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Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

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Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#201

Post by GuB-42 »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #146
jacquesm wrote: post #109

Deere's competitors should go all-in on maintainability and documentation as a countermove. When it starts to eat into their marketshare they'll pay attention, until then they will just drag their heels as much as legally possible. Unfortunately Case IH, New Holland, Claas and Kubota all have a similar attitude towards their customers, which makes this an industry wide problem, not a John Deere problem. Legislators s…

Yeah, it's kind of a joke to say that there's no problem with the "free market" in the American version of capitalism when all the big players collude on the same anti-consumer position, because they all win, and their execs take home more options and pay because of it.

No I think that's simply because that's actually what consumers want.

The less a company makes on maintenance and repairs, the more it has to make on the initial sale, which means a higher upfront cost. People generally don't like paying a lot of money upfront, so naturally, companies will make profit in other ways.

Easy to see with smartphones. When manufacturers started to make batteries non user replaceable, did it make consumers flock to manufacturers that still offered user replaceable batteries? The answer is no, consumers have chosen, they don't care, except for a minority too small for manufacturers to need caring. There are alternatives, like the Fairphone, but it is not a mainstream device, and it is expensive for its specs, so few people buy it.

Not only it is our choice, but we are not even honest about it. We are happy to buy hard-to-repair devices, but then, we want to game the system by using regulation.

Don't get me wrong, I am in favor of the right to repair movement. But I also understand that it will go against the will of consumers by raising the prices. It is a bit like safety and the environment. We don't want cars with emission control, because they are more expensive and have more points of failure, but we are forced to buy them anyways, and it is good for all of us in the end. I think the right to repair is good for the environment and for the economy in general, so it is worth regulating.

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#202

Post by tetraca »

themitigating wrote: post #87
29athrowaway wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The damage is already done. MBAs had no long-term vision, so in each company they infested, they made poor strategic decisions such as moving manufacturing overseas, which then forced other companies to move their manufacturing overseas. The countries they chose have zero respect for intellectual property. So now what's left are zombie companies milking their cash cows dry as international competitors arise and take…

The goal of any business is to make money, it's why they exist. Moving production overseas saves money. I don't see why this has anything to do with MBAs

If I were to make a product, I would hope that I'm making money because it's a quality product people like and want to buy because it's good, and not because I'm delivering the minimum possible value not considered fraud to extract maximum value from the customer.

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#203

Post by randomdata »

ukoki wrote: post #198

It should be illegal to bundle hardware with closed-source copyrighted software. If you sell hardware you can bundle it with open-source software that people are free to modify. Or you can sell it without software and other vendors can supply closed-source software that can't be modified, but you can't have exclusive agreements with those vendors or prefer one over another.

Does this extend into the used market?

I buy a widget without software, install a closed source option that is available for the widget, and later want to sell it. Do I have to remove the software?

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#204

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mindslight wrote: post #195
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are sort of in agreement, that if John Deer is allowed to encrypt firmware such that the user cannot access it, then we are stuck. I was trying to point out that securing the chip against the owner of the tractor should not be legal - in the same way that taking away a wheel from your tractor would not be allowed -it now your property

We're definitely in agreement for how the world ought to work. My larger point is that this isn't merely a problem created by the government through the legal system - for which statements of "ought" would have straightforward implications of getting rid of the oppressive laws. Rather it seems to be a problem due to informational complexity, and will take positive government action to reign companies in, similar to t…

The ownership vs possesion is definately tricky, as the history of crypto is littered with lost or stolen keys, etc.

I'd like to see the keys to the kingdom being unique for each machine and being handed over to the owner when the purchase is made.

As for positive government action- I think government plays 'neutral' action when it sets the rules of the game, and current rules of the game are, you could be consodered owner of a vehicle even though you don't have keys to the software.

Those rules are wrong and need changing - because we have never explicitly set the rules for what does it mean to own an object with firmware.

I am trying to frame it in such a way, as to make it clear that we arent asking manufacturers for concession, we are correcting illigitimate market behaviour, sort of like selling snake oil.

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#205

Post by unbalancedevh »

ukoki wrote: post #198

It should be illegal to bundle hardware with closed-source copyrighted software. If you sell hardware you can bundle it with open-source software that people are free to modify. Or you can sell it without software and other vendors can supply closed-source software that can't be modified, but you can't have exclusive agreements with those vendors or prefer one over another.

I have to admit, I'd love to be able to modify the software in my microwave to disable the incessant reminder beep. But I'm not sure I agree in general that it companies shouldn't be able to copyright their own software, or put measures in place that make it impractical or impossible for me to modify it. Presumably I'm aware of that when I buy it, and I have options. But I think that's different from being able to repair it.

