American Farmers Are Still Fighting Tractor Software Locks (npr.org) 316
Manufacturers lock consumers into restrictive "user agreements," and inside "there's things like you won't open the case, you won't repair," complains a U.S. advocacy group called The Repair Association. But now the issue is getting some more attention in the American press. An anonymous reader quotes NPR:
Modern tractors, essentially, have two keys to make the engine work. One key starts the engine. But because today's tractors are high-tech machines that can steer themselves by GPS, you also need a software key -- to fix the programs that make a tractor run properly. And farmers don't get that key.
"You're paying for the metal but the electronic parts technically you don't own it. They do," says Kyle Schwarting, who plants and harvests fields in southeast Nebraska... "Maybe a gasket or something you can fix, but everything else is computer controlled and so if it breaks down I'm really in a bad spot," Schwarting says. He has to call the dealer. Only dealerships have the software to make those parts work, and it costs hundreds of dollars just to get a service call. Schwarting worries about being broken down in a field, waiting for a dealer to show up with a software key.
The article points out that equipment dealers are using those expensive repair calls to offset slumping tractor sales. But it also reports that eight U.S. states, including Nebraska, Illinois and New York, are still considering bills requiring manufacturers to sell repair software, adding that after Massachusetts passed a similar lar, "car makers started selling repair software."
"You're paying for the metal but the electronic parts technically you don't own it. They do," says Kyle Schwarting, who plants and harvests fields in southeast Nebraska... "Maybe a gasket or something you can fix, but everything else is computer controlled and so if it breaks down I'm really in a bad spot," Schwarting says. He has to call the dealer. Only dealerships have the software to make those parts work, and it costs hundreds of dollars just to get a service call. Schwarting worries about being broken down in a field, waiting for a dealer to show up with a software key.
The article points out that equipment dealers are using those expensive repair calls to offset slumping tractor sales. But it also reports that eight U.S. states, including Nebraska, Illinois and New York, are still considering bills requiring manufacturers to sell repair software, adding that after Massachusetts passed a similar lar, "car makers started selling repair software."
Positive (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's a great thing that people who typically vote for more corporate freedom finally get to see the price of unrestrained corporatism.
Re: Positive (Score:3, Funny)
Don't worry, the market will work it out. Some upstart company will decide to forego the huge income resulting from repair restrictions and will provide an alternative, and so many buyers will switch to that company to make up for those losses. Shouldn't be more than 90% have to switch for that to work, so it won't be long before all the companies drop the restriction! Right?
Re: Positive (Score:5, Insightful)
This would happen, if it were not for manufacturers' intellectual property control over their software. Just like pharma companies, the manufacturers have imposed socialism for themselves by having protectionism written into the law. Capitalism is for the customers.
We need to define 'right to repair' as an extension of fair use.
Re: Positive (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing to do with socialism, but everything with good old abuse of market power by a private monopoly facilitated by US IP law.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And passed by REPUBLICAN senators and represenatives.
You assholes deserve as much blame.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Informative)
I don't think you know what socialism is. It's not this.
What you're looking at is monopolistic competition; it's a routine outcome of an underregulated capitalist system.
And then, to compound your misunderstanding of socialism, the remedy you're after is regulation.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Informative)
This is ALL contingent upon the coercive IP laws that are imposed and enforced by government. Free market my ass.
Re: (Score:2)
BINGO we have a winner!
Time to reverse engineer the shit out of the abusive corporations and post it out in the open for all to see. Hack the planet.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're looking at is monopolistic competition; it's a routine outcome of an underregulated capitalist system.
Wrong. What you're looking at is called Fascism. Or what Mussolini called Corporatism. The unholy alliance of anti free market big business and the coercive power of the State.
ObamaCare is an excellent example, if you need another.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Informative)
I think what they're getting at is anything that says you can't legally repair something is an artificial market protection.
In a completely free market, no such clause would be legally enforceable, and any secondary market vendor who wanted to hack the system and repair it for a lower charge than the manufacturer could do so without any legal headaches.
