Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#21

Post by rtkwe » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:37 PM UTC

stronghands wrote: post #8

simion314 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is a legal one, force the companies to provide the software required for you to use your hardware. It is stupid as a user you can only see a red light and only an "authorized dealer" can plug a laptop and see the exact problem and detailed diagnostics. Without the law your open source software would be blocked by DRM and I am sure the companies would attempt to void your warranty if they can find you mod…

Is there a specific piece of legislation to target? To get legal process need to have the people who’ve suffered damage be the claimants. I wonder if these farmers agree to arbitration instead of bringing a court case.

Look and see if there's any Right to Repair legislation on the docket for your local area, the naming is pretty consistent across the US right now.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#22

Post by magduf » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:42 PM UTC

zrail wrote: post #13

supportlocal4h wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This again? The solution is almost never legislation. If just 20% of prospective buyers devoted 1/2 their budgets to a common open solution, they could break out. If there were a tiny company offering an old school model with modern features at a competitive price, that would be enough. Then, if farmers choose to lock themselves in, it would be a real choice and their own fault. BSD didn't need legislation. GNU didn'…

BSD didn’t need legislation but it did need a long legal process to resolve in its favor.

I think there's even a theory that one of the reasons BSD is a small niche OS and Linux powers the world is because BSD was tied up in litigation for a while.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#23

Post by magduf » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:45 PM UTC

stopads wrote: post #9

abetusk wrote: post #2

Are there any open source or open source hardware efforts to create or replace tractor software and electronics? I know of the Global Village Construction Set [1] but are there any others that exist that are gaining any sort of traction? Are there any forums, GitHub (or other) repositories or other resources for folks to see what's going on and/or to help out? I'd love to see what's available and, if possible, help o…

The libertarian tech monoculture is the problem, not the solution. If you knew the history of the industry or Kansas over the past 30 years you'd realize you're exactly backwards. Deere and similar companies got the idea to create this "perfect walled garden monopoly tractor" from Steve Case. AOL was the first to really lay out the pattern so many other industries (and Google and Amazon and Apple and other monopolist…

What exactly is stopping these farmers from just buying from another vendor like New Holland or Kubota? Every time I read this stuff, it's all about John Deere being the Apple of farm equipment, and there's almost nothing said about their competitors, almost as if they don't exist.

I feel like I see the same thing when people I know complain about Apple: if I try to suggest they switch to Android because it doesn't have those problems, they look at me like I have a 3rd arm. I really wonder how much of this problem with farmers being unable to repair their own equipment is self-inflicted, by absolutely refusing to buy from a different vendor.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#24

Post by nullsocket » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #3

abetusk wrote: post #2

Are there any open source or open source hardware efforts to create or replace tractor software and electronics? I know of the Global Village Construction Set [1] but are there any others that exist that are gaining any sort of traction? Are there any forums, GitHub (or other) repositories or other resources for folks to see what's going on and/or to help out? I'd love to see what's available and, if possible, help o…

The solution is a legal one, force the companies to provide the software required for you to use your hardware. It is stupid as a user you can only see a red light and only an "authorized dealer" can plug a laptop and see the exact problem and detailed diagnostics. Without the law your open source software would be blocked by DRM and I am sure the companies would attempt to void your warranty if they can find you mod…

These companies are also actively pushing "Renting" as a business model where the farmer only rents the tractor for the season. Any maintenance and repairs are done as part of the rental and at the end of the season, the tractor goes back. This completely cuts the farmer out of the equation in terms of ownership/repair.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#25

Post by randomdata » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #2

Are there any open source or open source hardware efforts to create or replace tractor software and electronics? I know of the Global Village Construction Set [1] but are there any others that exist that are gaining any sort of traction? Are there any forums, GitHub (or other) repositories or other resources for folks to see what's going on and/or to help out? I'd love to see what's available and, if possible, help o…

> What stops farmers from slapping a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino with an array of sensors, GPS, modems and other electronics to "DIY" their tractors and other electronic/automated farm equipment?

