We changed the URL from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPYy_g8NzmI, which is a copy of this.
It was discussed at the time, but only a bit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292410
Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#32Some previous discussion which may be of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13802969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990266 Edit -- and some more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10897309 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14074894 https://news.ycombinator.…
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> 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.
As someone that grew up in a pure Red state for decades and grew up on a farm/ranch, there is zero chance of them voting Democrats for the reasons you think they should.
Want to know at least one reason why? Know those farm "subsidies" democrats love to hate? Also known as: the government pays for farmers to keep fields fallow so we don't get another dust bowl. Farmers like those subsidies, they're a good thing. City people hate them, think they're a bad thing "we spend taxes for farm states". Yes I'm overgeneralizing but i've real work to do today so I can't get super complex.
Get to know a few farmers and understand that your perspective on Democrats is highly skewed on their policies towards places with population centers. You can argue Republicans are worse in as many ways as you want, but until you understand why none of those ways matter to farmers, you'll forever lack an understanding of why things are the way they are.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#34Earlier 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…
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'…
If just 20% of prospective buyers devoted half their budgets, 20% more farmers and construction companies would be out of business.
Right to Repair legislation goes 90% of the way to stopping the lockdown of the machine internals and codifies for everyone that once a machine is sold and in use, the manufacturer no longer has control over that machine.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 h…
It's only because Deere is the biggest most well known face of the problem, and because they've been most aggressive baout locking things down.
It's not just their tactic, but stopping them sets the precedent.
Also most news outlets don't have bandwidth for multiple articles about all the other companies doing the same thing, so they are the placeholder for the topic.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 h…
Even if one of the other manufacturers in the space doesn't permit an easy self-repair path at the moment, it would seem to be a golden opportunity to expand their market by doing so.
Given the way capitalism works in the US now, though, if someone like Kubota broke out of the pack by doing something like this, something tells me that Deere would find the money to buy them out, and spike the idea.
IMO, the government should be putting a stop to this sort of thing. If you're on this site, then you've seen this happen scores of times in the tech space. But, again, a lot of people on this site are specifically hoping for a buyout like this to make their first couple hundred million, so this is a weird place to complain about a tech monopoly in tractors.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#37There must be a market for repairable tractors and other farming machinery by now?
Yeah I'm not sure I understand the problem; the US is a free market, there are a lot of investors and a lot of engineers out there, why aren't there competitors putting John Deere out of business with products that the farmers do want? Or are JD tractors so far ahead of any competition that their customers just suck it up? There has to be some anti-competitive lock-in for that to be a thing.
Firstly because JD is the biggest manufacturer, and is also american.
Secondly because the JD dealer network in the US. Waiting 2 weeks to get a part shipped from Europe/Japan while you are in the middle of the harvest season is a real show stopper.
It will take a huge effort to gain market share for a newcomer, and JD can always update their SW to remove DRM if they loose too much to a competitor.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#38Earlier 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…
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. GNU didn't.
They absolutely did. Both depend on copyright. GNU licenses in particular were created in reaction to copyright protection being extended to computer programs as if they were literary works. Today, all of free and open source software directly depends on copyright in order to even be recognized as such.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#39Earlier 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…
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.
Rent or buy, the issue is that if a harvester breaks down in the field
it could be 3 ~4 days before a technician gets to the field, diagnoses
and has to order a part, wait for said part and come back to your field to
replace it. That machine being down for two weeks during harvest could
mean the farmer losing a whole lot of money.
Re: Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video]
#40Earlier 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…
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'…
This is very biased for the giant companies, you have laws to protect companies with copyright and anti hacking laws but when is time for protecting the normal people we can't modify or add a new law. I would be fine with no protection law but then I should be able to crack, pirate and reverse engineer software and hardware.