All the trouble that comes along with the DMCA or things like Monsanto copyrighting seeds and such is most certainly NOT free market capitalism.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You don't seem to be very well informed either. The US has antitrust laws since the late 19th Century whose main purpose is to prevent monopolies. They have been weakened by strong lobby groups, though, like anyone else that would enable stronger competition. It's also not hard to see that unregulated capitalism leads to monopolies and/or collusion at least in some markets, and no economist who knows his or her profession would deny that. It follows even from simple game theoretic models. There is plenty of
Re: (Score:2)
False dichotomy. I would rather have regulations removed, so that people are free to go about their own business without impediments. PEOPLE, not corporations. Regulate Corporate behavior, not sovereign citizens.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Interesting)
PEOPLE, not corporations. Regulate Corporate behavior, not sovereign citizens.
But remember Mitt Romney said, "corporations are people" and the Citizens United ruling basically asserts the same thing. I don't agree with either of those, but that's the way it is.
On the other hand, if corporations *are* people then they should have the same responsibilities as people and I should have the same opportunities as corporations -- for example, I'd like to register myself in Delaware, while, living elsewhere, to take advantage of that state's favorable banking and corporate litigation regulations, and/or when a corporation does something illegal, someone should definitely go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison, instead of being able to pay a fine, etc...
Re: (Score:3)
Well, corporations sort of *are* people. To "incorporate" is literally to "embody".
No person, business, town (incorporated) or anything else comprising one or more people can exist, i.e., do business, with anyone else without having a "body". So yes, a corporation has rights. Just like your body. Corporations are born and die every day.
Sometimes they are powerful "people" and get by with stuff that a smaller, less powerful "person" can't. But a "corporation" isn't a bad thing in itself. It's merely a legal entity that can continue if one or more members leave.
So, they are "people", in many important ways.
You attempt to mislead others by extending the meaning of the word "embody" as people; however. the word "embody" is not the same as "body". Also, a corporation/incorporated business consists of investors that aren't really have anything much to do together besides "business". People are humans. We are much more than just business. In other words, corporation is just a part of people activities, not people themselves.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Insightful)
Words mean things. Socialism isn't just a word meaning "bad things I don't like". Why not just have done with it and call them "SJWs"?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It is actually a pretty common usage. It came up a lot around the crash of 2008. The banks had, for years, kept profits for their investors, but when they were faced with losses, they wanted those losses socialized - spread around to everyone (or to "society").
It isn't, strictly speaking, a reference to Marxist "socialism".
Re: (Score:3)
No, that's backwards. We need to recognize that when the privileges given to holders of "Imaginary Property" conflict with the rights of owners of actual property, it is the actual property rights that must prevail, not the imaginary property privileges.
In other words, it shouldn't be that the right to repair is a limited exception of copyright; it should be that copyright is a limited(!) exception to ownership rights.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Interesting)
Disruptive business plans are a real thing. It's basically the business culture of Silicon Valley: find a traditional business, kill it and feast off its corpse. The problem is that it's a lot harder to do with something like tractors than it is with services or retail.
Re: (Score:2)
traditional business, kill it and feast off its corpse.
Makes for more efficient markets. If it doesn't, then there is some sort of regulation or law preventing new enterprises to fill the gap, and those are the real problems.
Re: Positive (Score:5, Informative)
Don't worry, the market will work it out. Some upstart company will...
Nah, the sort of company that does this to farmers will have a large portfolio of dumb patents and an army of lawyers to back it up.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Positive (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump said he was going to drain that swamp, all he's done so far is sign bills that deregulate business to let them screw over customers/the planet in any way they like.
Corporate profits now come first, priority is given to the companies Trump has shares in.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure this is issue predated Trump by a few years.
Yes, there's many issues with the Trump presidency (including some that are criminal in nature). But DRM on tractors is a longer term issue than something he created over the past few months.
Re: (Score:2)
And "Swamp Draining" was one of his key election promises.
Re:Positive (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see. First we have more than one can reference on the swamp draining:
Search google for "Trump drain the swamp" and you'll find a quick 469,000 articles to reference.
As for the corporate profits, I think a quick review of his stock portfolio might shed some light:
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
A quick search for his financials leads a to a whole lot more. He made a nice penny off the spike in oil last week after a little fireworks show.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/06... [cnbc.com]
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
And one of his holdings stands to make a pretty penny on replacing those little rockets:
http://www.raytheon.com/capabi... [raytheon.com]
I can find you more if this isn't enough.
