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Farmer Lobbying Group Sells Out Farmers, Helps Enshrine John Deere's Tractor Repair Monopoly (vice.com)
Jason Koebler writes: The California Farm Bureau, a group that lobbies on behalf of farmers, reached a "right to repair" agreement with the Equipment Dealers Association (which represents John Deere and other manufacturers) last week. But the specifics of the agreement were written by the manufacturers, and falls far short of providing the types of change that would be needed to make repairing tractors easier. In fact, the agreement makes the same concessions that the Equipment Dealers Association announced in February it would voluntarily give to all farmers. The agreement will not allow farmers to buy repair parts, break firmware DRM, or otherwise alter software for the purposes of repair.
I thought right to repair laws were interesting to Slashdot?
For many large farms, their farming equipment is far more advanced and cutting edge, then most silicon valley firms.
If you really want to play with the high tech stuff go into farming.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Okay, I get that farmers should be able to repair their own equipment (if they actually own it, not leased) using 3rd party parts and mechanics. But Deere absolutely SHOULD NOT be forced to sell parts to someone if they don't want to. They are a private company, and as such, they get to choose the customers they serve and sell their shit to--period.
The problem is that in order for an official repair to take place, famers have to truck the equipment to the nearest repair center ($$$ and time to arrange a truck), have the repair done by authorized techs ($$$$$), and then truck it back ($$$ and more time to arrange a truck). Not only does that waste a lot of time for the farmer (and potential cause crop loss due to the wasted time), it is quite expensive, especially if the equipment needs to be brought to the shop multiple times.
Most farmers are pretty handy and can do their own equipment repairs, and don't need to spend all these gobs of money on trucking the equipment and paying someone else to repair. All they need is the manuals & schematics to help troubleshoot, the diagnostic equipment that connects to the onboard computer, and the necessary replacement parts, and most can do an on-site repair in a fraction of the time and cost.
JD on the other hand, doesn't want to give out the paperwork, doesn't want to release the diagnostic tools to private owners, and doesn't want to sell parts to private owners.
Basically, the whole argument comes down to money. Farmers want to be able to perform cost effective repairs on equipment that they *own*. JD wants to make money off repairs and wants to prevent owners from doing their own repairs since they won't make much money from repairs that way.
The divergence from Libertarianism is when they prevented reverse-engineering of the DRM. In a truly free market, John Deere is free to try and lock in as much as possible, and third parties are free to try and break that lock and undercut them.
And how did tractors get this special right, I'm sure game console manufacturers would love to be able to legally lock out the third party controller market...
Common law requires that a contract have considerations for it to be valid. Essentially a consideration is that there is an exchange between two parties, it can be money, a promise, or goods. A judge can decide if an exchange is valid, and legal code often clarifies these for certain areas of interest. It's a centuries old principle that still generally applies today in simple contracts.
There are six basic requirements in a legally enforceable contract:
An offer.
An acceptance.
Competent parties who have the legal capacity to contract - so no baby contracts.
Lawful subject matter - so no contracts to murder, or fence stolen goods, or indentured servitude.
Mutuality of obligation - basically both parties must be in agreement at the same time of the terms. if one party is mislead or terms of fraudulently represented then the contract may be invalid.
Consideration - money, promise, or even agreement not to sue in the future. An illusionary promise doesn't count, and may make a contract invalid.
Additionally most business contracts in the US, like the one in this John Deere case, are governed by the UCC (Uniform Commercial Code). Mainly UCC is for a sale of goods, and anything that doesn't fit into the narrow definition of UCC is a common law contract instead.
Also, estoppel may prevent John Deere from terminating support if the courts determine that efforts by farmers to repair equipment do not put them in violation of the terms of the agreement. This is the most likely outcome of this case, and we aren't likely to see some new "right to repair" cut from whole cloth.
lol, you obviously haven't compared tractor prices in a while. The reason they stick with John Deere is the high tech pieces can all communicate with each other. Do some research on precision farming, where the everything talks to each other (tractor/planter/sprayer/combine). When the tech has problems, or when a a particular techie farmer wants to do something different it is a pain in the ass. When it works they get increased yield for less expenditures.
Now I know a few who are keeping "an old" tractor in the shed in case they have electronics problems they have something to use for the couple days until it gets fixed. The big farmers don't care because they have multiple units. The guys who really get burned are the little farmers with a mid range $100k tractor that can't afford a backup....but honestly, they are being driven out of business by a lot more things than downtime from computer failures on a tractor.
John Deere isn't the only option, but Case IH and New Holland are really the only other two that are in the same league for broad equipment. Sure you could get a Claas or Gleaner combine if you have a specific need like long crops or higher moisture but you won't have a planter by either of them.
The (power takeoffs/accessory wiring) are like lens mountings for cameras.
They get locked into ecosystems.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'