online for free, thus negating their own efforts and rendering their money spent into a black-hole of no return.

<comment><USER19> if you haven't noticed, your thread is dead. also my votes don't count now like rms'.

btw don't make threats lightly, and maybe you shouldn't post about them in public in advance.

edit: i don't know why it's dead. and your reply to this is dead too and i can't reply to it. but the parent of this comment is not dead.</comment></comment></comment>


Articles and books about the software engineering labor market? - <AUTHOR> I'm an academic researcher trying to understand the software engineering labor market: how coders are hired, how and when they move between companies, etc.<p>I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for good books or articles that discuss how this labor market works? <comment><USER2> Well, I've written my own career course for developers, but two notable books include:

[https://smile.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done- Technical/dp...](https://smile.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done- Technical/dp/1590598385)

[https://smile.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside- Transfor...](https://smile.amazon.com/Work-Rules-Insights-Inside- Transform/dp/1455554790)</comment>


The GNU Project Is Bleeding into Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://techrights.org/2020/06/29/gnu-redirects/ <comment><USER2> GNU has their own code and project management plattform called Savannah. If you've ever interacted with it you know why this is happening. It's horrible in every way. I remember once trying to make some suggestions to get some basic security improvements that never happened. It wasn't even clear to me to whom I'd have to talk to.

I don't think this has anything to do with the controversy around RMS. GNU has neglected to provide decent development infrastructure for its projects and has only provided them the joke that savannah is. So people are naturally looking elsewhere.

<comment><USER3> Savannah might be awful, but there are more sensible options. There actually is a good discussion on the GNU website [1]. Savannah gets an A for ethical concerns (which to be fair is what's important to GNU, rather than usability); GitHub gets an F (fully closed source and now controlled by Microsoft...);

However, in the middle there is GitLab, with a respectable C. In my experience, it's usable and has all the important features that Github also has. And it's much better from ethical standpoints! I can't imagine any point of view from where Github is more acceptable than Gitlab.

1: [https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria- evaluation.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really don't see what the problem is here. Stallman himself is OK with using proprietary software if it runs on someone else's machine. For example, here [https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman- computing.html), he states he uses DuckDuckGo and ixquick, which are not clearly free software. (Though, they might be free software; their server code isn't distributed to the user, so even under the GPL they would not have to also distribute the source).

So what if GitHub is proprietary? So long as you don't run their JavaScript on your machine, your computing can still be fully free. And, if the problem is that Microsoft will prevent some project from being developed there, they can take their local Git (GPLv2 licensed) repositories and push them somewhere else.

This all seems like a win from the FSF's perspective. Their projects are easier to discover and to contribute to, the developer's computing can remain fully free and the FSF does not need to pay for hosting.

Flex being BSD licensed is a slight problem for copyleft, though.

<comment><USER5> >So long as you don't run their JavaScript on your machine

Do you have much of a choice? I think a lot of GitHub features do not work properly without JavaScript. For instance, just trying it now:

\- Can't mark notifications as done

\- Can't edit the title or description of an issue or PR

\- Can't dismiss banners or most modals/popups

\- Can't commit files directly on the web interface

\- Can't edit an issue or PR metadata (i.e. labels)

\- Can't edit most, maybe almost all, repo settings

At-least it's not a blank page. If I see websites like that these days, I just close the tab. Thankfully, you can pretty much use GitHub in "read-only" mode without JavaScript, but working on it is probably quite hard without running their non-free code.

It would probably be better if they'd use Sourcehut or maybe GitLab.

<comment><USER6> > _\- Can 't mark notifications as done_

What kind of notifications?

> _\- Can 't edit the title or description of an issue or PR_

You can if you disable CSS. (Admittedly that's not very convenient…)

> _\- Can 't dismiss banners or most modals/popups_

Any examples? This has (almost?) always worked for me.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, I went to get you an example and I found they seem to dismiss if you click elsewhere on the page. I think I was clicking on the close button (the "x" in the title bar) - which won't work without JavaScript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It might be better titled "Microsoft is bleeding into the GNU Project". Honestly, I'm not super bothered by GNU using github, because everybody uses github. I mean, it's the hub for git repos! At the risk of making more bad puns... well, I can't think of anything worse than the last one, but my point stands that github won this war, and while GNU might feasibly use gitlab or similar, github is where everybody is at, and it's very quickly becoming the place people search for code. It's almost like, "your code isn't open source because it's not on github." Github is code google.

EDIT: It should be obvious that github being "code google" is not great for freedom. It's brilliant on the part of Microsoft, in the same way that securing a monopoly on OS's 20 years ago was brilliant. With the cloud- backend->web-frontend being our new defacto operating system, Microsoft is set to achieve this once again. Azure and GitHub synergize really well together. At this rate, the default way to deploy open source code will be VS Code -> .NET 5 -> Github -> Azure, and we will be at Microsoft's monopolistic mercies once again, enthralled to the cloud instead of running our own software that we own (even if we don't understand) on our own hardware that we own (even if we don't understand), and maintaining some semblance of ownership over our own computing and communication with one another via these computers.

</comment><comment><USER8> > Interestingly, most of these redirections seem to have made fairly recently, > not long after Richard Stallman was ousted.

That's factually wrong : Richard Stallman resigned from the FSF, not from GNU.

The very first paragraph on his personal website reads: "I continue to be the Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project. I do not intend to stop any time soon."