Re:Positive (Score:4, Interesting)
People who lived paycheck to paycheck had NO health insurance. This was the problem obamacare was trying to fix. Something like 20% of the population of the United States has no insurance or terrible insurance. You can try to pretend that this isn't true, you can assert loudly that it is "their choice" not to buy insurance, but -- remember, they are living PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK or on NO PAYCHECK AT ALL. If they chop out $200 to $300 each month (or far, far more) for insurance, you're just saying that they have a choice between eating, or wearing shoes, or living somewhere other than under a highway overpass, and health insurance.
My wife is a physician and has been taking care of these patients for her whole career. Your "free market" solution for most of her career was this: If an indigent patient (or one who lived paycheck to paycheck, or one who just couldn't/wouldn't afford to pay) walked in to see her, she could see the patient, accept whatever medicare (elderly) or medicaid) (poor) payments they might qualify for -- well under the market value of her billable time -- or just see them pro bono, which she might well do for a patient she'd been seeing who lost their job. Hospitals were in an even worse state. If somebody walked in off the street into a hospital ER, they were LEGALLY OBLIGATED to take care of them, whether or not they could pay. Even a very small hospital/ER visit costs a lot of money, and medicare/medicaid (if it pays or paid anything at all) payed only a small fraction of the actual cost of the visit.
Your "free market" pre-obamacare solution was thus to screw the physicians and hospitals and nurses by simultaneously requiring them to provide medical treatment to people who couldn't afford it and exploiting their good nature on top of that for people living on the edge of the poverty who -- at best -- could only afford to pay something much less than the cost of the service and cannot possibly afford even the cheapest health insurance. And before you even start, let me assure you that for a physician in pretty much any practice, overhead is AT LEAST 2/3 of their billing, maybe a little bit more, so a free patient isn't just a matter of a physician contributing a bit of time, it is contributing their own time and PAYING their nurses, receptionists, PAs, for the lab (and any labs they order) and of course there is the building itself and all utilities all paid OUT OF POCKET -- directly eating into their income. This isn't a zero sum break even games, they lose money for underbilling and collectable accounts, and medicare/medicaid doesn't even pay for the overhead on the visits they supposedly pay for. So yeah, in order not to go broke WHILE working 60-65 hour weeks for half of what they would be making in a "free" market, they charge 30% more to everybody else (more like 100% in hospitals, where hospital ERs are the most expensive possible way to deliver routine health care). Guess what! You've socialized medicine, but in the worst possible way, the least fair way. And the saddest thing of all is that people don't even realize that this has happened, and yammer on about free markets and how having competitive insurance plans is somehow optimal and can take care of everybody that needs -- is mandated in law -- to be taken care of.
Obamacare didn't fix this problem, of course. It did, however, make it a lot better, and more fair, in that by increasing the number of the insured and directly subsidizing insurance for the working poor who previously had to rely on the charity of doctors or hospitals to get medical treatment or routine well-patient care, they passed the costs on to the people of the US collectively instead of forcing the physicians and hospitals individually to do what they insisted that they do, at a loss. And I'm not just talking the unemployed, I'm largely talking about precisely those living paycheck to paycheck, often working several jobs because employers don't want to have to provide benefits and only let them work 30 hours a week (each). I have
How long (Score:2)
How long until slashdot fixes the mistake in the summary? it is currently 7:04 am EST
Also how long until manufacturer's realize that by artificially limiting options and driving up price they drive themselves out of business?
Re: (Score:2)
Try, just TRY to get around John Deere. It's not like you have a lot of options.
Re:How long (Score:5, Insightful)
Try, just TRY to get around John Deere. It's not like you have a lot of options.
John Deere, ~67% market share followed by Case IH at ~17% and New Holland at ~9%, that's perilously close to a monopoly. You could try to give big old JD some hard competition by importing tractors from places where they don't try to rape you over software updates but if you do 'The Donald' will slap a 30% import tariff on you so farmers are now literally fucked in every possible way.
Re:How long (Score:5, Interesting)
Farmers talk amongst themselves, a lot, so a crop threatening failure to provide needed service, can quickly become a huge negative in the minds of any farmers shopping for new equipment.
Nothing like "pissing off your best customers to make more profits" as a business model, is it.
