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Did John Deere Just Swindle California's Farmers Out of Their Right to Repair? (wired.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a new Wired opinion piece by Kyle Wiens and Elizabeth Chamberlain from iFixit:
A big California farmers' lobbying group just blithely signed away farmers' right to access or modify the source code of any farm equipment software. As an organization representing 2.5 million California agriculture jobs, the California Farm Bureau gave up the right to purchase repair parts without going through a dealer. Farmers can't change engine settings, can't retrofit old equipment with new features, and can't modify their tractors to meet new environmental standards on their own. Worse, the lobbyists are calling it a victory.... John Deere and friends had already made every single "concession" earlier this year...
Just after the California bill was introduced, the farm equipment manufacturers started circulating a flyer titled "Manufacturers and Dealers Support Commonsense Repair Solutions." In that document, they promised to provide manuals, guides, and other information by model year 2021. But the flyer insisted upon a distinction between a right to repair a vehicle and a right to modify software, a distinction that gets murky when software controls all of a tractor's operations. As Jason Koebler of Motherboard reported, that flyer is strikingly similar -- in some cases, identical word-for-word -- to the agreement the Farm Bureau just brokered...
Instead of presenting a unified right-to-repair front, this milquetoast agreement muddies the conversation. More worryingly, it could cement a cultural precedent for electronics manufacturers who want to block third-party repair technicians from accessing a device's software.
Just after the California bill was introduced, the farm equipment manufacturers started circulating a flyer titled "Manufacturers and Dealers Support Commonsense Repair Solutions." In that document, they promised to provide manuals, guides, and other information by model year 2021. But the flyer insisted upon a distinction between a right to repair a vehicle and a right to modify software, a distinction that gets murky when software controls all of a tractor's operations. As Jason Koebler of Motherboard reported, that flyer is strikingly similar -- in some cases, identical word-for-word -- to the agreement the Farm Bureau just brokered...
Instead of presenting a unified right-to-repair front, this milquetoast agreement muddies the conversation. More worryingly, it could cement a cultural precedent for electronics manufacturers who want to block third-party repair technicians from accessing a device's software.
A big California farmers' lobbying group just blithely signed away farmers' right to access or modify the source code of any farm equipment software.
No swindle at all. Straight out agreement by the farmers' lobbying group.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No. Sounds like their own lobbying group did.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Believe me, if Case or any other competitors thought that farmers would actually be willing to pay higher prices for equipment without the restrictions on right to repair, they would have already jumped on it on long time ago. The reality is that making "open source" equipment means less guaranteed revenue after you sell that equipment, which means you have to sell it at a higher upfront cost. And the harsh reality is that farmers, for all their blustering, are unwilling to pay that upfront cost. If they were, you can bet that Case and many others would already be offering that easy-to-repair equipment and making a killing over Deere.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
to capitulate. Did they buy off a bunch of them? Sounds like it. I can't imagine why else a lobbying group for farmers would do the exact opposite of what their constituents want.
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It's not like buying something like oil. It's capital investment and it affect the stuff you've already bought.
This is Deere turning an occasional choice about which farmers do have choice into regular payments for which they won't have choice.
This all reminds me of something Gandhi once said. A reporter asked him what he thought of Western Civilization, and he replied that he thought it would be a good idea. Capitalism only works because of competition, but companies do everything they can to avoid actually competing, for example making it hard to compare their products to other vendors (boy to vendors hate being in "commodity" businesses), or in this case by trying to make it difficult for customers to choose competitors for some transactions.
And if it's legal to evade competiing, why not? The fact that this undermines the justification for capitalism isn't your problem. This is a situation where you need regulation to ensure a free market can operate the way its' suppose to.
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Like anyone on Slashdot gives a shit about California farmers.
You're right, few here care about the farmers but we do care about the status of Right To Repair legislation. It should be obvious that this kind of legislation is applicable to DRM and service schemes everywhere to keep tech savvy people (like slashdotters) out. You may be surprised to hear it but tons of stuff (like your car, various smart devices, etc) are all "you don't really own it" things.
That said, I do have a friend (via IRC) that is a tech savvy farmer (in Iowa) and I would like him to hack and repair his tractors to his heart's content.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Capitalism only works because of competition, but companies do everything they can to avoid actually competing ...
Good observation. I like to say that there is absolutely one thing that you can always count on a corporate entity to do: protect an established revenue stream.
A corporation does not have morals or loyalty even though many of them do their best to create the illusion. They will lie about science, bribe governments, destroy competitors if they can get away with it and often, if they have the short-term mindset and think they can get away with it, wring out their customer base like a dirty washrag. That last seems to be what is happening here.
Obviously, that's stupid. The barriers-to-entry are too high in a market this mature. But then, you knew that.
There is *nothing* un-capitalist about government regulation, so long as it is the right kind of regulation. Legislation that mandates that these software solutions be open and available for third-party modification is exactly the right kind of regulation that help keeps a market competitive.