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Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

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Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#81

Post by wazanator »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #46
TylerE wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will just lead to the Chinesium-ization of all things. No real innovation will occur...just churning out commodity designs in the Far East.

You're making a prediction without stating your reasoning. What makes you think this?

The example I would point to is the one involving American Superconductor and Sinovel [1][2]

American Superconductor was working with Sinovel on wind turbines. They made the software and Sinovel made the physical product. Sinovel decided they wanted to cut out American Superconductor so they paid an employee $1.7 million to leak to them the source code. After which they cut them off. To add insult to injury Sinovel then sold these wind turbines back to the state where American Superconductor is located.

Sinovel did not even attempt to change the software which is actually how they first got caught. They were inspecting a wind turbine and realized it was running an unreleased version of their software.

There was even an incident last year of an idea for a new selfie stick getting stolen before they even were done with their kickstarter campaign.[3]

In both cases the original creators who did innovate and put time into designing something got cut out. Is that fair?

[1]http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-great-brain-robbery-c... [2]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/business/energy-environmen... [3]https://qz.com/771727/chinas-factories-in-shenzhen-can-copy-...

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#82

Post by csydas »

Cyph0n wrote: post #52
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this constantly but it doesn't ring true to me. Look at the 3D printer inventors from the 1980's who rested on their laurels selling $30,000 3D printers until their patents expired and the open source community started producing them for under $1000. Ten years after the patents expired, you can get a 3D printer for $199 that genuinely rivals the quality of a $30,000 printer just 10 years ago. There are all man…

But would the innovation that led to the creation of 3D printers have taken place if patent law didn't exist? And since the open source movement is based entirely on those patents (as I understand), would cheap 3D printers exist if the 1980s tech was never developed? I think these are the questions you should be thinking about when arguing against IP protection laws. Edit : One thing you failed to mention is that the…

Well you don't even need to look just at commercially available products - just look at the FOSS landscape for what gets produced when there is no financial incentive or IP law to protect the material - certainly we would be in a much different place technology wise if we didn't have FOSS as the backbone for a grand majority of technology that exist on the market today, and all of that FOSS was created without the financial incentive or the IP law to protect it.

The existing IP structure can be a useful tool and motivator for people, but it also adds in an extra requirement to all software it touches, whether the designers and coders are conscious of it or not - suddenly, there is a requirement that it make profit on top of what it actually is supposed to do. There's nothing wrong with making money - I'm not here to make a Stallmanistic rant about F/OSS. But this type of structure isn't necessary for great leaps in technology. In the past it was useful because that's how access to the development funds were locked up - you had to play under someone else's banner and their rules to bring you idea to the forefront. Software was different because you didn't need a factory to produce it, and while you still need the factory, you don't need any one particular factory anymore to do the production.

Innovation can and does happen just fine without patent laws or financial incentive.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#83

Post by ekianjo »

tmnvix wrote: post #62
ebbv wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same thought. It's such a niche issue and really it's incredibly standard for any kind of business hardware, which is what tractors are. Also nobody's being forced to buy new tractors, there's tons of old tractors still out and running and working every day. So why do these articles appear with such regularity? (To be clear I think that all software should be open source and vendors should charge for sup…

> Also nobody's being forced to buy new tractors, there's tons of old tractors still out and running and working every day. There are also fewer every day.

You'd be surprised how long old, robust vehicles live for. I don't have any clear data for tractors, but older trucks that can be repaired with minimum tooling get used and re-used in places in Africa, almost to no end.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#84

Post by swanson »

It seems so unbelievable to me that there are enough people that are a) John Deere equipment owners/renters and b) capable of debugging and patching issues in a C++ codebase for these stories to keep appearing.