Tariffs (Score:3)
You could try to give big old JD some hard competition by importing tractors from places where they don't try to rape you over software updates but if you do 'The Donald' will slap a 30% import tariff on you so farmers are now literally fucked in every possible way.
Those same farmers evidently voted for Trump overwhelmingly so if they do get hit with an import tariff they have no right to complain. They knew the guy was a xenophobe and protectionist when they voted for him. They made their bed so they can sleep in it.
Only downside I can see is that those costs ultimately get passed along to you and me. Allowing JD to engage in this sort of shenanigans ultimately is paid for by us at the grocery store.
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, over 98% of Austria voted for a "reunion" with Germany in 1938, so I guess Austrians are fans of destroyed towns.
They elected him (Score:2)
Yeah, but that is one mistake that is easy to correct. Vote him out
"Easy to correct"? Not likely. Perhaps you are not aware of the fact that he can do a lot of damage in 4 years, much of which will take a long time to correct.
Vote him out, plus, farmers weren't the only ones who voted for 'The Donald' by a long shot.
No but let's not pretend he would have been elected without them. They voted directly contrary to their own self interest so I'm not oozing sympathy for any problems they incur as a result.
Re:How long (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuck it, having worked briefly with farmers when I was younger, I'll play devil's advocate here:
1) Farmers know damned well that companies like John Deere sell their hardware at cost (or even a loss), with the intention of making their money in servicing the vehicles.
2) Farmers will howl like dogs if John Deere says "Okay, we'll sell you models that you can fix yourself. But they'll cost twice as much to buy."
And if you hadn't yet deduced it from the previous two points:
3) Farmers are a notorious bunch of whiny cheapskates who live to complain about EVERYTHING and will go to any length (legal or otherwise) to save a penny. Seriously, asking a farmer about his farm is like asking an old person about their health--expect to hear nothing but complaints, how much they're suffering, how they need this and that, woe is me, etc. And they will do ANYTHING to make even an extra dime, including hiring illegals, buying seed they know damned well is illegal, cutting corners on sanitation requirements, trying to cheat their workers and work them off the clock, lying to the government about their crop yields to get higher insurance or fallow payouts, etc., etc., etc.
In other words, farmers want their cake and to eat it too. They want all the latest developments in the technology, and they want it to be repairable by third parties--but they also want it to still be as cheap as it is now (at the price that's based on a maintenance subsidy).
And that's me playing devil's advocate for today and risking the karma hit from those of you who've never had to deal with farmers before.
John Deere should respond. "Dear farmers: We can sell it to you cheap or we can sell it to you repairable. Pick any one."
re: devil's advocate about farming (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not going to say I have strong evidence to disagree with your observations about farmers. But I do live in an area that's still largely rural, in Western Maryland. And my interactions with them (including doing some computer service work for a couple of them) tells me they're not very different from anyone else trying to remain successful, running their own small business.
Last I checked on tractor pricing, John Deere products suitable for farm use weren't exactly inexpensive, as it is. You really believe they're selling all of these tractors at or below their cost to build them? I'd like to see some evidence to back that claim up.....
I'm sure that this is just an attempt for the industry to find a new avenue to monetize its products -- seeing how far they can push the boundaries before the law pushes back. The auto industry would *love* to impose the same rules on every car and truck it sells -- but that change would impact so many people (including hundreds of thousands of independent garages, auto parts dealers, etc.) - it can't realistically enforce it right now.
Picking a relative niche market like farm tractor sales is a better strategy. John Deere knows that #1. it has enough market share so farmers can't go to that many alternatives to avoid them, and #2. it sells a product that's not just purchased for pleasure or convenience. The success of an entire season's crop is at stake.
Besides, it wasn't always this way. Not all that long ago, a John Deere tractor had no such software lock because the technology to implement it didn't even exist yet. Did you suddenly see tractor prices drop sharply when they decided to start subsidizing them with this forced maintenance?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, they should. That would at least be honest. But that's not what John Deere wants either.
It's not like we haven't seen that before. Anyone owning a printer knows the bait-and-switch gambit.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously they're not effective in selling this idea to the farmers.
Re: (Score:3)
Your mistake is assuming a 'farmer' is some guy that has been farming since birth like his father and grand father before him.