Also, while I share author's annoyance of seeing GNU packages on github (that's what savannah is made for, after all), singling out GNU here seems sensationalism : it could basically be said that "most FOSS projects are bleeding into Microsoft", or probably more reasonably "FOSS projects should consider what it means to be hosted by Github now that Microsoft owns it".

</comment><comment><USER9> It more about how difficult Savannah is to use which is why people use alternatives. Though the GNU project does evaluate whether a code hosting service is suitable. [0] They were also looking into hosting their own alternative to Savannah. [1]

[0] [https://www.fsf.org/news/gnu-releases-ethical-evaluations- of...](https://www.fsf.org/news/gnu-releases-ethical-evaluations-of-code- hosting-services)

[1] [https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/coming-soon-a-new-site- fo...](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/coming-soon-a-new-site-for-fully- free-collaboration)

<comment><USER10> Based on the latest updates[1], it looks likely that they'll try setting up an instance of Pagure[2].

[1] [https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Fsf_2019_forge_evaluation](https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Fsf_2019_forge_evaluation)

[2] [https://pagure.io/pagure](https://pagure.io/pagure)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > For a number of important reasons, hosting GNU development on a proprietary > Microsoft platform should be verboten.

What ridiculous hyperbole. Yeah, a "number of important reasons", yet they list none. I hate Microsoft as much as the next guy, but it's Github. It was fine to host open source software on them before, but now that they're bought my Microsoft, it's bad? Why? Because we're afraid Microsoft is going to steal our free open source code? I've mitigated some of my own projects to other git sites, like gitlab, just to get more experience and diversify my access, but it makes no sense to abandon Github.

This level of anti-Microsoft hysteria is a little over the top.

You want to know the real reason why GNU is hosting so many of their projects on Github? Because their interface is clean and it's free and the GNU developers want to spend their time writing GNU software, not maintaining websites.

</comment><comment><USER12> Some of the projects, like GNU Radio, seem pretty active. I imagine that GH is simply a more attractive platform than whatever they were using previously (Savannah?), and it seems to much better facilitate community interaction than e-mail mailing lists. And honestly, for the sake of developing _free /libre software_, I'd much prefer that it be hosted on a platform that facilitates active development, than following a Stallman-approved™ fully libre stack, that results in the entire project being maintained by two guys in a university closet.

Is the whole contention solved by just moving over to GitLab?

<comment><USER13> GitLab would certainly "feel" like a better bet. But I don't think there's much in it. If it's a free platform, perhaps some GNUers like the idea of their code being hosted on Microsoft's dime :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The GNU Project" is not really a thing. It's just a list, and the list includes projects with varying degrees of connection to the FSF:

1\. Some projects are owned and controlled by the FSF. All contributors have to assign copyright to the FSF, and the FSF makes decisions about appointing maintainers, where the code is hosted, etc. Examples: Emacs, gcc, glibc.

2\. A much larger set of projects are not FSF-owned or controlled in any meaningful way. The maintainers (or former maintainers) voluntarily chose to associate with the GNU project, but didn't assign copyright to the FSF, and basically kept their own project governance. Examples: R[1], GNOME[2], GIMP.

3\. Finally, many projects on the official list[3] are basically abandonware. They got started because someone thought it was important or useful to have an open source clone of some widely used piece of software, but they never got close to feature-complete, were never widely used, and the authors have moved on. Check the most recent releases for most of the software on the list - it's often been 2+ years since there has been any activity.

The projects that have moved to GitHub are all in category #2. The developers and maintainers of those projects don't necessarily share the antagonism towards SaaS platforms that the FSF has historically had, and they've moved to a platform with better tooling and a larger community. A few better-resourced projects that have stronger views on avoiding proprietary SaaS code have set up self-hosted GitLab instances. The projects I follow that have FSF-appointed maintainers have stayed on GNU Savannah, although many have GitHub read-only mirrors.

[1] [https://www.r-project.org/about.html](https://www.r-project.org/about.html)

[2] [https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Resources/CopyrightAs...](https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Resources/CopyrightAssignment/Guidelines)

[3] [https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html](https://www.gnu.org/manual/blurbs.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Having been around for a while, I believe that GNU based software was a generational event, in the upcoming two to three decades future generations will have back our old shareware and public domain software licenses.

<comment><USER10> Rob Landley argues that a lot of the popularity was due to the fact that the FSF had a high bandwidth FTP site at a time when that was pretty rare, so people were willing to sign code to the FSF and license it GPL in order to have access to that distribution method: [https://landley.net/notes-2010.html#19-07-2010](https://landley.net/notes-2010.html#19-07-2010)

Obviously that particular advantage is no longer relevant.</comment></comment>


An efficient blocker for Chromium and Firefox. Fast and lean - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock <comment><USER2> Okay, I'm aware of today's lucky 10 000 thing[1], but this is just too far :P

[1] [https://www.xkcd.com/1053/](https://www.xkcd.com/1053/)

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean?

<comment><USER2> That you're posting one of the most widely used extensions, especially here, as a news, with a title that suggests that it's something hot and new, or at least relatively unknown.

It's like posting a link to git repo of Linux with a title "An open-source monolithic Unix-like computer operating system kernel".

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, atleast 11 people found it helpful.

<comment><AUTHOR> > That you're posting one of the most widely used extensions...

I don't think it is as widely used as you think it is.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Company Update - <AUTHOR> https://www.tesla.com/blog/company-update <comment><AUTHOR> > We are about to have the most amazing quarter in our history, building and > delivering more than twice as many cars as we did last quarter. For a while, > there will be a lot of fuss and noise in the media. Just ignore them.