There are a handful of farmers doing exactly that. Cost is a major hurdle though. Not so much the cost of the actual hardware (although sufficiently accurate and precise GPS units have only recently started to come down in price), but the opportunity cost of developing such systems. Time spent working on them is time spent away from the farm business. Spending time on improving agronomy and marketing could yield hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional revenue vs. saving $50,000 on a commercial solution that will retain much of its value and can be resold later. It just doesn't make sense from a business perspective. Only those who see it as an exciting hobby will venture down that road.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#26

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 4:16 PM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #25

abetusk wrote: post #2

Are there any open source or open source hardware efforts to create or replace tractor software and electronics? I know of the Global Village Construction Set [1] but are there any others that exist that are gaining any sort of traction? Are there any forums, GitHub (or other) repositories or other resources for folks to see what's going on and/or to help out? I'd love to see what's available and, if possible, help o…

> What stops farmers from slapping a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino with an array of sensors, GPS, modems and other electronics to "DIY" their tractors and other electronic/automated farm equipment? There are a handful of farmers doing exactly that. Cost is a major hurdle though. Not so much the cost of the actual hardware (although sufficiently accurate and precise GPS units have only recently started to come down in p…

In principle this is what investors are for.

There is known demand among farmers for repairable tractors, but it costs a moderate amount (more than an individual farmer has) to develop one. So you go raise some investment money to develop the software and then make it back by selling repairable tractors at a profit.

Maybe if you succeed you'll get copycats using your software on their own tractors, but by that point you've already succeeded. It may even help you by growing your ecosystem and making you more competitive against the closed incumbents.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#27

Post by TeMPOraL » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 5:06 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #26

randomdata wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What stops farmers from slapping a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino with an array of sensors, GPS, modems and other electronics to "DIY" their tractors and other electronic/automated farm equipment? There are a handful of farmers doing exactly that. Cost is a major hurdle though. Not so much the cost of the actual hardware (although sufficiently accurate and precise GPS units have only recently started to come down in p…

In principle this is what investors are for. There is known demand among farmers for repairable tractors, but it costs a moderate amount (more than an individual farmer has) to develop one. So you go raise some investment money to develop the software and then make it back by selling repairable tractors at a profit. Maybe if you succeed you'll get copycats using your software on their own tractors, but by that point…

In practice though, how easy is it to find an investment for an expensive venture you don't intend to directly profit from? Investors will want their returns, and they'll likely push for the same means the project was started to circumvent in the first place.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#28

Post by Dirlewanger » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #14

Dirlewanger wrote: post #11

I fully support Right to Repair movements. John Deere/Apple et. al doing this is pure unchecked corporate avarice. With that said, I have a hard time feeling sympathetic for midwestern farmers. They most likely vote straight Republican every election, and I'm pretty sure fixing this problem is something their Congress reps don't care about too much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A... > The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). ... Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998 The political blame lies with both p…

That may be true, but Democrats will at least be more ostensibly receptive of the issue. Bernie Sanders makes it an explicit point on his campaign website. I'm guessing other candidates have as well.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#29

Post by randyrand » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 6:04 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #11

I fully support Right to Repair movements. John Deere/Apple et. al doing this is pure unchecked corporate avarice. With that said, I have a hard time feeling sympathetic for midwestern farmers. They most likely vote straight Republican every election, and I'm pretty sure fixing this problem is something their Congress reps don't care about too much.

You should spend some time with a few farmers to actually get to know some.

Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]

#30

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Mar 04, 2020, 6:19 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #27

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle this is what investors are for. There is known demand among farmers for repairable tractors, but it costs a moderate amount (more than an individual farmer has) to develop one. So you go raise some investment money to develop the software and then make it back by selling repairable tractors at a profit. Maybe if you succeed you'll get copycats using your software on their own tractors, but by that point…

In practice though, how easy is it to find an investment for an expensive venture you don't intend to directly profit from? Investors will want their returns, and they'll likely push for the same means the project was started to circumvent in the first place.

But you do intend to directly profit from it.

If you just start out selling tractors that are only equivalent to the incumbents and with all the same restrictions, who is going to buy them? The reason people want to buy from you instead of them is that it's possible to repair your tractors. And if people are buying from you, you're making money.

Maybe a few years later the investors decide they might like to make even more by closing things up, but by that point the software is already published for free on the internet (which was what got customers interested to begin with). So if they do all that happens is that someone else starts making repairable tractors, which people still prefer, using the software which is by then free and already exists.

Have people not noticed how much money Amazon makes out of "your margin is my opportunity"? Taking market share from the old guard by making less (but still some) profit per unit is a great way to make money.