Corporate megafarms are the new customers that JD is catering to. I wouldn't be shocked if they do have a TaaS in place already. They have service contracts that say if a tractor is down for more than N hours JD reimburses them.
It's the MO of most heavy equipment these days in mines and on big construction projects.
Re: (Score:2)
Trump will slap a huge tax on them as soon as more than two arrive on a single ship.
Re: (Score:2)
It's only one bribe away from reality and you know it.
Re: (Score:2)
What mistake?
Are you sure you have set your timezone right in your profile?
Re: (Score:3)
I live on the ISS you insensitive clod, we simply use Zulu time.
Re: (Score:2)
isikhathi manje 14:21
Re: (Score:2)
Na, it's currently 12:38 in Zulu time. See here for current Zulu time:
https://www.timeanddate.com/wo... [timeanddate.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Not if you ask a Zulu. Then it's probably time to cook the result of the hunt of the day.
root the tractors (Score:5, Funny)
It seems like somebody needs to step in and develop a root kit for those tractors.
Re:root the tractors (Score:4, Funny)
That would certainly help farmers who grow carrots, beets and other root vegetables, but maize farmers would require a cobkit.
Re:root the tractors (Score:5, Funny)
No, they're require a kernel.
Ukrainians already have... (Score:2, Interesting)
The real solution however is for us tech nerds to start performing outreach to the farming community and get them on board to lobby together against hardware enforced software signing. With the brunt of America's farming community behind us (as a result of their own problems caused by Tivo-ized tractors.) we should have no trouble pushing legislation through congress to end Tivoization once and for all.
Maybe a nationwide boycott by the farming and techie community. Let's see how everybody feels after a week
Finally something politicians "get" (Score:5, Interesting)
Until now, the whole "software lock in" thing has been something few politicians can grasp. Worse, it's something that few of their constituents give a shit about, so they don't bother to even try to understand it. Usually, everyone who would has something else they care about and few actually depend on it for a living. Outside Silicon Valley, who gave 2 shits about software?
This could definitely be a game changer. First, farmers are a VERY vocal group and the proverbial epitome of freedom of the land, founder spirit and everything that the average American feels good about. Everyone has a farmer somewhere in his ancestry and everyone can at least somehow understand how that's important. These people make the stuff you eat, after all!
And more important, people understand fixing agricultural machines. Maybe they don't do it themselves, but basically everyone who didn't exclusively grow up in a downtown area of a metropolis has at some point in time notice that these things break down and that some oil-covered mechanic is working his magic lying underneath one of those beasts to make it wroom again. People understand that this is a necessity, and more important, people expect this to be possible. They grew up with this being possible. This not being possible is something they'd consider impossible, and, worse, someone keeping you from fixing something you own, at least if it's something outside the "fixing costs more than buying a new one" throwaway-appliance garbage, is someone people consider despicable.
This could wake up our politicians. Mostly because it's no longer large corporate lobbying groups against consumers. It's large corporate lobbying groups against large farmer lobbying groups.
Grab the popcorn, folks, this is going to get interesting!
Re: (Score:2)
Someone's an opportunist.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody any politician gives a shit about is moaning about Win10. Does it cut into the GDP?
Re: (Score:3)
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
More bullshit.
And even more bullshit!
Every one of those arguments -- and every possible argument -- is complete and utter bullshit.
Why?
B
Re: (Score:2)
We're in a time when it is trivial to prove that something has been tampered with. You can easily create a logic that can be altered but not without showing signs of alteration, even if rolled back later. You can sign your firmware, there are ways to document in a tamper-proof way the times that hardware has been written to and take that flag into account when calculating the signature which pretty much means doing a firmware backup and trying to roll it back by writing the original firmware to the system a
A nice, simple law would help (Score:5, Interesting)
"If the consumer can not repair the purchased item, then the vendor must provide free parts and labour for the advertised lifetime of the item, provided within a reasonable response time for the industry and item in question".
In other words, a mandatory all-encompassing warranty with an SLA.
You want to lock in your customer base? How about the customer base locks in the manufacturer?
Re: (Score:2)
"If the consumer can not repair the purchased item, then the vendor must provide free parts and labour for the advertised lifetime of the item, provided within a reasonable response time for the industry and item in question".
Yes judge, my client suffer from a rare form of dyslexia in which he can never remember which way to turn a bolt or a screw, in order to either loosen or tighten, on any sort of farm equipment. Due to this debilitating condition he is unable to repair any of the equipment he owns. As such we respectfully petition the court to force Tractors 'R' Us to comply with the law and provide for free all repairs and maintenance to equipment that my client has purchased from them, and that said repairs and mainten
Re: (Score:2)
>Due to this debilitating condition he is unable to repair any of the equipment he owns.
And this is why my 'nice, simple law' would have to go through a few rounds of review and improvement - because the obvious intent isn't enough to stop the legal system from subverting it based on the imprecision of the English language.
Let's go with revision two:
"If the vendor prohibits the consumer from repairing the purchased item or contracting a 3rd party of their choice to do so on their behalf, then the vendor
Re: (Score:2)
There's the problem tho, things are being tilted further and further to the end user's disadvantage... We need a fair system of give and take.
Manufacturers should provide a warranty up front which is a fixed cost or included in the price, with a fixed duration, or an ongoing service for a monthly/annual cost etc. And users should also have the documentation necessary to repair the products themselves, especially once the manufacturer has lost interest in supporting the product at all. Nothing wrong with mak
Re: (Score:2)
>Products with a defined "end of life" are extremely damaging to consumers and to the environment
A defined end of life would only mean that's when the manufacturer was no longer legally bound to support the product (if they'd chosen that rather than opening up the repair process to the end-user and 3rd party parts and service).
Though you're right, maybe there'd have to be a reclaim/recycle clause in there too... because what good is a device you can't fix, unless it never breaks?
> especially once the
DRM - lost copyright (Score:2, Interesting)
It is quite simple. If you lock your software with DRM or artificial lock, the unrestricted warranty of whole product including hw+sw fix automatically rise from 1(2) to 10 years. And the manufacturer / vendor is hereby required to be able to fix any issue on such product until the copyright to it is expired.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, copyright was always supposed to be a give and take but in recent times it has become abused and distorted.
If you want to retain copyright you should be required to support your product as well as making it available to anyone willing to purchase it (for the original price or less, or companies will abuse it by increasing the price so massively that its effectively not available).
If you want to wash your hands of a product you have to relinquish copyrights and put it into the public domain, no keeping
Re: (Score:2)
Every item expensive enough to have a warranty should have a prominently displayed tag stating how long the manufacturer expects their product to last, and the warranty should be at least that long, with all costs of repair within that time covered by the warranty.
I had a hard drive that the MTBF was listed by the manufacturer as something like 45 years, but the warranty on it was only three years, and it only lasted three months past that.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
What about the free market? (Score:2)
Shouldn't free market solution is that someone can develop and sell alternative software? Why aren't the free market people telling us why this isn't happening?
FREE MARKET ZEALOTS, PLEASE SPEAK UP!
Re: (Score:2)
the free market doesn't react in a few days. sometimes things take years to play out. especially with products like tractors which take years to design and test and have a useful and accounting depreciation life of years once they are bought. farmers have to do their taxes like everyone else and major purchases like tractors are depreciated on their balance sheets over many years. and most times you have to finance new tractors so it's not like you're just going to dump your old one and run out and buy a ne
Re: (Score:2)
The free market worked, the USA owns it all and uses that profit to keep the world out. Policy of buy out or keep out.
Re: (Score:2)
We saw a story on /. last week reporting that farmers were using firmware developed by Ukrainian hackers to unlock their tractors. What do you think would happen if someone decided to start a commercial software company to sell similar products? I think they'd get slapped down immediately for violations of the DMCA. Remember that it's illegal even to assist someone in circumventing DRM.