The "fuss and noise in the media" lately has been exclusively about Elon himself, not Tesla as a whole.

<comment><USER2> I can't be sure, but it seems like a lot of the negative press about Elon recently is... engineered. I mean, he smoked pot with Joe Rogan while recording a shitty podcast - so what? This is not 1950 anymore.

There's a lot of people who want to see Elon fail, and they surely can afford to manufacture some articles broadcasting their own point of view.

<comment><USER3> You believe that short-sellers engineered Musk's appearance on Rogan's show last night, as well as the announcements of the two senior executive departures this morning?

<comment><USER2> ROTFL

Are you serious? What Elon does is his business alone. What the PR machine can do afterwards is _spin_ the facts whichever way seems beneficial to them.

<comment><USER3> He's CEO of one of the most highly-valued and prominent tech companies today. For better or worse, what he does ends up being the interest of many people outside his personal network. But ignoring the pot-smoking, what would non-"engineered" press look like when it comes to the departure of the two senior executives this morning?

<comment><USER2> I was not referring to any single event in my initial comment. I'm just looking at all the press I've seen in recent months (maybe years) and I can't resist the impression that there's this negative undertow that seems manufactured.

Maybe it's subjective.

<comment><USER3> If we consider a timeframe of more than just this year, then you have even less of a case that media coverage has been engineered toward negativity by ulterior forces. Tesla itself brags in its annual reports that it doesn't need to have an ad budget because of the positive media coverage it gets:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-admits-media- coverage-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-admits-media-coverage-has- helped-sales-2018-5)

> _" Historically, we have been able to generate significant media coverage of > our company and our vehicles, and we believe we will continue to do so," the > company wrote. "To date, for vehicle sales, media coverage and word of mouth > have been the primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped us achieve > sales without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing > costs."_

> _Tesla has included those sentences or a variation on them in each of its > annual SEC filings dating back to its 2010 initial public offering._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > For a while, there will be a lot of fuss and noise in the media. Just ignore > them.

Please take your own advice Elon.

Sincerely, Someone who wants you to succeed

<comment><USER5> For one, I really appreciate his public image. His one of the few people, let alone billionaires or CEOs, that are sincere and communicate without layers of legal and PR departments. If only more billionaire CEOs were like that, I think we'd live in a much better word.

Edit: Keep talking Elon, you're the only one we (the world) have.

<comment><USER6> It's useful to consider Chesterton's Fence here. There's a reason why the norms of professional communication have developed into what we have today.

<comment><USER5> Because of lawsuits. Same reason why doctors do unnecessary procedures and exams and surgeries, wasting people's money and wellbeing in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, Tesla sounds crazy to me.

I have a buddy who's worked at the factory in Fremont on one of the assembly lines. They sound very overworked. Despite getting "overtime" pay, they're basically required to work many days a week, and sometimes crazy shifts, like 10 hours, plus a day on the weekend. Definitely over 40 hours a week.

<comment><USER8> A good friend who graduated with me is at Tesla in a factory engineering role. His hours? 6PM-6AM Wednesday-Sunday.

<comment><USER9> So a 60 hour work week. That isn't _terrible_ , especially if they are well compensated... Many of us salary employees end up working that much, if not more.

<comment><USER8> They're salaried and the compensation is good but not good enough in my opinion when you do the per-hour math.

IMO, working for free for 20 hours a week is pretty terrible.

<comment><USER9> Why do people still think the work week is 40 hours, and no more? Sure, it's the legal definition of a "full time, non-exempt employee", but are there really _that_ many high paying, high skill jobs that are like "well, you put in 40 hours this week, see you next calendar week! :D". I can't think of any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > will report to both Kevin and me

Either I don't trust Kevin or X doesn't trust Kevin. Poor Kevin.

<comment><USER11> Kevin was just promoted to arguably the most important leadership position for a growing company. It's likely Elon wants a little oversight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How many direct reports does Musk have? Looks like he just got a few more, which might not be so great for a (reportedly) overworked schedule.

<comment><USER13> Are you referring to Elon's schedule as overworked? If so, I think having a few more direct reports would allow him to delegate some of his efforts.

<comment><USER14> Each of those direct reports only adds more demands on his time. The only way delegation would help is if he delegated tasks to his current direct reports.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Even the Ford Model T, which held the world record for the fastest growing > car in history, didn't grow as fast in sales or production as the Model 3.

Does anybody know what the relevant numbers are?

<comment><USER16> For the Ford Model T: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_product...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_production). About 16 times as much in 1913 as in 1909 (170,211 vs 10,666), so about a doubling per year in that period.

We would need per quarter data for he Model T, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Slight aside, but how do people make the distinction between a Director and a VP? What's the clear (if any) delineation of job descriptions?

<comment><USER17> VP = head of a function or business unit. Director = head of a very large team. For Tesla, engineering head would be a VP, but head of Autopilot will most likely be a director. Doesn't always hold up though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> All of those people with double reporting? I feel for them.

</comment><comment><USER19> Elon needs to get his act together

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome, just bought a few hundred TSLA shares this morning. :)

<comment><USER21> That was poor timing.

<comment><USER22> It's not down from where it opened this morning.

That bounce back in April down to $252 had me thinking about being a buyer at $254. Curious to see what happens on Monday but I have a feeling I'll have missed the $263 low.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Lumosity Bullshit?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.kumar.vc/is-lumosity-bullshit/

<comment><AUTHOR> One of my family members has autism and their father purchased lumosity thinking it would help their child. I wanted to look closer and got angrier as I looked closer so I wrote this to ask questions that are sensible.

