Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

That component you refer to was necessary for the safe usage of the vehicle. If it fails, bad things would happen (and they did).

Having control over your tractor does not necessarily kill people. Death is not inherently implied by farmers merely having access.

Apples and oranges. Equating the two is silly.

Most people won't be adding in gotos and if statements, they'll be replacing borken parts and getting their tractors working again.

Those few who actually do end up writing code for it, and those who opt to run it, will do so with the full knowledge that it'll be their asses on the line when something goes wrong.

Either way, my point was that people won't die from access unless they do something really stupid, and death due to stupidity is going to occur regardless of whether the tractor is locked down or not.

If you could explain in reasonable detail a few common scenarios faced by the average farmer with an issue that would necessitate JD engineering expertise, I would very much appreciate it. Specifically, I'd be interested in hearing how the repair work orders that come in to JD engineering most frequently justify the claim that 'locking this down is a very good idea'.

Who, aside from the operator of the machine, is being put in such grave danger? Why am I, someone with no knowledge of combustion engines/cars in general, allowed to do my own work on the car that conceivably endangers thousands of fellow commuters each day, but a farmer driving a tractor (that lets say he's changed the engine timing on) in his own empty fields is somehow a great threat to society?

I would wager that Joe Farmer has a significantly stronger 'fucking clue' how to repair the issues they encounter with their tractors than Joe Developer at John Deere. Mostly because unless they're doing an aggressively poor job on the software (that you're convinced is too complicated for the unwashed masses to wrap their feeble minds around), the farmer shouldn't even need to be aware of its existence.

Additionally, I think you and I both know the vast majority of farmers adversely affected by these business practices are not dealing with 40 ton death machines, but rather the low-end John Deere products that do little more than an equivalent machine from 30 years ago could do. I'd also be interested to hear how ordinary farm machinery necessitates a codebase as complicated as you purport the JD software to be. The problems these machines have to deal with are not difficult, and were largely solved years ago. I can imagine there are some rather complicated hardware engineering efforts involved, but I'm skeptical that the software component would require anything beyond the skills of an enterprising group of skilled undergrads. I realize embedded dev work in safety critical applications is not so easy, but I nevertheless feel like you're dramatically overstating the complexity.

I'm sure the engineers on these projects are veritably concerned with the safety of their customers, and I don't mean to suggest otherwise. Just keep in mind the considerable imbalance of power between JD (and its engineers) and their farmer customers -- particularly in these types of debates.

edit: upon reading my submission, I came off as a bit of a jerk, and for that I apologize. In my defense, before getting into the software industry, I grew up working on a farm, and as a result am a bit reactionary in the face of any sort of "I'm a big bad developer, these guys are glorified lawn mowers who need to be protected from themselves." lines of reasoning.

My bet is that the few deaths that will initially occur, will be due to stupidity, rather than the ability to fix your property.

If people thought like you did, we wouldn't have kitchen knifes.

And the Pro-corporate shills would say "What if he made printer into a ink bomb? we should respect the right of manufacturer to offer printer as a service".

This kind of blind slavery to ideology of blind market instead of intelligent systems to provide the best outcomes in a information era is only setting back innovation.

All software should be free as in freedom of speech at the very least. And I say as automation progresses, and material needs of society can be fulfilled freely, it should also be free as in free beer.

So semi related, been in software for 20 years and contemplated getting a Motec w e-throttle for my (road legal) race car "no f-king way" is my thought process, I've got a race engine management system but no way I'm having anything other than a cable between me and the throttle body. I love software, I love engineering, I love what an e-throttle can do for traction control. But there will always be bugs with software ...I'd trust a road car with massive engineering teams, I struggle with the thought of a smaller team and how it could possibly go wrong. I personally get where he's coming from ... I can't imagine single engineers being able to test and have foresight on the umpteen permutations of "what-if"