Farmers are also required to sign an EULA for use of the firmware. There are civil penalties for any 3rd party which in
Expense ratio and hollow compliants? (Score:2)
If someone spends $90,000 on a brand-new Tesla and a "service call" costs a few hundred dollars, that's likely a reasonable and expected expense for a complex machine, as long as those service calls don't happen too frequently. By comparison, farmers are spending 2-3x more on high-end computer-controlled farming equipment, so what is a reasonable cost for service calls? Again, not trying to justify a vendor ripping off a customer, but from a cost vs. maintenance expense ratio, bitching about a few hundred
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I really want to know if this is just a vocal minority thing, or is this a real problem. If you spend $300,000+ on a tractor, is the farmer or some other non-certified technician really qualified to perform software updates on the tractor? modern tractors probably have more in common with industrial robots than they do with the tractors of 50 years ago. You probably won't find a modern factory owner complaining that they can't go around and put whatever software they want on the robotics systems that
Re:Expense ratio and hollow compliants? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is it cost the farmer $500 to do the repair on the previous model themselves, in an hour. The new model also costs the farmer $500 to do the repair themselves, in an hour; however, the tractor won't "go" until they pay a technician an additional $1,500 to drive out, wave their badge at the device, and whisper the secret word into its ear.
Part of the complaint is they can't fix their tractor and get back to work; they have to take a relatively-significant hit to productivity and put their farm at risk waiting for a service call.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is it cost the farmer $500 to do the repair on the previous model themselves, in an hour. The new model also costs the farmer $500 to do the repair themselves, in an hour; however, the tractor won't "go" until they pay a technician an additional $1,500 to drive out, wave their badge at the device, and whisper the secret word into its ear.
On the surface, this certainly seems more like vendor greed, but we are talking about very large equipment that perhaps justifies some level of safety validation after a DIY operation. Should a Tesla simply trust Joe Mechanic's DIY battery pack refresh, or does it make sense the vehicle won't "go" until a certified technician runs a proper diagnostic on the vehicle to ensure it is safe to operate? Guess I'm struggling a bit between vendor greed and safety here.
Part of the complaint is they can't fix their tractor and get back to work; they have to take a relatively-significant hit to productivity and put their farm at risk waiting for a service call.
I get the impact to productivity, but perhaps
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Wrong Way (Score:2)
RE:"The article points out that equipment dealers" (Score:5, Insightful)
maybe people dont want to buy new tractors with this new "tractor with expensive propitiatory software, so they are keeping their old tractors, and even buying old tractors because they can fix them their selves without some greedy corporate tractor dealer scalping their pocketbooks every time they need work done on their tractor
Following this and the previous Slashdot article.. (Score:2)
. . . I see no mention of any other company than John Deere doing this, and only on recent models.
I see no mention of New Holland, Kubota, Mahindra, or other brands. Seems like a marketing advantage for all the other brands.
This looks like John Deere's "New Coke" moment , , , ,
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Key information... (Score:2)
...how often does the software actually break?
Once a year per vehicle? Once every ten years per fleet?
And I'm ALL FOR Right To Repair laws, and have spent literally hundreds of hours this year alone tearing apart things from vacuums, to computers, to synthesizers.
But before I can just give this guy my vote of support, I need to know what the actual stakes are.
The article doesn't provide any more details. Though, the quotes from the manufacturer already make me lean toward him. The manufacturer is trying to
Re:Key information... (Score:5, Informative)
One farmer interviewed on CBC radio said the seasonal nature of farming ensures there's nowhere even close to an adequate supply of service people available when they're needed, and calls for service are often hundreds of miles apart. So during the time he desperately needs his tractor working, and could fix it easily himself, he's required to wait for hours or even days for a service rep to show up, plug in a USB drive, and fix some software glitch in a matter of seconds.
The farmer, whose identity was protected, had downloaded "grey market" software to do such repairs himself.
The manufacturer's representative who was interviewed afterward made a completely unconvincing case. He claimed they would have somebody at a farm almost instantly, and that they weren't interested in prosecuting farmers who downloaded hacked repair software. In other words, the manufacturer's representative was a bare-faced liar.
Software Repair (Score:3)
It also means you can't alter any part of the operation of the tractor that is computer controlled. You want a custom library for a specific crop: Pay John Deere. There was a story about a month ago
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Ermehgerd! (Score:2)
adding that after Massachusetts passed a similar lar
Ermehgerd they persed a similar lar!
When and if I become a hipster farmer (Score:2)
When and if I become a hipster farmer, I want to chill during my tractor experience. And when I call for support I want the call center to be supportive and say to me that I'm OK. The actual problem mustn't be mentioned as it is so coarse to do so.