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#206

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

mikrotikker wrote: post #107
Roark66 wrote: post #71

They'll provide "tools and manuals". If this includes service software that is good. Also I wonder what kind of detail is there in those service manuals. For the mechanical components I would at least expect drawings of each assembly showing every gear, every seal, every clip with spec. For electronics I would expect at least board view files if not schematics. Do I believe this will happen before it is law to publis…

Like the Haynes and other manuals that show circuit layouts and exploded views and service descriptions for every part of a vehicle.

...and a bare rectangle that says "Engine Control Module."

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#207

Post by EMIRELADERO »

causi wrote: post #82
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if the DRM protects a copyrighted work, and even then only if the "protection" goes beyond protecting the software from being executed/used. (Chamberlain v. Skylink)

Root allows the user to bypass DRM such as Widevine.

The DMCA doesn't really care about what you do after. The "DRM" has to directly protect a copyrighted work. By your logic, a CFAA violation is also a DMCA violation.

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#208

Post by marcus0x62 »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #199
marcus0x62 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very good reason is that, as the parent commenter wrote, the Magnuson-Moss Warranty act makes it illegal for manufacturers to deny warranty service because of third-party modifications or repairs, unless they can demonstrate the third-party modification/repair caused a defect in the original product.

So why should something so explicitly... tampering... as, say, REFLASHING an ECM for a diesel engine, NOT exempt the manufacturer from third-party stupidity? This is what I can't wrap my head around. Where's the limit of legal liability? IS there no limit? Are the people milling about my company, excusing every added layer of bureaucracy due to being liable if a customer chips their Dodge Ram, melting the exhaust sys…

If the customer rechips their ECU and melts their exhaust into the floor, you can absolutely deny the exhaust repair under warranty. You just have to be able to prove the modification caused the problem in the first place.

edit - and I tend to view encrypted ROMs, etc., as being more about pulling the kind of anti-consumer/anti-repair shenanigans discussed in the original article than any genuine concern about limiting liability. But maybe that’s just my bias peeking through.

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#209

Post by anm89 »

texasbigdata wrote: post #93
anm89 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the smart money take. They ran an EV calculation on the cost of half heartedly allowing self repair (but in a sneaky way in which surely favors them) with a reduced probability of legislation vs the probability of legislation being imposed on them and figured they can milk more money out of this scenario. They will surely allow DIY in the most convoluted, inaccessible way humanly possible and try to keep this…

EV, enterprise value?

roughly, imagine a decision tree where each end node has a set of probabilities and a utility points values per outcome probability. You multiply out the probability of each outcome with it's point value and pick the decision path which maximizes your probability weighted outcome. In most cases utility points equals how much money you make or lose but it doesn't have to be that.

So if one path has a 10% chance of -100000 points (ie something terrible happens) and a 90% chance of get 1000 points (something very good happens) this path has an expected value of (.1 * -100000) + (.9 * 1000) = -9100

whereas some other branch has a 100% chance of an outcome of 10 points. You take the branch where you get the guaranteed 10 points because even though the best case is on the other branch, the average case on that branch is worse than on the 10 point branch.

And what I'm saying is they decided that their highest average payoff as doing some compromised version of self allowed diy whereas they get a really bad payoff in the case where the diy legislation is written externally and actually forces them to allow reasonable diy

Re: Deere to allow farmers to repair their own equipment

#210

Post by fluoridation »

mindslight wrote: post #195
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we are sort of in agreement, that if John Deer is allowed to encrypt firmware such that the user cannot access it, then we are stuck. I was trying to point out that securing the chip against the owner of the tractor should not be legal - in the same way that taking away a wheel from your tractor would not be allowed -it now your property

We're definitely in agreement for how the world ought to work. My larger point is that this isn't merely a problem created by the government through the legal system - for which statements of "ought" would have straightforward implications of getting rid of the oppressive laws. Rather it seems to be a problem due to informational complexity, and will take positive government action to reign companies in, similar to t…

>On the technical side, the difficult bit is coming up with ways that discern the owner of a computer from a mere possessor of a computer. There are many legitimate cases for protecting against a mere possessor (evil maid, datacenter, theft prevention), to the point that blanket outlawing processors with built in code signing isn't going to happen.

That idea is so easy to abuse (e.g. are you sure you become the owner when you buy a computer?) that IMO there really should be no distinction between owner and possessor. If you have physical access to the device you should be able to do whatever you want with it. Physical security is easy for people to understand, unlike public-key cryptography. I'd much rather have maids steal my encrypted bits due to my carelessness if it means I have full control over my hardware.

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