11 US States are Now Considering 'Right to Repair' Laws for Farming Equipment (apnews.com) 67
Colorado farmer Danny Wood had a problem with his Steiger 370 tractor, reports the Associated Press:
The tractor's manufacturer doesn't allow Wood to make certain fixes himself, and last spring his fertilizing operations were stalled for three days before the servicer arrived to add a few lines of missing computer code for $950. "That's where they have us over the barrel, it's more like we are renting it than buying it," said Wood, who spent $300,000 on the used tractor.
Wood's plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — thereby avoiding steep labor costs and delays that imperil profits....
The manufacturers argue that changing the current practice with this type of legislation would force companies to expose trade secrets. They also say it would make it easier for farmers to tinker with the software and illegally crank up the horsepower and bypass the emissions controller — risking operators' safety and the environment.... "I know growers, if they can change horsepower and they can change emissions they are going to do it," said Russ Ball, sales manager at 21st Century Equipment, a John Deere dealership in Western states.
The bill's proponents acknowledged that the legislation could make it easier for operators to modify horsepower and emissions controls, but argued that farmers are already able to tinker with their machines and doing so would remain illegal.
The article quotes Wood's representative in Congress, who also argues that local dealerships in rural areas would be impacted by the legislation. "I do sympathize with my farmers," he's quoted as saying, but added "I don't think it's the role of government to be forcing the sale of their intellectual property."
Wood's plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — thereby avoiding steep labor costs and delays that imperil profits....
The manufacturers argue that changing the current practice with this type of legislation would force companies to expose trade secrets. They also say it would make it easier for farmers to tinker with the software and illegally crank up the horsepower and bypass the emissions controller — risking operators' safety and the environment.... "I know growers, if they can change horsepower and they can change emissions they are going to do it," said Russ Ball, sales manager at 21st Century Equipment, a John Deere dealership in Western states.
The bill's proponents acknowledged that the legislation could make it easier for operators to modify horsepower and emissions controls, but argued that farmers are already able to tinker with their machines and doing so would remain illegal.
The article quotes Wood's representative in Congress, who also argues that local dealerships in rural areas would be impacted by the legislation. "I do sympathize with my farmers," he's quoted as saying, but added "I don't think it's the role of government to be forcing the sale of their intellectual property."
Why stop with AG equipment? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, we need this for just about everything. Remember when Deere said that having just anyone work on their combines was as dangerous as letting anyone work on an airliner? Wow - I didn't know a corn picking machine flew at 500 MPH at 40,000' with 300 people on it.
Come on guys and gals, we all know that locking people out of their own devices is simply a way to get the profit of selling something with the benefit of never letting anyone own it.
They want to be the Eternal Landlord.
It's a dumb argument to boot. (Score:5, Interesting)
The airlines have their own mechanics. They don't take them back to Boeing or Airbus for service. So thats an asinine argument for Deere to attempt to make.
Lots of Airlines don't maintain their own planes. (Score:2)
The airlines have their own mechanics. ......
I know what your saying and I agree however
Unfortunately these days alot of Airlines don't of their own maintenance.
"The Disturbing Truth About How Airplanes Are Maintained Today " : https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
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Unfortunately these days alot of Airlines don't do their own maintenance.
edit: oops forgot a word or two.
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*you're*
*a lot*
*Do not the cat*
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And farmers used to be their own mechanics, or they'd go to the local mechanic in town. John Deere doing this is like Ford saying you must only take your automobiles to a licensed dealership that is at least 50 miles away.
Re:Why stop with AG equipment? (Score:4, Informative)
If the politicians created a blanket right to repair, they'd have to deal with 50x as many angry lobbyists. Every auto or electronics manufacturer, for starters. The multiplier would not be nearly as big for the publicity, though.
Making change as narrowly as possible is often the best move politically. You get to check off the box for "I support right to repair", you get to check off "I care about farmers", and you avoid upsetting a bunch of industries selling non-tractor products.
The same force is responsible for our tax laws, data privacy laws, social safety net, and any number of other things being full of holes. Establishing new blanket rights will always piss somebody off. Often somebody powerful. That's why we haven't got any more rights in the last 150 years, despite there being... a few developments during that period that should necessitate them.
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That's why we haven't got any more rights in the last 150 years, despite there being... a few developments during that period that should necessitate them.
"We", kemosabe?
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But a blanket right to repair everything is needed.
Re:Why stop with AG equipment? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow - I didn't know a corn picking machine flew at 500 MPH at 40,000' with 300 people on it.
Weren't you paying attention? The Air Force shot down a John Deere over Havre, Montana a few days ago.
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Weren't you paying attention? The Air Force shot down a John Deere over Havre, Montana a few days ago.
The Chinese are getting sneakier by disguising their spy balloons as tractors, but Dark Brandon ain't fallin' for that malarkey!
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Wow - I didn't know a corn picking machine flew at 500 MPH at 40,000' with 300 people on it.
Weren't you paying attention? The Air Force shot down a John Deere over Havre, Montana a few days ago.
