# Episode 211: FOSSY 2023 with Kyle Wiens  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Episode 211: FOSSY 2023 with Kyle Wiens - Show: Sustain - Owner / Host: SustainOSS - Guests: [Kyle Wiens](https://share.snipd.com/person/2163e873-7755-41ef-bc80-f687bb0850b9) - Episode publish date: 2023-12-08 - Episode AI description: Kyle Wiens, the driving force behind iFixit, discusses the creation of the largest collection of medical service manuals for hospitals. They explore copyright laws, right to repair legislation, and the potential futures of hardware. Topics include iFixit's collaboration with Strange Parts, legal implications surrounding service manuals, fair use, and the impact of right to repair legislation on consumer electronics. - Duration: 16:23 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/5ba36195-0545-4467-9080-dc5ed3348adb) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/0692a062-4bc7-4dce-9318-0f57031ff1d4) - Export date: 2026-02-17T23:26:28 ## Snips ### [iFixit: Largest Repair Manual Database](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6afef69b-e124-49ae-a9ce-1c5dae79afc5) 🎧 00:35 - 01:41 (01:06) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/f045d3d9-9ed3-4b75-87f4-b9f15a056619" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - iFixit hosts the world's largest open source repair manual database created by users, not corporations. - After COVID, it became the biggest repository for medical device service manuals globally, supporting hospitals with repair guidance. #### 💬 Quote > We are the largest single database of service manuals in the world. [...] We are the largest collection of medical service manuals for hospitals, everything from ventilators to vital sign monitors. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens on iFixit's repair manual collection #### 📚 Transcript Doing great. Excited to be here. Excited to have you. So I fixed it. All one word, lowercase, okay, F camel case, apple case. What do we even call that? I guess that would be apple case. Apple case. Okay. What do you do? I fix it. We are a giant open source collection of repair manuals. So we're like Wikipedia for fixing things. We are the largest single database of service manuals in the world. Everything is created commons licensed. And our mission is to teach everybody how to fix all their stuff. We're sourcing all these manuals. People make them so that we can be a people create them. So you're not like dragging anything other people's things and putting them into the database. Historically, we haven't historically it's been created from scratch. And we started part of the protest to apples, a really aggressive copy at regime on their service manuals that we share them. And so we said, we'll write it around. And we're up to over 90,000 repair guys that people have created. That's awesome. It's hundreds of thousands of photos. But lately, as we kind of have increasing clarity on fair use options and COVID really kind of pushes into it. Now we are the largest collection of medical service manuals for hospitals, everything from ventilators to vital sign monitors. --- ### [Fighting Medical Manual Takedowns](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c0d03bd7-750a-4b41-a3e0-8d2c3b08328a) 🎧 03:12 - 04:05 (00:53) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/8653c8e3-43de-4acd-9ce8-eac60004963c" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Medical device manufacturers regularly issue takedown notices to iFixit but none of the medical manuals have been taken down. - With legal backing from EFF, iFixit firmly refuses these takedown demands and defends their presence citing fair use. #### 💬 Quote > We have received a number of take down notices from medical manufacturers and we work very closely with the EFF [...] and we have never removed the single medical manual in response to a take down. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens on handling takedown requests from medical companies #### 📚 Transcript We've never been sued. Oh, but we do get take down to this is regular. Yeah. So we, one of our users uploaded a circuit schematic for Macbook. So full on detailed circuit schematics of straight secret apple. We got to take down for that. We went ahead and took those down. We think there's a strong argument for their use, but where it isn't publicly widely distributed. It's a little bit hard, but for medical service manuals, we have received a number of take down notices from medical manufacturers and we work very closely with the EFF and we have post, you can search on the EFF for I fix it and you'll find some phenomenally detailed refusals to take downs that we send the medical device manufacturers. We got one from Zeiss. We got one from a medical device manufacturer of Ohio named Stairus and we told them, no, thanks, we're going to keep it up and we have never removed the single medical manual in response to a take down. --- ### [Fair Use Protects Service Manuals](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ad864659-b3db-4c27-a584-4c8f49b1f66e) 🎧 04:15 - 05:18 (01:03) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/cbff6b07-794b-4e18-8e45-2d0a826e7bac" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Kyle explains that service manuals have weak copyright protections due to fair use principles. - Redistributing manuals doesn't harm manufacturers since manuals are required by the FDA and already produced regardless of revenue impacts. #### 💬 Quote > There are four fair use factors courts look at. [...] In the case of a service manual that they're giving away for free anyway, redistributing it doesn't undermine their business model at all. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens on the legal rationale for fair use on repair manuals #### 📚 Transcript something. So we send them a four page analysis of fair use. We say got it. There's a very, very thin copy right on service mail. If you step back and say, why do we have copyright? Copyright's in the Constitution. The idea behind copyright is in the Constitution. In the Constitution, to promote science and the arts. And the idea is that society is going to give up some freedom, the ability to make unfethered copies of anything in exchange for giving a monopoly to the creator to distribute their works. And society should only give up that freedom when there's a benefit. The benefit is someone creates music that they wouldn't have otherwise. In the case of a service manual, the service manual is going to be created whether someone gets paid for it or not. So there are four fair use factors courts look at when they're analyzing whether use of copyright work is a fair use for you can distribute it or not. And one of those fair use factors is the commerciality of the work. How much is the company making? How much is their profits undermined by you redistributing the manuals? In the case of a service manual that they're giving away for free anyway, redistributing it ourselves doesn't undermine their business model at all. --- ### [Right to Repair Success Stories](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f96268d5-38db-4991-8c48-67683578f082) 🎧 06:09 - 08:12 (02:03) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/3705244f-a0bf-4695-a317-07d933fb54d2" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - iFixit helped pass right to repair laws for electric wheelchairs and tractors in several US states. - A paraplegic army veteran helped champion electric wheelchair repair bills improving access to timely, affordable repairs. #### 💬 Quote > We have passed four bills in three states [...] The first bill was in Colorado for electric wheelchairs. [...] We got a trip past for electric wheelchairs last year. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens on right to repair legislation achievements #### 📚 Transcript talking about? So we are working on right to repair laws. The idea is if you bought your manufacturer, you sell something you should make available to consumers and pair shops, everything that they need to build a fix. That's parts, tools and manuals generally. Okay. So if you're Apple and you have your selling products and you have your own service network in say New York state, the law now is that you have to make available to consumers, parts, tools and information. We have in the last year, we have passed four bills in three states and we're working on passing more. So the first bill that we passed was in Colorado. It was an electric wheelchair rate to repair law. Imagine an electric wheelchair and your joystick, the problem with the joystick, right? It goes out. Not very helpful. It doesn't drive. Not very helpful. So you call your insurance company and say, hey, can I get insurance authorization to pay? And they say, no, and you go back and forth. And eventually after weeks, you get the insurance company to grudgingly say, okay, sure, we'll pay to fix your joystick. Then they call one of two companies. There's only two companies that make electric wheelchairs because private equity and consolidation in America. So and those companies are like, well, it's Medicare rates that don't pay us very much. So we have one service guy for the whole state. He'll be there in three months. Yep. That's the current state of things. Meanwhile, you're like, why can't I just put a new joystick in my wheelchair? Yeah. Right. And so we had an army veteran who was a who was a helicopter pilot who crashed in Afghanistan as paraplegic, who is elected to the house in Colorado. Cool. And he ran the bill along with representative to tone who's amazing. And we got a trip past for electric wheelchairs last year. And then this year we ran another bill that was for tractors. Cool. I was going to ask you about John Deere. Amazing. Yes. So John Deere doesn't like us very much. Good. We talk lots about John Deere. And so we did we passed wheelchairs and tractors. And then in New York, we passed a broad consumer electronics bill. So that's all consumer electronics. That goes into effect January 1st for all products manufactured after July 1st of this year. So it's really the right to repair the stuff you're going to buy next, not the stuff you have now, but it's progress. --- ### [Software Locks Threaten Ownership](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1baeb0b6-9c0f-401f-8d1d-7f1f732a66fd) 🎧 09:05 - 10:26 (01:20) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/385feeca-3395-4bf7-bcab-e453fc3878d2" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - The intersection of software and hardware complicates ownership and repair rights. - Software locks on microchips prevent repairs and challenge traditional ownership freedoms. #### 💬 Quote > All the laws that govern what you can do with physical property are not the same as the laws of what you can do with intellectual properties. [...] Increasingly those chips because of security reasons have some kind of lock. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens on how software impacts physical product ownership #### 📚 Transcript I'm a software engineer and I think right to repair, the reason that this is such a big fight right now is that we're at this great intersection between software and hardware. Historically, if you had anything, a chair, a car, whatever it was, you could take it apart, you could look at it, understand how it worked and you could fabricate and make any parts that you wanted. I know watchmakers, repair Rolexes that they need to make apart and they'll just like get some metal and whittle out and they'll make apart. You can't do that in a software based world. All of the laws that govern what you can do with physical property are not the same as the laws of what you can do with intellectual properties. All of a sudden when we're repairing products that have a microchip in it, now you have to talk about copyright. We have to talk about the whole world of fair use and all these complicated topics. The free software world has been dealing with since the beginning, but the physical repair world has not been dealing with until the last couple of decades. So there's this great collision between intellectual property rights or lack of rights. In many cases, we don't have ownership of much of the software in our lives. And in physical products, which traditionally we did own them. And so I wrote when we started this fight, I wrote an article for Wired called the End of Ownership. It's about how the copyright legal regime is going to erode all the freedoms that we expect that we have with our physical products. And many of the predictions that I made in that piece have come to pass. We now have microchips and all kinds of things. You can't buy a toaster without having a chip and some kind of software. --- ### [John Deere Tractor Software Revealed](https://share.snipd.com/snip/122607be-e486-4750-a8d2-e69bbc840fb8) 🎧 11:15 - 12:33 (01:18) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/4520409b-4411-4866-b264-a337a6d05387" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Kyle collaborated with a security researcher to extract and analyze John Deere tractor software. - The tractors run Linux and Windows CE apps via WINE, showing complex software stacks hidden in agricultural machinery. #### 💬 Quote > I bought a John Deere ECU and mailed it to him and he extracted the firmware. [...] These tractors are running Linux and wine and all kinds of stuff. The old machines run Windows CE. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens on discovering John Deere tractor software #### 📚 Transcript are colliding. Yeah. So we've been working on right to repair for tractors for a long time. And along the way, we said, well, let's just find out. We know there's secret software that John Deere has to repair these tractors. They won't make available with farmers. Software that runs all app, copy, plug in the USB cable to the tractor and you can reset error codes and things that farmers do. And I got pulled into this by a local farmer. His tractor wouldn't start because of an error code. And he asked me to come over and he knew I was the computer. And there's one distribution network in the entire state and it costs an arm to leg. And yeah, they have to have their tech come out and they do certain things. And so I wasn't able to fix it for him, but I've been kind of going down the rabbit hole, which eventually led to me working with a security researcher, sick codes. And I bought a John Deere ECU, which is the computer and the tractor and I mailed it to him and he decapped the board and pulled the chip off and sucked the firmware off the chip and lo and behold, these tractors are running Linux and wine and all kinds of stuff. Oh, fun. Yeah. Even better. The old machines, they run Windows CE. So when they wanted to switch to Linux, they didn't want to rewrite all their apps. And they took the Windows CE apps and they run them on Linux running wine. So if you're using a modern, a modern Deere tractor with the touchscreen, it's a Windows CE interface via wine running on Linux. And they mentioned in the about this tractor, they say, Hey, you know, we use GPL software, ask us for the source code. --- ### [Boost Open Source Impact](https://share.snipd.com/snip/648c4a5b-8b9e-487d-be59-706a3def48be) 🎧 13:36 - 14:19 (00:43) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/1f1fb303-bc68-4ba7-8176-9345bfa1120a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Assign your open source copyrights to Software Freedom Conservancy to strengthen GPL software impact. - Promote GPL software in hardware to support freer, more open devices across consumer electronics. #### 💬 Quote > If you're contributing to open source, assign your copyrights to the conservancy because then the conservancy can use that to continue to widen the impact that the GPL has. > — Kyle Wiens Kyle Wiens advising open source contributors #### 📚 Transcript out? The first thing is if you're contributing to open source, assign your copyrights to the conservancy because then the conservancy can use that to continue to widen the impact that the GPL has. We need to get GPL software into as much physical hardware as we can so that the base layer is free and then we can work with manufacturers to ratchet things open. I think that DDWRT is just one of the most amazing success cases where an entire class of hardware, you have a wireless router, you can wipe out OS and you can put a free better software on it. Why can't we do that with everything on our lives? Think about all the smart TVs that you buy where they're spying on you. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts