Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

farms.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 270 posts

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#111

Post by throwaway0a5e »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #57
the_biot wrote: post #39

There is a lot of misinformation about this. At face value, articles like this imply you're not able or allowed to fix mechanical issues, how dare they! What they don't mention is that manufacturers protect their electronic gear i.e. the consoles inside the machine that use GPS to run a field, adjust the attachment acccording to various sensors etc. This is very sophisticated stuff, and farmers need and want this fun…

One concern I also never see discussed is that for any type of electro-mechanical system, allowing the customer to change anything or maintain anything is a actually a big liability issue. Let's be clear, it is pretty obvious that the whole tractor-as-a-service paradigm is extremely profitable. However allowing access to diagnostics/config/firmware for anything that controls heavy machinery can be a huge liability. Y…

There is a century of case law from the motor vehicle world that make this a non-issue.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#112

Post by saurik »

hackbinary wrote: post #88

Farmers do not want to pay for anything. My dealings with people in the farming community is that completely devalue everything around as a négociation tactic. They do not want to pay anymore than they have to for anything. In general, I don't work for or with them anymore because of the horrible way I have been treated by them. (bit generalised, but I spend 10 years working in the community) JD is moving to a Tracto…

> JD is moving to a Tractor as a Service model.

Then they should be honest about it and rent the tractors rather than pretending to sell them.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#113

Post by throwaway0a5e »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #90
bserge wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a legal reason why they can't sign a waiver? You are always a misstep away from injury or death working on any heavy equipment. That has always been the case.

I would not trust the legal power of a waiver between two non governmental entities. When the public opinion wants someone to pay, the government will go after whoever can pay. I would want a clear law that prevents the company from being liable.

>I would not trust the legal power of a waiver between two non governmental entities

So you don't trust the courts to enforce a contract? That's basically what a liability waver is, a bog standard contract that amends a prior (often implied by legal convention or state law) contract between the manufacturer and the product owner.

>When the public opinion wants someone to pay, the government will go after whoever can pay

FYI making one or both entities "governmental" doesn't do anything to change this.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#114

Post by dagw »

syshum wrote: post #109
hackbinary wrote: post #88

Farmers do not want to pay for anything. My dealings with people in the farming community is that completely devalue everything around as a négociation tactic. They do not want to pay anymore than they have to for anything. In general, I don't work for or with them anymore because of the horrible way I have been treated by them. (bit generalised, but I spend 10 years working in the community) JD is moving to a Tracto…

>>They do not want to pay anymore than they have to for anything So let me ask you, when you take your car in for service and the mechanic says "that will be $100", do you say "no no I can afford $150 so that is what I am going to pay"? it seems odd to me that you believe only farmers do not want to pay "more than they have to for anything", I am pretty sure that applies to all persons, and all businesses

No, but if I take my car to two mechanics and one quotes me $100 and the other $150, then I might very well go for the one quoting me $150 for many different reasons.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#115

Post by wccrawford »

apples_oranges wrote: post #34
patrickmclaren wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on how this would come to be, in practice?

Well, it's not that hard to imagine, is it? Someone founds a company that produces tractors but they are simpler, cheaper and can be repaired. If that's what customers want, they _will_ gain market share. If not, then the demand isn't there.

Then the next argument would be that John Deere is destroying competition by artificially selling their tractors below cost, making it impossible to compete with them.

Because yeah, that's what you do when you recoup the rest of the cost in the subscription/maintenance.

It's the same model that game consoles use to keep the hardware costs low. They make it up in the game and peripheral licensing fees.

If JD dropped the subscriptions, but instead charged full price for the tractors, people would just scream about the prices instead.

I actually agree that farmers should legally be able to repair their own tractors, or have anyone else do it. But gaining that "right" back wouldn't actually fix their complaints, just shift them.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#116

Post by saurik »

buro9 wrote: post #37

No-one wants to sell hardware any longer, it's not as profitable as providing it on a subscription (dare we say "rent") and forcing all support, maintenance and additions to go through your channels as part of the subscription package. Unfortunately this trend is everywhere now. It happened to servers, media, has started to happen to cars... but it's happened already to agricultural hardware. Super profitable if you…

> No-one wants to sell hardware any longer...

Then they should stop selling hardware and start renting it; but they don't do that, as that signals an honest intention to the customer and I'm pretty sure comes with a bunch of legal restrictions, both obvious and subtle. Instead, they want all the money and lack of liability that comes from selling something outright to someone else, and yet they still somehow want to maintain total control over the device in the field in order to extract revenue over time and, notably, spy on their customers. The result is that these technological locks that side-step the notion of ownership and turn every object you purchase into a sleeper agent for the manufacturer; and, as you note, no one wants to actually sell things anymore as it is going to be more profitable to build in all of these locks, so "voting with your dollars" has become all but impossible unless you either are willing to tolerate not only paying more (which is fine) but getting a shit product (as none of the good manufacturers even bother offering "own your hardware" as an option no matter how much you are willing to pay) or have so much money that you can build an entire company to commission custom hardware. :(

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#117

Post by swiley »

tim333 wrote: post #92
dncornholio wrote: post #33

I mean, if two of the biggest companies of the world, Apple and Tesla can get away with it, why not the rest of the markets? This trend needs to stop. I cannot fathom how anyone thought preventing farmers, FARMERS for crying out loud, the people who grow our goddamn food, from repairing their equipment is way, way beyond me..

Apple's not that bad really. Typed from an 8 year old Apple with replaced battery, ssd and keyboard.

They weren't so bad 8 years ago.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#118

Post by DoingIsLearning »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #111
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One concern I also never see discussed is that for any type of electro-mechanical system, allowing the customer to change anything or maintain anything is a actually a big liability issue. Let's be clear, it is pretty obvious that the whole tractor-as-a-service paradigm is extremely profitable. However allowing access to diagnostics/config/firmware for anything that controls heavy machinery can be a huge liability. Y…

There is a century of case law from the motor vehicle world that make this a non-issue.

The reason that happens with road vehicles is because you actually have diagnostics standard ISO 22901, which enforces at least partially interoperability.

Actual config/ROM changes are still heavily protected by manufacturers and are limited to authorized dealers.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#119

Post by saurik »

salamandersauce wrote: post #89
maxerickson wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRM in these tractors doesn't really depend on any IP laws. There's probably some restriction on reverse engineering it, but for a relatively low volume market with difficult to manufacture hardware parts, there's not going to be all that much interest in overcoming DRM even if there weren't laws.

DMCA. Breaking even the shittiest DRM is illegal. This of course kills incentives to break DRM from the commercial side as nobody can make any money off it without getting sued. Otherwise I imagine some 3rd party part manufacturer would attempt it.

Even if it weren't illegal, we are rapidly entering an era where it won't be practical anyway: I work directly on these issues--participating in the DMCA exemption process every cycle and serving as a witness during the hearings--and the whole process just feels kind of dumb knowing that "sure, so let's say it is legal to jailbreak your tractor: they still have to make a mistake in a world where bootloaders are becoming increasingly reliable" :(.

Re: Farmers Deserve the Right to Repair Their Tractors

#120

Post by sumedh »

petewailes wrote: post #22

Background: grew up in farming communities, live in a farming community, almost everyone around us farms. Repairable tractors would be a huge boon. I wish to anyone listening that Deere, New Holland, Valtra, Fendt and co would produce properly repairable, open heavy hardware. Deere is the worst in this, but the rest of the industry isn't anywhere near as good as it should be. There's a reason you see old Defenders, F…

What about Mahindra tractors, they are pretty big in India and they sell in US as well.
Post reply on HN