Come own people mod (+5 ) this comment up it was Funny
Re:Why stop with AG equipment? (Score:4, Informative)
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trade secrets or just dealer lock in being an secr (Score:2)
trade secrets or just dealer lock in being an secret?
and how fall will this provide the tools, software, parts go?
Need to ban stuff like must auth into our VPN / must pay for our training class / must rent our software or tools.
Ban stuff like one time use fees of $50+ just to run an check of the hardware.
I don't even own my data on my Win11 laptop (Score:1)
Microsoft just sends all data out to the whole world to be analyzed/monetized and there is nothing I can do about it.
So what's new?
I don't think these laws will survive (Score:2)
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They can make the products very difficult to repair anyway. Special tools are one of the favourite ways they do that. Requiring reprogramming after part replacement is another.
Might be difficult to do for farmers since they will be able to justify spending $$$$ on tools.
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They can make the products very difficult to repair anyway. Special tools are one of the favourite ways they do that. Requiring reprogramming after part replacement is another.
Might be difficult to do for farmers since they will be able to justify spending $$$$ on tools.
Of course. I have bought a number of them over the years for various cars I've owned. There's also the question of experience - the tech may have seen the problem multiple times and know what part of several to replace when diagnostics point to several; a farmer may wind up in the replace, try, replace mode, costing more than the tech would. And the first time they brick their ecu trying to mod it and spend $$$$ for a new one...
I'm not anti RTR laws; I regularly fix my own cars and own some decent diagnost
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They can make the products very difficult to repair anyway. ... Requiring reprogramming after part replacement is another.
VW does that with their batteries. Found that out the hard way.
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You clearly don't know shit about engines...
If someone looks at the CAN wrong, the engine, if it is an interference design (like almost all are) can wind up shearing off valves
The valvetrain is gear driven...you're not going to cause the valves to hang open with CAN.
At any rate, enthusiasts now deal with, and hack CAN on a regular basis. It is actually becoming very popular in the aftermarket.
writing engine firmware is not like writing Python for yet another bargain-basement DevOps endevor
There are literally open source engine controllers...with the open source code to go with them. Engines operate slow in comparison to microprocessors...timing engine events is trivial.
Look at how many Ford 6.0 diesel engines wound up dead due to bad mods
Ford 6.0 diesels ended up dead due to weak head studs, and EGR
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If causing serious damage to the engine were a possibility then the manufacturers would embrace right to repair.
I recall a cartoon stuck on the wall in my local hardware store showing a DIY disaster and the plumber thanking the homeowner for trying to fix it himself before he called in the pro to fix the, now, more extensive damage.
Re:Modern equipment isn't the 350 V8 of the 70s... (Score:4, Informative)
People are not engineers.
And? So? Not Deere's or the OEM's problem - unless instead of selling you a product they want to rent it to you while making you pay for it too.
DMCA.
And? So? Not Deere's or the OEM's problem. Most people would love to completely ditch the closed software in favor of things they can see.
Lawsuits. Someone hacks a tractor,
My, my, my. And here we've been all these years with people hacking their Chevy's and no one has EVER sued Chevrolet for failing to keep a car owner from "hacking" their 57 pickup - and won. Same goes for Cessna and Fleetwood.
There may not be a way to make something repairable,
And damn sure skippy there won't be if the OEM has any say about it. Bub, things for consumers aren't made to wear - they are made to wear out. Think about it - a locomotive lasts decades, a cargo ship as well - because they are made to be repairable
Please see my sig and think about what you are propounding, and why.
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I would add that if farm equipment or any other heavy machinery is not easily repairable, it sure will have very little resale value, but soon won't have any first sale value either. If manufacturers decide to make their equipment unrepairable in the face of a law forcing them to allow third party repairs some other manufacturer will soon step in and remove them from the market with a product that might be slightly inferior, but will keep working when you need it to.
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I think you bring up some valid and itneresting points worth addressing but I think this part is a bit of a misconception:
If Apple started making their stuff easily fixable, then they are now culpable for shareholder lawsuits because they are not doing their filial duty to their shareholders.
Now I agree the perception this type of rule can and is taken out of hand by companies but in reality if Apples board and as a company decide this is the direction of their business shareholders don't really have a civil case, especially by nature the board has a lot of shares itself. Basically if you don't like the direction sell your stock, you can't just sue because your opinion is d
Re:Modern equipment isn't the 350 V8 of the 70s... (Score:4, Insightful)
Both individuals and 3rd party repair shops repair modern cars (which are likely just as complex and full of tech as any of the big green machines John Deere puts out) and the world hasn't come to an end.
You don't see Ford being sued because someone modified their F-150 in a way that caused the brakes to fail and the car to crash and injure someone or that caused the engine to go kaboom and send shards of metal everywhere.
And most right-to-repair advocates aren't asking John Deere to share their top trade secrets or IP, just for them to share everything necessary for individuals (and 3rd party repair shops) to perform any and all regular maintanence on the vehicles as well as everything necessary for individuals (and 3rd party repair shops) to replace any components that fail.
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1: People are not engineers.