Weird how bad logic sets off emotions.

<comment><USER2> Does Lumosity make any claims about improving autism conditions? It's a pretty big leap of logic to believe that a generic brain game system should improve autism range conditions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed.

That was my first objection to my family members.

Lumosity does however make claims on brain improvements.

<comment><USER2> Autism isn't just a "bad brain" condition that needs a "make brain better" game. Unfortunately it's a very specific condition with very specific needs.

Calling Lumosity bullshit due to some expectation towards it that it doesn't make is akin to calling vitamin tablets bullshit because they don't cure diabetes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Read the scientific claims that I question in the post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If, by bullshit, you mean all of its claims are unsubstantiated? Then yes, obviously, lol.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am a paying customer of Lumosity. I am not sure if it's useful.</comment>


Nikon Will No Longer Authorize Anyone to Repair Its Cameras - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvgggp/nikon-is-making-it-harder-to-fix-its-cameras <comment><USER2> My Nikon D90 still has life in it after 10+ years, but I guess I will have to consider other brands once I'll be in the camera market again.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am still squeezing life out of my mid-2012 MacBook Pro and am very much pro right-to-repair. But given the complexity of professional DSLR cameras, and Apple laptops since I gave that example, I have to question my own belief that these decisions are purely profit/shareholder-value driven. There has to be something else at play here, maybe someone familiar with the high-tech manufacturing process can shed some light.

Alternatively, what stops these companies from offering technical education on repairing their products, and allowing the graduates to setup their own repair businesses? I don't think it's sustainable to keep forcing customers to pay up for $2k+ laptops or cameras every 3-4 years.

<comment><USER4> It's entirely a business decision that's profit-driven.

There's nothing technically limiting these manufacturers from making reparable devices. It may extend their development cycle by a month or more for a product though, as they need to settle on standardized parts, keep stock of materials for repair, produce readable manuals, and make alterations to make components accessible.

It is not in their interest to make any of this available, and it is entirely in their interest at the same time to discourage repairability, through marketing of new products and suppression of right-to-repair movements.

Ironically, a right-to-repair law would at least put everyone on equal ground as far as having to comply to a minimum standard. But tragedy of the commons and all that.

<comment><USER3> Agree on the right-to-repair putting players on a common ground.

Thinking more on this, it'll be interesting to see how this plays out for Nikon. They have serious competition from Canon, Sony and others and if they keep their repairs open, Nikon will just end up hurting themselves in the long-run.

Apple on the other hand, is in a much safer position. There is no real competitor when it comes to macOS and so they can make these profit-driven decisions without any serious consequences.

I'd like to point out that when I say "no real competition" to macOS, I don't mean it's better than Windows or Linux. Rather, people who prefer macOS will keep using it, just like people who prefer Windows will keep using it. The force required to make them move to a different platform, change your entire workflow etc, is, in my opinion, much higher than switching cameras. Yes, changing the glass costs a small-fortune, but you have adapters, and image formats are standards.

<comment><USER5> >Nikon will just end up hurting themselves in the long-run.

IMHO tis is a desperate move from Nikon to increase profit, which might work in the short run but might mean it's death, i'm a "prosumer" photog and after long years and lots of money in gear last year i decided to switch to sony mirrorless getting new gear in the process, Nikon used to be great some time ago and even having on-site techs giving tech support and repairs at big events where lots of press where working, whenever you needed a part you just call an 1-800 number and in a few days you had them shipped. Now you need to risk shipping your gear to most likely be returned to you ater a month with a non-repairable note and the charges for the service. Sad to see you going down Nikon.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Early iPhone Adopters Extremely Satisfied - <AUTHOR> http://ce.seekingalpha.com/article/44709?source=feed

<comment><USER2> It is often tempting to substitute 'smug' with a word like 'satisfied', but we must resist this unnatural temptation.

</comment><comment><USER3> No kidding. Also:

Life Partners of Homosexuals Frequently Gay Themselves.

</comment><comment><USER4> Eary iPhone adopters are the easiest for Apple to satisfy....</comment>


Ask HN: Isn't it time for an Apple alternative? - <AUTHOR>

Ok ok its not that easy... I know, but is there no one outthere  that can combine beauty of design with kick ass technology and software? <comment><USER2> If you think that Apple designs the best products I don't understand why you would need an alternative. Beauty is highly subjective, so it really only matters what you think. I Don't dislike Apple, but I do prefer using a PC. While my primary computer is kind of tacky looking, I also have an Asus eee slate that I believe is designed and built just as well as anything I've used from Apple.

The easiest way to answer your question would be to try out a bunch of computers. If you like using the Mac the best, the answer to your question is "no."

<comment><USER3> I don't think that's what is being asked, although I totally agree with what you said.

I think also the question and your answer somewhat reduces down what Apple are doing to just producing hardware and software - as if that's all that Apple were about.

No matter how big a player the competitor might be, Apple have got users locked-in without them even feeling it, and other companies have got a very long way to go before they even get close to having that kind of buy-in. Apple would have to have a major _major_ screw up to lose that advantage.

I actually experienced the power of that lock-in recently. I'm writing a technical book on a macbook air. Although it's on OSX 10.6.8 I hadn't upgraded to Lion because I didn't want to lose the support of Rosetta for a couple of programs I still use.