Debates on the virtues of open source aside, is this actually the solution? Or is it a symptom of, say, poor quality software releases? or service visits that are too costly? or overloaded dealers who can't handle harvest-time support loads? I just don't believe that allowing people to tinker with the software is going to be the magic answer that these folks seem to think it is.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#85

Post by Sytten »

My dad is a farmer and I can assure you that this is a real problem. Every piece of equipment now as its own proprietary, closed-source and, most of the time, incompatible software. Plus, many of them don't get any update after the product launch. When you are in rush to plant or harvest you just can`t afford to wait for an authorized dealer. And if they fail, good luck trying to find a replacement that is not 100x overpriced because it has been discontinued one year after you bought it. I tried repairing a GPS system once and it required a special serial cable + software which costed more than 100$ just to update the driver...

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#86

Post by dsmithatx »

andrewchambers wrote: post #33
digitalzombie wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can't a company take the initiative and grab all the customers who value this? You make it sounds so easy to start a tractor company.

I didn't say start one, there are lots of existing companies, perhaps someone with a lower market share could try it.

They don't have the capital and market share to innovate the way the current monopoly (Deere) has. As long as our government is ran by lobbyist awarding the rich, competition will remain a myth.

Your comment reads like someone who believes there is a free market. I don't think most Americans realize lobbyist are the opposition and their sole purpose is to ensure a free market does not exist in their respective industry.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#87

Post by TeMPOraL »

bitwize wrote: post #57
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Companies like Microsoft would vanish" Heaven forbid! :-D I go around telling people what I think of copyright all the time, and this argument is one that I hear a lot. But I don't buy it. The body of open source content available today is proof that your argument is at the very least incomplete. Plenty of people do give their time away for free to make better things available to people without monetary benefit. A k…

Try making friends with a musician. Make sure they're a local act or play in a local band. Often they have mouths to feed and mortgages to pay, and would love to do so with their art but can't because the economics don't support it. Almost invariably, they talk about how it used to be better, back when people bought physical phonograph albums; among the musicians I know the politics are uniform: strong copyright help…

From what I read, it wasn't that much better in the past - record labels were the gatekeepers and ate most of the profits.

But frankly, and with no offense to musicians out here, nobody is entitled to their business model working. Some things can make sustainable living, some can't. Turning otherwise infeasible business models into working ones with regulation is something that should be done with care, and should be done to benefit society, not individuals.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#88

Post by userbinator »

Every time I read or hear about new developments in creating safer/more secure software, I am reminded of scenarios like this. Companies could use formally verified crypto and such to provably and completely lock out users by destroying all means of circumvention. In that sense, I think these secure technologies are like nuclear weapons --- extremely powerful, too powerful. Society in general seems to rely on some insecurity to maintain its freedom; so I believe anyone who advocates for more secure systems should also carefully consider all the negative effects which will appear if their vision comes true, and whether they are, however indirectly, locking themselves out.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#89

Post by chii »

cc439 wrote: post #71
R_haterade wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm it's usually proprietary and locked. An old roommate is employed by an implement manufacturer--his sole job is traveling the western united states, making housecalls to upload newer versions of control software to equipment. They absolutely DO NOT trust the owners to do it themselves. This has pretty frightening implications for the state of consumer goods, if industrial goods are already going this direc…

"This has pretty frightening implications for the state of consumer goods, if industrial goods are already going this direction." This scenario has played out thousands of times in the manufacturing/industrial sector over the past 30 years. The end result is that the vendor trying to lock their customers in to a service contract loses out to whoever makes a remotely comparable product that isn't locked in within a de…

Except the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

The issue is that any open version of a product has to compete in such a way that matches the buy cycle of the product. I don't imagine farmers buy new combines every year! These things has to work for decades! Ditto with a lot of idustrial machinery.

Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks

#90

Post by userbinator »

swanson wrote: post #84

It seems so unbelievable to me that there are enough people that are a) John Deere equipment owners/renters and b) capable of debugging and patching issues in a C++ codebase for these stories to keep appearing. Debates on the virtues of open source aside, is this actually the solution? Or is it a symptom of, say, poor quality software releases? or service visits that are too costly? or overloaded dealers who can't ha…

You underestimate the resourcefulness of farmers and the tenacity of reverse-engineers. To those who do it, I bet this is a lot more fun than cracking simple licensing protections on a software.
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