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We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

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Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#371

Post by c22 »

roel_v wrote: post #96
jimmytucson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't the market handle this? If John Deere is only willing to sell lifetime licenses to operate their vehicles, thus putting the farmer at risk in ways like you described, why do farmers still buy these "licenses"? Naively, they must represent some advantage (despite their shortcomings), otherwise John Deere wouldn't be able to sell these things.

The market handles this just fine, and shows us that in practice, this is not the problem armchair-lawyer nerds are making it out to be. The whole OP is disingenuous - the issue is not who 'owns' the tractor. The issue is with the licence of the software that runs it. That doesn't change anything about the ownership of the tractor. Shoddy reporting, designed to appeal to the prejudices of their audience.

The entire point is that this dichotomy seriously blurs the lines of "ownership" in new and potentially harmful ways.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#372

Post by c22 »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #213
betenoire wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

grew up urban, married a farmer... learned everything I know (not much) about fixing things with spit tape and wire from them. what you say makes sense, but meanwhile Dave is still standing in his field with a useless machine and lots of work to do.

This is exactly the point. If your car is a lemon and always in the shop, at least it's trivial to get a rental, even if you're out of pocket the cash. Any number of car rental companies will drive a car out to your house or the shop where it is. If your tractor is broken down and you need to bale that hay that's been drying in the fields today before the rain comes tomorrow and ruins it, you're screwed unless you ca…

Hopefully the terms of your neighbor's tractor lease don't come with a geofence!

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#373

Post by chc »

arca_vorago wrote: post #363
chc wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm getting tired of explaining why this kind of reasoning is wrong. Specifically, your statement about how "In his world, the creators of things starve." No, for the thousandth time, it's not true at all. > There is nothing standing in the way of content creators selling GPL code, and even keeping it private until its been bought. Full stop. You appear to be arguing that it is not expressly forbidden by the GPL, b…

"I cannot think of any companies that create GPL-licensed software and actually make their money selling that GPL-licensed software." RedHat, Suse, I just got done telling you Samsung, Zentyal, just off the top of my head, tons more if you just did a quick search. Note that sometimes it's bundled with hardware, or it's the support that makes them *the most8 money, but quite often they still make money selling the sof…

I think you know full well that those are not at all what I meant. You can say "they still make money selling the software too," but that's what they call damning with faint praise. I made some money selling my old car, but I don't say I have a car-selling business. Those are hardware companies and service companies, not companies that primarily sell software.

The simple fact is that selling free software has not been shown to be a viable business model. There are businesses that have shown the value of using free software, and businesses that have made good money supporting free software, but creating and selling free software just doesn't appear to be something you can look to for income. And that's what api was talking about when he said "In [Stallman's] world, the creators of things starve."

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#374

Post by c22 »

alexqgb wrote: post #368
c22 wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you may be conflating creation with publishing/marketing. It's possible that many things have been created that do not appear in history books because they were not preserved or advertised by wealth. We live in a world now where self publishing/endorsement is extremely accessible so it's possible that many modern day creations might make their way to the future without explicit dependence on wealth. One thing…

No, I am not "conflating creation with publishing/marketing." I am making the point that creating work of any consequence is a time and cash intensive prospect, and that absent the IP protections that gave artists access to financial support outside the patronage system, the elites of pretty much every civilization since ancient Sumer have used their economic power to sharply control who does and doesn't work, and wh…

If you're maintaining that all creative works made between the stone age and the advent of blues were the sole result of nefarious intervention by the wealthy then I'm afraid I have to disagree. I don't entirely disagree with your other points but since you seem more interested in reasserting your original conjecture and I am responding via tiny touch keyboard, I don't think I'll delve into the nuances of your argument right now.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#375

Post by baddox »

ethbro wrote: post #369
baddox wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The difficulty I see with the current and future legal landscape is that there's no clear distinction between right-to-modify and right-to-distribute. In the context of entering a contract, I don't see either as "rights." If you sign a contract saying that you will pay a certain amount to use a tractor without modifying its internals or distributing copies of its source code, I am fine with a legal system enforcing…

You're fine with the legal system enforcing the contract? Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract? If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law. In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity." If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening…

> Or the legal and technical systems enforcing the contract?

Both.

> If it's only legal, I'd argue that's a slippery slope towards a legal system of convenience and loss of absolute respect for the rule of law.

Well, as you might have guessed by my references to contract law, I'm not a huge fan of statutory law. "Rule of law" is only good if the laws are good.

> In other words "Yes, this action is illegal, but everyone does it anyway by necessity."

If people want to modify their products, then that should be a competitive advantage for firms that offer products with terms allowing modification.

> If it's both, then the technical methods for doing so become frightening pretty fast.

Why?

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#377

Post by scintill76 »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #376
pdx wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why he said "channeling Stallman"

He?

Sigh, I'm all for calling people "she" if they desire, but this feels like a pointless comment. Do you know that the person being referred to (user "jordigh") would prefer to be called something other than "he"? Do you know whether or not the person you're replying to has done the research on which word to use?

If you don't know, you're wasting our time with snarky but baseless "PC" attitude. At least put in a few more keystrokes to actually tell us what you'd like to happen here; if other people agree, maybe it will happen. If you do know something, then tell us what it is, don't expect mind-reading.

Apologies if I've misread your meaning. I expect one-word posts are especially susceptible to that...

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#378

Post by tedks »

walterbell wrote: post #357
tedks wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sort of an easy thing for djb to say, but the truth is that most people are not good at creating things. Most people are barely useful for "work". The average keeps getting higher, but half the population is still and will always be below-average. Maybe in a future utopian society everyone is somehow above average, or there are radically fewer humans that just are really smart, but right now most of the peopl…

The average keeps getting higher and the top-tier improves because of non-incremental creative leaps, achieved by statistical outliers in the new-blood people who create "more content". Large sample sizes are needed to yield the good stuff.

But if you're truly a talented artist or musician, you can always make a living. It doesn't need to be easy and it doesn't need to be possible for everyone to "create content."

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#379

Post by Retra »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #356
api wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Create less and have a real job." Wow. I see lots of this kind of sentiment when I bring this up, but yours deserves credit for being exceptionally honest.

I take issue with this "real job" thing. A "real job" is something you do to get reliable income. More often than not, it implies working for someone else. "Real job" don't have to be interesting, fulfilling, or even productive. If yours is, great, but that is not their main function. Their main function is to get you to pay the bills. Hence my issue with the qualifier: "real". "Real" implies something inherently goo…

It is quite clearly a 'no true Scotsman'-type argument.

Re: We Can’t Let John Deere Destroy the Idea of Ownership

#380

Post by angersock »

chc wrote: post #346
angersock wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the Patreon model, where people can be patrons of an artist whose work they appreciate!

Patreon is tantamount to panhandling. It's not much of a business model.

You know, a lot of the best artists of the Renaissance did pretty well "panhandling".
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