I'd been using Pages to write the book because of it's compatibility with ePub and Amazon, and when Apple released iBooks Author I saw the potential for my book. The problem is that it's Lion only.

Now I have a dilemma, upgrade to Lion and lose Rosetta (and several key coding programs) or just stay where I am and lose iBooks Author.... or buy another Mac. Wow. That _is_ power. Name me another company that has that.

<comment><USER4> How is that Apple's fault? You'd have exactly the same false dilemma on any system where you wanted to run old and new software that weren't compatible with the same OS version. What if you were on Windows and wanted to run a new app that needed .NET and an old one that only worked on Win9x?

It's a false dilemma anyway, because you've ignored obvious solutions like virtual machines or dual booting. Again, exactly the same options you'd have on Windows, Linux, or whatever.

<comment><USER3> Was I blaming Apple? No. I was just pointing out that from a consumer perspective, Apple have got all bases covered and every decision is pretty cleverly put together. I admire it, but the questioner seemed not to see it that far hence I made the point.

HNers of course are going to find hacks and work-arounds to my dilemma which is not exactly end-of-the-world anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Speaking as an engineer-designer: Apple's devices are better designed than a lot of the stuff out there, but they're still not that great. You can kick their asses on design if you actually find a case where there's a sufficient financial incentive to do so.

It's just, it's really hard to make money at scale on physical products. There's not much incentive to complete on this. Plus, many people have been trained to evaluate design quality as "looks like Apple products" ... which some days gets to the point where I just fire-bomb the place and take a vacation in Nepal, Tibet, one of those places with mountains.

Interface design specifically is a case where it often comes down to "stop breaking it" vs. "how do I add more awesome" - people make this horrible unusable goop and think it's good design. The Google refresh? Lord knows how much money they threw at that ... and while the old version wasn't all pretty with colors and gradients everywhere, it had fairly decent usability. The new version is riddled with issues, after putting substantially more effort into making it. WTF?

</comment><comment><USER6> Isn't that the whole reason behind the Ultrabook initiative? This way you get a pretty decently designed laptop. For desktops you can get a few cases that can compete with the looks of the Mac Pro, although few of them are as organized on the inside, at least without a bit of work from those assembling them. Not that it matters all that much (and never mind that I still think the G3/G4 plastic cases were nicer).

Regarding OS software, it doesn't look like Apple is even trying very hard anymore, so let's see if things like Ubuntu can catch up. (Personally, the bits of software I like most on my Macbook aren't even from Apple.)

<comment><USER7> Two totally separate arguments that have no reason to be used for comparison in this context at all. The OS has nothing to do with applications you run on it. Saying Apple isn't trying hard on their OS and then stating that the applications you use on your Macbook aren't even from Apple is like saying I drive a Prius but my music CD isn't from Toyota. As if any of that matters or even correlates (it makes no sense whatsoever). I'm really scratching my head on this one...

The OS is separate from the applications in which it runs. Who cares if Apple makes any of the software you choose to install on OS X or not (as a measure of evaluating the OS itself). It doesn't change the fact that you're able to install those applications and they run fine on OS X nor does it in any way actually measure how good or bad OS X is. Arguably Ubuntu probably doesn't make any of the software you choose to install on it either by that very same argument.

I use both Ubuntu and OS X and I'm all for fair evaluation of good and bad of anything (not just OS or software), but when you make a statement like Apple isn't trying very hard and your best argument is completely irrelevant to the argument itself, I can't see the merit.

<comment><USER6> " _The OS has nothing to do with applications you run on it._ "

That's a rather technical view of the situation. The fact is that a lot of applications are only available on one platform, and basically none is available on all. So quite often your choice of OS is determined by the applications you want to run, whether they're games, a certain office suite or nifty productivity apps. This in turn then ties you to hardware, from a very restricted set (Apple) to a little more relaxed one (Windows) to almost anything with transistors (NetBSD).

In addition almost every platform creates its own culture and environment. Linux and the BSDs embody open source software. Microsoft basically is synonymous with office and enterprise. Apple caters to designers and has a pretty thriving shareware culture, with a lot of small utilities due to its history and the fact that it somewhat dominates the laptop space.

So yes, I'd argue that OS, hardware and third-party software are very hard to separate and you have to consider the whole situation when you think about switching. (In my opinion this got quite a bit better within the last decade, though)

In my specific case, while I feel that Apple is neglecting both its OS and its desktop offers, and I think that its competitors are catching up a bit in the OS space, the whole culture/3rd party thing still would play a major role and could prevent me from switching altogether. Just like someone would like to switch to Linux, but if you're working with high-end CAD software all day, that's a bit hard to do. That's probably the far end of the "switching" spectrum, basically prohibiting it, while reliance on neat productivity tools like Alfred, TextExpander and OmniFocus just makes it harder. (And for a lot of people it's not even just the specific apps, but common general qualities, whether that's clean, simple, good looking apps on Macs or being able to configure everything in text on Unices)

I might have stated it a bit awkwardly, and I hope this clears things up.

<comment><USER7> I think the issue I took with your original statement wasn't the fact that applications are tied to the OS (that certainly wasn't how it came off). In that regard, I do and certainly agree. It was the fact that you claimed most of your applications on OS X were not developed by Apple (which clearly indicates they do run on OS X contrary to any arguments you listed above) and using _that_ as an argument to measure the value of the OS itself (and by association, Apple's work on it). If you re-read what you wrote, you'll clearly see how I came to that conclusion. By that measure, Ubuntu, which you used as an argument for a hopeful OS suffers more than OS X regarding availability of software altogether or the simple fact that they too, like Apple, are not the developers of the software you use outside of the OS (another argument you presented).

