Do you believe that everyone has the right to maintain and repair their products?
Take back the material world! - Zeno
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iFixit Guides Help Users Repair Not Replace Electronics And Other Products
iFixit is a global community of tinkerers who help each other fix things by sharing online repair instructions and know-how. With this freely available knowledge, iFixit helps thousands of people repair their devices every day. Why? Because companies don't provide repair parts and documentation to end users. iFixit believes that everyone has the right to maintain and repair their products.
iFixit was started in 2003 by Luke Soules and Kyle Wiens while they were studying engineering at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. iFixit believes that the easier it is to fix something, the more people will do it., and that the only way to keep hardware out of landfills is to increase the useful lifespan of stuff. iFixit is not just a company—it is a global repair community of people helping people fix things. It consists of thousands of technicians and volunteers working together to make the world better by teaching people how to fix things.
iFixit founders began by taking apart an iBook G4. There were no instructions on how to do it, so they started the way everyone does: the hard way. They tinkered and fiddled and they fixed it. They attempted to fix some other laptops but had trouble finding parts. So they bought a broken computer on eBay and took parts from it. Then they decided to start selling the parts themselves and iFixit was born. As instruction guides did not yet exist, they wrote and posted repair manuals on line for free. For the first time, it was easy for someone with no technical background or experience to take apart a Mac.
Repair success stories have come in from forensic detectives, field translators, and even children. iFixit now wants to show the world how to fix anything, a stapler, a bicycle, or a cell phone. Its website offers hundreds of free product repair manuals and troubleshooting tips, and offers a thriving community of repair technicians eager to help. Its philosophy is that if you can't open it, you don't own it.
(iFixit.com, 2013, https://www.ifixit.com)
