Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
1–10 of 359 posts
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#2I don't like the idea that we have to pass laws to force companies to make a better product. Why can't a company take the initiative and grab all the customers who value this?
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#3I don't like the idea that we have to pass laws to force companies to make a better product. Why can't a company take the initiative and grab all the customers who value this?
Barriers to entry + capital costs.
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#4The motherboard/vice article NPR is blatantly ripping off here is much better in my opinion.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/why-american-farm...
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#5I don't like the idea that we have to pass laws to force companies to make a better product. Why can't a company take the initiative and grab all the customers who value this?
Liability laws are in dire need in the software industry. Security for instance would not be such an abysmal disaster if companies were held liable for the insecure garbage they are pumping out.
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#6"farmers could damage the machines, like bypassing pollution emissions controls to get more horsepower."
Isn't this the problem with warranties? People could try to mod it, end up damaging it and try to get it replaced with warranties.
I also don't fully understand this software. Is it just completely vendor locked? That sounds really unreasonable. It should allow for at least basic debugging and trouble shooting.
Is this software locking only in large $100k + harvester type equipment? Does the vendor have other reasonable explanation of doing this?
I wonder if the software designer for this equipments would have reasonable arguments for such locks or if this is just profit driven decision.
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#7I don't like the idea that we have to pass laws to force companies to make a better product. Why can't a company take the initiative and grab all the customers who value this?
> 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.
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#8I don't like the idea that we have to pass laws to force companies to make a better product. Why can't a company take the initiative and grab all the customers who value this?
There is a fair amount of competition in this space. Around me, I see a lot of Kubota, New Holland, etc. Not too many John Deeres actually.
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#9There's going to be a huge market in used pre-DRM heavy machinery. The purely mechanical/hydraulic versions of this stuff is virtually indestructible, with a little maintenance.
Re: Farmers look for ways to circumvent tractor software locks
#10Previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994 (177 comments)