I certainly can agree that the OS dictates what is available but certainly there are many ways around this albeit to an extent (virtualization comes to mind) and up until recently with Lion, you couldn't argue it was legal to install OS X on any other OS/VM or even bootcamp-like solutions, but arguably you could with any other OS out there. In this context, OS X actually is more appealing if you weigh the options of availability. Sure, its not perfect that you still have to run multiple OSes but certainly its an option nonetheless, one that weren't genuinely available in any other environment as far as I am aware of even if you could hack your way to make it work illegally.

That said, Apple and OS X are far from perfect and certainly there are a lot more improvements that can be made but I'm not quite sure I agree with you that they're "neglecting" their desktop OS. A lot of changes that came with Lion left people with mix feelings but I find it difficult to believe that that, or any other argument (perhaps I'm missing some) indicates that OS X is being neglected. On the contrary, I think they're striving to continue to innovate on this part. Again, far from perfect but I also personally believe far from being neglected as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys for the comments. Really appreciate it. And please excuse the lack of asking more precisely, what I meant to ask was if you guys see any chance and need in a new company that produces hardware and software? Of course thats not all Apple is about...after all you might not need a similar company whatsoever. However, currently I don't see any company out there with the potential to come up with a similar set up (hence I totally agree with chris_dcosta and in part with dholowiski).

<comment><USER7> Direct competition is difficult due to patents among other things. That is very evident in both the desktop OS as well as mobile OS war. Startups are going to have an insanely difficult time trying to get something up without getting sued by dozens of company brewing in this war. And if thats not the issue, certainly licensing fees will be hefty.

But putting all that aside, Apple is great in many ways currently. To do better is insanely difficult in part because no one has a clue what better actually is and hardware is a huge gamble unlike software. This and the above factor makes things difficult out the door. I would certainly love to see another hardware/software company come up to compete, and even one with a more web presence too (something Apple lacks a lot of when you look at companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google), but I'm not sure I see a reason for such a company to exist at the moment.

Most companies exist because there is an inherent problem that can be done better. I'm not sure I have much to complain with the way things are going as I'm sure many others don't either. Most of the complaints, if any, are Apple EULA or their closed ecosystem, not so much about things that are actually wrong with their products to the point where its a huge pain point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No, Apple is still super cool. Awesome usability, GUI, on top of super- powerful Unix. Maybe we need an alternative from the Apple of 2-3 years from now, but the Apple of today kicks absolute butt.</comment>


Should We Rebrand JavaScript? - <AUTHOR> https://kieranpotts.com/rebranding-javascript/ <comment><USER2> > Drop the "the" \- just "facebook".

Why not just rename it to js. An homage to its origins, but simplifying it to what everyone calls it colloquially and in chat messages now anyways.</comment>


Is your gut microbiome the key to health and happiness? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/06/microbiome-gut-health-digestive-system-genes-happiness <comment><USER2> Great TED talk on the subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNMQ_w7hXTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNMQ_w7hXTA)</comment>


FTC Warns Manufacturers That 'Warranty Void If Removed' Stickers Are Illegal - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne9qdq/warranty-void-if-removed-stickers-illegal-ftc <comment><USER2> This was not in the US.

My father used to own a computer repair shop. Some of the computers were assembled by us, some were not. After a service was performed, there was a warranty (two months if memory servers).

What would happen is that people would pick their computer up, open it, do some stupid stuff, and then come back and try to claim the warranty. Best one was some guy that installed the CPU in a incorrect orientation on purpose, to see if it would "improve performance". Burned out the CPU and motherboard and tried to blame us. This was back at the Pentium Overdrive days.

So we started adding those stickers in the case itself. People would be free to remove them, but we would not honor any warranties if so.

As a consumer, I know it sucks. But I do know the other side, people will do really stupid things and then try to get others to clean up after them.

<comment><USER3> In the US manufacturers don't need to fix things that users break but they legally need to prove that the user's actions were the cause of the failure.

If someone performs their own oil change on their car and then a wheel falls off the manufacturer can't just say that you popped the hood open so the warranty is void. I'm not a big fan of car analogies but cars were the main reason this law was passed in the first place.

In principle this law applies to any purchase over $15 that has a written warranty agreement, but in reality most companies feel free to ignore it because few customers are even aware of the law and even fewer are going to bother going to small claims court over anything less than a few thousand dollars.

<comment><USER4> In fact limited warranties are a scam. You have express and implied warranties by default. So if you expect your dishwasher to last 10 years but it only lasts 5 and the limited warranty said 1 year.. if that limited warranty was not disclaimed properly then you can take the manufacturer to small claims and most likely win. Companies try to get you to sign a product registration card to get you to agree to the limited warranty. It's all a scam. If your dishwasher blows up, call the manufacturer, ask them to fix it, if they refuse, pay for the repairs then take the manufacturer to small claims court and you will most likely win.

<comment><USER5> This is a big thing in Australia, new laws that came out in 2011 to emphasis the point.

Especially that products should last "as long as you expect them to last".

Take TVs for example - if you buy a 80" OLED for $500, it might be expected it'll only last 12-18 months. However if you purchased a 50" 4k TV for a few thousand dollars, the implied warranty _might_ be 5+ years as it's a product of reasonable quality and cost.