No, I'd only want to sit in a comfy chair. On mild days wearing sun glasses. Contemplating the world. Gently stroking my Al Qaeda beard. Feeling good about how good I feel.
And when the harvest fails I'll activate the suing experience that will take care of
if they win car's are next just wait for the $15 n (Score:2)
if they win car's are next just wait for the $15-$30 non dealer change oil reset code.
Hacking a tractor... (Score:2)
Can you not (Score:2)
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replace the word "tractor" with "car"... and the answer is no
The view from the manufacturers side (Score:2)
Here's the problem with this: Farmer buys fancy tractor. Farmer borks fancy tractor trying to "fix" it. Farmer complains to manufacturer and goes on a social media tirade while conveniently forgetting they they are a ham-fisted individual.
ACHTUNG!
ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS!
DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKEN. IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFE
Hot swap redundant modules. (Score:2)
As a farmer, why would you even consider buying a mission critical machine that you can't service? Harvesting is time and weather sensitive, so why don't these machines have modular components that can be swapped out with a standby part by the farmer? The computer should be a redundant hot swap module that can be swapped out by the farmer in just a few minutes. You should be able drive to your local JD dealer and exchange the computer module with one off the shelf.
Ignorence of the Contract (Score:2)
I know this is not really the "right" way to think about it, but where these things not made clear at purchase, that in a lot of ways "purchase" meant "rent"? I'm sure contracts were signed, this isn't a $300 piece of software that you click through the EULA. My point is that these farmers knew or should have known what they were signing for when they bought that $400,000 tractor.
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Except that if you buy Chinese you will have to buy a new tractor each time it breaks down. But maybe that's cheaper - you may get two Chinese tractors for the price of one American.
Re:Buy smart (Score:5, Informative)
Except that if you buy Chinese you will have to buy a new tractor each time it breaks down. But maybe that's cheaper - you may get two Chinese tractors for the price of one American.
That's not necessarily a bad thing although I'd go for E-European or Ukrainian before Chinese but that requires you to be a bit more hands-on (like farmers used to be) and fix stuff yourself unlike when you use western equipment where you typically call in a service person. If Americans can use AK-47s without being worried about catching communism from them why not Ukrainian trucks or tractors? I came across a bunch of civilianized Ukrainian KrAZ army trucks [wikipedia.org] in a farming village in western Europe and we're not talking some former communist nation, this was deep inside bedrock NATO territory. So I'm walking around these things taking a very close look, largely because I'd seen these beasts in news footage from war zones except painted green instead of red and with rocket artillery or AAA guns in place of the hydraulic open-box bed, when this guy shows up. He asks if he can help me so I just told him the truth, that I was pretty amazed to see these things in that particular corner of the world, which made him quite a lot more friendly and we got talking. He told me that him and several farmers in the area had decided to set up a truck pool and found it was an expensive proposition until somebody discovered that several of these Soviet/Ukrainian cold war army trucks could be had brand spanking new for the price of a much smaller number of MAN,Mercedes,Volvo,... trucks, so they just bought a couple of dozen of these things. There was little that could break down, when it did the parts were cheap, electronics were minimal and they had hired a Ukrainian mechanic to maintain them who knew these things better than his own trouser pockets.
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Well, my parents bought one Zetor 6748 and one 8045 in the 70's and they are still running. Some quirks, but overall nothing that's impossible to take care of.
And if you get the opportunity - try a Dutra (Hungarian). Straight-cut gears and unsynchronized gearbox.
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Except that if you buy Chinese you will have to buy a new tractor each time it breaks down.
Do you have a lot of experience with Chinese farm equipment, or are you just spreading baseless crap about something you know little about?
Having traveled a lot in China over the last ~20 years, I have at least seen some f the things they use in the fields. A lot of it is clearly rather old, but then it wouldn't be old, if it broke down and had to be scrapped every year, as you say. In fact, it must be both reliable and repairable, like things used to be in the West not all that long ago; back when the sayi
Re:Farmers usually vote Republican (Score:5, Insightful)
The only real farming left in the US are large industrial farms.
Quit parroting that left wing lie. It's total bullshit that one 5 second Google query [wikipedia.org] absolutely disproves.
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A Roman houshold guardian spirit [wikipedia.org]
Russian motherboards (Score:2)
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