This is about Mechanics and Maintenance and Farmers are fantastic Mechanics.
2: DMCA.
ummm This is about maintaining a Tractor not Copyright !!! but whatever DRM is just a Lock so just like when you "purchase" a song and they unlock the DRM so you can play the song , John Deere can unlock the DRM so you can maintain the Tractor.
3: Lawsuits.
Lawyers Meh!, Lawyers are parasites and they are always finding ways to get money from people.
4: There may not be a way to make something repairable.
Rubbish these are Tractors that are meant to last for decades not Soft drink cans.
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They should scrap the DMCA too.
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Thankfully the guy that owns the tractor and puts food on our table doesn't care what you think. Its his tractor, he bought it, its his ecu running on electricity from fuel he bought.
Your argument would be better suited towards having controls on which families have children. Using your engineer argument, not every parent is a teacher, maybe only some adults should be parents. Look at all the stats of suicide in young people these days. The above poster is so worried about some tractor owner but what about
Nope, those arguments won't fly. (Score:2)
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Open Source Engine when?
Slim on details (Score:2)
I'd like to hear a few more details about what happened, beyond saying something "conked out" and "a few lines of code" were added.
I mean...the guy bought a used piece of equipment. Was it still under warranty? Of course the article doesn't specify...
If this was a firmware update...sure, let them download an update to a thumb drive. OR did Mr. Farmer fiddle with some settings, and screw something up...and having a tech undo the changes, is what "adding a few lines of code" is defined as?
Based on a lot of
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I don't have access to more detail but as a clue: equipment attached to the tractor need pairing and registering to the controller software. The used tractor was possibly still paired with the previous owner's devices and it refused to pair with the new owner's one, unless an "authorized technician" could force clear the old devices and register the new ones as "legitimates".
Just an educated guess: Those few lines of code could have been the serial number, model, brand of the seeder that was not recognized
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the right to repair McDonalds ice cream machines?
I see this on the internet all the time, but have never once actually encountered a broken McDonald's ice cream machine. Either I don't go to McDonald's enough, or this is something that happens more frequently somewhere like California and people there just assume it must happen everywhere else too.
Re: Slippery Slope (Score:2)
If the ice cream machine at your McDonald's is never down, you shouldn't get ice cream there. That means they don't ever fully clean it.
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If the ice cream machine at your McDonald's is never down, you shouldn't get ice cream there. That means they don't ever fully clean it.
That explains the gastrointestinal distress which inevitably follows. Eww.
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Same applies to ice and soft drink dispensers. I don't know about McDonald's - I intensely dislike Yum Corporation - but I do know that the nozzles are frequently not removed and cleaned twice a day as is specified for food safety. I once was drawing a clear soft drink (don't remember the brand) and a huge chunk of brown and tan glop plopped in.
It was mold.
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Either I don't go to McDonald's enough, or this is something that happens more frequently somewhere like California [...]
New York is currently leading the field, with a little over 20% of the ice cream machines broken [mcbroken.com].
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That was a reference to another right-to-repair case, against the makers of most McDonalds ice cream machines: https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Wait a second... (Score:2)
So, all the existing Right to Repair bills have been passed with exceptions for farming equipment, and now we need new, separate bills specifically for the farming equipment?
Are we going to enumerate every industry and make separate bills for each of them? Sounds like a lobbyist's paradise.
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So, all the existing Right to Repair bills have been passed with exceptions for farming equipment, and now we need new, separate bills specifically for the farming equipment?
Are we going to enumerate every industry and make separate bills for each of them? Sounds like a lobbyist's paradise.
Its like this : The Lobbyists know the Dudes who have the key to "The Emerald City" so Dorothy if you want to meet 'The Wizard' you gotta pay up.
Farmers need to act like businesses (Score:2)
Why would you ever buy John Deere products? Sure, right to repair is important, but only because these farmers are too dumb to go to a competitor.
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There is no competitor (at least none that are any less anti-right-to-repair than John Deere)
If you can't tix it, you don't own it. (Score:2)
Unite (Score:2)
Simple solution (Score:3)
Never going to happen (Score:2)
There is too much corruption and lobbying. This is not going anywhere, mark my words.
Two things (Score:2)
1) Why do these idiots think this should only apply to farm equiptment? If it is a real problem for them, it is a real problem for others.
2) As for 'forcing people to sell their IP', that is not what is going on. Instead the IP producers are refusing to sell non-IP property without the IP attached so that they can retain control. NOBODY WANTS THEIR IP.
Their IP literally sucks. It's only purpose is to prevent the repair. People want to BUY products, which entails the right to modify, repair, or even tr
It's Worse Than They're Saying (Score:2)
I think it's even worse than that. Usually when you rent equipment, if it stops working then it's the responsibility of the rental company to fix the defective unit or swap it out for a working unit. In Wood's case, his options are to pay whatever price the manufacturer feels like charging to diagnose/update/repair/replace (and that's only if they don't claim the
What this really means (Score:2)
Headline really means "Politicians in 11 states now considering new source of money for re-election campaigns".
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