This part I don't believe. Regardless of where you got the
instructions from, if you start messing around inside your hardware,
you are on your own. Warranty voided, etc. A simple disclaimer to that
effect would make it clear.
I remember way back when I had a modem.. it was either pre-flash rom or
that particular edition didn't have a flash-rom. But anyways for free
they sent me a nice new rom, a branded screw driver, and some
instructions on how to replace the rom. Simple enough. Wasn't the
issue, the issue was the voltage regulators getting so hot the speaker
became unglued and caused something to short, so I returned it and
they tried to charge my credit card. They tried to claim I voided the
warranty because I opened the modem, so I just sent Visa the
instructions along with the branded screw driver and said simply "they
told me to do it". While this wasn't a court of law, this argument was
good enough for the credit card company. I can only imagine the number
of people who fried their modem trying to replace the rom.
If I opened my hood on my car, I wouldnt' void it's warranty, in fact
it's in the owners manual. I can change my own oil without voiding the
warranty, get non-oem tires, bigger battery, a good number of things.
I can even change my spark plugs.
They're copyright by HP; so they can give them away if they want to.
The only thing preventing them is greed.
What's wrong with that? People who repair printers make money off
those manuals, good money, it's rather why manufacturers sell them.
That and the fact writing a manual isn't free.... you gotta dig through
lots of propriority information and translate engineer speak to human
speak. Not to speak of exploeaded diagrams. Takes me a couple of
hours just to do a simple layout moasic not to scale. Why shouldn't HP
get a piece of the pie esp for something they spent their time
resources and money on creating? They are under no moral or ethical
obligation to give you jack. They are under a legal and ethical
obligation to the shareholders.
This isn't to say I didn't like the good old says where every piece of
electronic equipment came with a full schematic, full documentation,
and a level of information now only found in developers kits, but most
desktop printers are not even designed to be serviced, they are
designed to be thrown away. Now if you bought something designed to be
maintained... that'll cost more and chances are you'll get something
resembling a service manual with it. But a deskjet... right or wrong
not going to happen. In fact, I can't think of any company who makes
consumer inkjets who gives away service manuals.