The best bit about it is that if there is a major fault with the product, the remedies are: 1) Refund, 2) Replacement, or 3) Repair. And it is the consumer/purchaser's choice.

So if you purchased a TV for $5000 and then a fault causes it to blow up 5 years later, you can ask to get a full refund, even though the current street value might only be a few hundred dollars.

The benefit of this is it forces manufacturers to actually build quality products, knowing they are liable for full refunds if they fail.

It reduces the chance that they'll build "planned obsolescence" using cheap parts that might only last 12 months and 1 day (1 day past their "warranty").

A longer explanation is here: [https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer- rights-guarantees...](https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights- guarantees/repair-replace-refund)

<comment><USER6> Wow, that sounds like some serious liability for the manufacturer. Given these regulations I imagine these kinds of products in Australia are quite expensive relative to less restrictive countries.

I also don't fully understand the need for laws to fix the "planned obsolescence" issue - if a manufacturer's products consistently broke shortly after the warranty expired (well before expected end of lifetime), why would anyone continue to purchase from that crap manufacturer...

<comment><USER7> > I also don't fully understand the need for laws to fix the "planned > obsolescence" issue - if a manufacturer's products consistently broke > shortly after the warranty expired (well before expected end of lifetime), > why would anyone continue to purchase from that crap manufacturer...

There's an information asymmetry - if a previously-reputable manufacturer starts cheaping out on quality to save money, consumers have no way of knowing until a few years later. And unfortunately this seems to be a common pattern.

<comment><USER8> What I intentionally design and market a TV that only lasts 2 years, in exchange for a lower price. This law would prevent that.

What would hapoen to the disposible plates and utensils industries?

<comment><USER7> > What I intentionally design and market a TV that only lasts 2 years, in > exchange for a lower price. This law would prevent that.

No it wouldn't? The law is that the product is required to last as long as the customer reasonably expects it to last, if it's explicitly advertised as lasting for 2 years then the customer can't reasonably expect it to last longer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> GCU-Empiricist Hmmm . . . so two questions:

1\. (serious) What recourse do customers have when the company says your warranty is void because you broke the seal? Because the tech on the phone isn't going to have the power to do anything, he's reading from the binder. (Edit really asking: I'm sure someone here will already know the formal complaint process) /edit

2\. (sarcastic) How long before the companies get the law changed de jurie instead of just de facto?

<comment><USER9> 1) My guess would be a lawsuit of some sort.

<comment><USER10> A lot of people forget small claims courts are an option, lawyers arnt allowed, and judges are pretty sensible. Its a good option for sub $10k USD claims.

Large corps are unlikely to even show up, meaning you win by default.

<comment><USER11> > lawyers arnt allowed

Not true - any time you take a big corp to small claims court, they're going to send a lawyer to represent them. You are suing an entity, not a person, and the entity will pick who represents them.

<comment><USER12> Washington State:

"Unless a judge grants permission, Attorneys and paralegals are excluded from appearing or participating with the plaintiff or defendant in a small claims suit."

[http://www.atg.wa.gov/small-claims-court-0](http://www.atg.wa.gov/small- claims-court-0)

<comment><USER13> So who would show up to represent the defendant in the case where a multi- national corporation got sued? Do we expect that the CEO show up to every lawsuit? A randomly chosen employee?

<comment><USER14> Officially it can be any employee other than "an attorney-at-law or legal paraprofessional". I imagine most companies would send whoever has the best chance of explaining the issue away: some sort of expert or PR rep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious as to how this works out in practice. I can see the motivation for stickers like this -- half-assed attempts to repair a device can result in the device being in a state where it is no longer reparable by the manufacturer.

Is it still possible for a manufacturer to refuse to honor a warranty if that is the case, namely that the device was damaged by a botched repair, and this just says that they can't make that determination based on a sticker alone?

<comment><USER16> In short, yes.

An analogy with cars, where the same law already is being applied, will work. (Do we still do car analogies in 2018? And on sites which aren't Slashdot?) Suppose you get your brakes changed at some place which is well-known for brake repair. Then, later, your engine dies but the manufacturer's warranty should still be valid. Then, if the manufacturer wants to claim that the third-party brake repair is the cause of the engine failure (and thus that the warranty is invalidated), the burden of evidence is on them.

<comment><USER17> In general, yes, however - the manufacturer is unfortunately the one who is responsible for both producing and validating the burden of evidence. I know someone with a very expensive car(Audi RS6) who had an aftermarket exhaust and in year 2 of ownership the engine died - Audi refused warranty repair, saying that the modified exhaust could have changed the outgoing pressure of the gasses and caused the engine failure....and they are not wrong, but at the same time the character of the failure made it really obvious the issue was elsewhere. But the manufacturer says that it's caused by something you did so that's that. The whole case is being decided by the court right now, but it's anyone's guess which way it will go - and I suspect it will be ruled in favour of Audi.

<comment><USER4> Nah.. expert witnesses will show it was a failure elsewhere. Also the aftermarket exhaust will have design specs within tolerances of the OEM. You can run an engine with no exhaust just fine. It will be expensive to litigate that though, maybe more than the cost of the engine repair itself. They should probably include the aftermarket exhaust manufacturer in the suit as well. They have a vested interest in Audi not winning. After market parts have a long history of litigation especially with insurance company repairs. If they are effectively within spec your friend should be fine.

<comment><USER17> Yes, an independent expert will show that, but the issue here is that the cost if litigation is not zero, and the whole case could take months in courts - all while you're making payments for a car you can't drive at all. And yes, you can produce a witness that will say "this damage wasn't caused by the aftermarket exhaust" and Audi will produce a written statement by their engineering team in Ingolstadt staying "this damage was caused by the aftermarket exhaust" \- and which side will the judge side with? The makers of the engine, or an independent expert? I have no doubt that Audi would lie(or at least make statements which are not false but are not necessarily applicable in this situation) about it to get out of replacing an engine for an RS6. I agree that involving the manufacturer of the exhaust would have been a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The FTC hasn't said which six companies it sent letters to, just that they > "market and sell automobiles, cellular devices, and video gaming systems in > the United States."

Does anyone else read this to imply that Tesla got a letter?

<comment><USER3> I would be shocked if Tesla is not on the list.

They do not take very kindly to people even daring to connect to the diagnostic port on their cars, literally calling people on the phone (because of course their servers log everything you ever do with the car and they know who owns each car) and telling them to stop: [https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/610152/](https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/posts/610152/)

It does not bode well for any sort of attempt to repair the things.

<comment><USER18> Bmw will remotely disable a car if you don't use their batteries or have an authorized dealer install it. Would be cool if that sort of thing was covered.

<comment><USER4> Now that's a class action lawsuit. Find an attorney and collect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was baffled by this but then read this sentence buried in the article:

> "Unless warrantors provide the parts or services for free or receive a > waiver from the FTC, such statements generally are prohibited by the > Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, a law that governs consumer product warranties. > Similarly, such statements may be deceptive under the FTC Act."

It seems this rule _only_ applies if the warranty services are not free. If the warranty covers free repair, they are still allowed to deny said free warranty if tampering is evident.

<comment><USER19> That was easy to miss and very important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Meanwhile, warranty void if you run your own software in the device you own.

<comment><USER21> Isn't this reasonable though? Surely if I overclock and burn out my GPU, NVidia shouldn't be on the hook?

<comment><USER22> The hardware shouldn't be relying on drivers in the host OS to protect it from melting. That's too failure-prone even when the user isn't trying to push the limits of the hardware through overclocking. Thermal and voltage limits need to be enforced by the peripheral device itself either in hardware or in its own firmware. Relying on software running on the host CPU to provide a realtime response to critical situations is foolish.

Extreme overclocking of the sort that can break your hardware should require soldering or external re-flashing of a firmware ROM.

<comment><USER23> What if I change the firmware? What if I change the hardware? Where is the line and why distinguish between a pure hardware product and a combined product that uses both hardware and software? Why should we legislate engineering decisions?

<comment><USER22> I don't think any of those are productive questions. If you alter firmware that is usually unchanged over the life of the product (as for a desktop graphics card) and you specifically edit the rules it contains for thermal throttling, then you are obviously liable for the lump of slag that you end up with. Likewise if you're making hardware modifications that compromise the thermal management capabilities. In either case, it will be pretty easy to show after the fact that the product was modified, and that your modifications were probably related to the failure. None of that applies when the host software is responsible for preventing hardware damage. As I've explained, relying on software running inside of Windows to prevent hardware damage is asking for trouble even without user intervention.

You may also notice that I'm not advocating for "legislating engineering decisions"; though there are plenty of situations where engineering decisions obviously should be determined by legislation, this is more a question of after the fact liability to be worked out by the courts, which are generally pretty good at figuring out whether to place the blame on a user or on the engineers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how this applies to those moisture-evident stickers they used to put inside phones so they could deny warranty if you answered a call in the rain or spilled a drink on the table or something similar.

Technically, they don't say that wetting the sticker will void your warranty, but if the sticker shows that it was wet, the manufacturer would have denied warranty coverage anyway.

<comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure those turn in ambient moisture. I don't think I've ever seen one not "wet".

<comment><USER26> Define "ambient". Here in semi-arid California, they might work just fine. OTOH I once spent two weeks in Borneo.... my Palm Pilot (yes, it was a long time ago....) crapped out within 24 hours. Electronics really suffered there. (A friend and I repaired a ham radio amplifier for a local ham. We found the problem.... in the form of a skeleton of a gecko that had gotten itself across the filter caps of the 1200V @ 900mA power supply.... not directly a moisture problem, just a general jungle problem.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It would be nice if companies were required to provide service information and parts. There is a long history concerning this issue starting with the 1956 consent decree against IBM:

[https://repair.org/history/](https://repair.org/history/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Companies like Apple have been in violation of this for years. Sending them a letter isn't going to do anything. The FTC should either fine these companies or admit that it's not going to do anything. It's absolutely ridiculous that these companies get a pass on this for years. What incentive do they have to remove their stickers or change their policies?

<comment><USER29> > or admit that it's not going to do anything.

What would that be good for?

Honestly. Now they have started applying pressure.

They can start sending fines later this year or next year.

But giving up? I can't seen an upside in that.

<comment><USER28> If people see their public agencies failing them, maybe they'll vote differently or at least act in accordance to try to effect change themselves. Pretending to do things makes the public complacent because they think those things get done. But I agree, fines are much better if they're really coming up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Fixing Sh!t is not a crime</comment>


Why is this button on Amazon a question? - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/09WRfC4

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there some user interface guideline that explains this?

It's been that way for years. Because that's not a common way to label a button. Imagine "Need to add your comment?" or "Need to Upload a file?" or "Need to Send an email?" everywhere. Is there some guideline at work here or is it just a whimsical designer and no one corrected it? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to make fun of them.</comment>