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Elizabeth Warren Calls For a National Right-to-Repair Law for Tractors (vice.com)
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren has become the highest profile politician to support right to repair legislation in the United States. From a report: On Wednesday, Warren outlined a sweeping plan to support family farms and diminish the power of corporate agriculture. At the top of the list, she supports a national right-to-repair law for tractors and other agricultural equipment. That means she supports the simple idea that people who own a tractor should be able to repair it without permission from John Deere or any other manufacturer. "Farmers should be able to repair their own equipment or choose between multiple repair shops," Warren said in a Medium post outlining her proposal. "That's why I strongly support a national right-to-repair law that empowers farmers to repair their equipment without going to an authorized agent." For now, Warren's proposal would apply only to farm equipment, not consumer electronics.
[...] Farmers operating John Deere tractors have been fighting against John Deere's repair monopoly for years. Device manufacturers don't want people repairing their own stuff and they've taken pains to make it difficult to do so. Newer John Deere equipment comes loaded with software and firmware that make it impossible for farmers to fix their own equipment. Instead, they have to call an authorized dealer and wait for them to show up -- a fix that's too slow and too costly for a farmer. "The national right-to-repair law should require manufacturers of farm equipment to make diagnostic tools, manuals, and other repair-related resources available to any individual or business, not just their own dealerships and authorized agents," Warren said. "This will not only allow individuals to fix their own equipment -- reducing delays -- but it will also create competition among dealers and independent repair shops, bringing down prices overall." Further reading: Grandson of Legendary John Deere Inventor Calls Out Company On Right To Repair.
[...] Farmers operating John Deere tractors have been fighting against John Deere's repair monopoly for years. Device manufacturers don't want people repairing their own stuff and they've taken pains to make it difficult to do so. Newer John Deere equipment comes loaded with software and firmware that make it impossible for farmers to fix their own equipment. Instead, they have to call an authorized dealer and wait for them to show up -- a fix that's too slow and too costly for a farmer. "The national right-to-repair law should require manufacturers of farm equipment to make diagnostic tools, manuals, and other repair-related resources available to any individual or business, not just their own dealerships and authorized agents," Warren said. "This will not only allow individuals to fix their own equipment -- reducing delays -- but it will also create competition among dealers and independent repair shops, bringing down prices overall." Further reading: Grandson of Legendary John Deere Inventor Calls Out Company On Right To Repair.
What with the amount of BS she produces, you'd need quite a few tractors in good working condition to clean up after her.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
lol
I don't think technological progress should be slowed down by right to repair laws. Instead, what would be nice are full blown service manuals that detail how to dismantle, how to probe, a BOM, and so on.
If there was an obligation to make that material easily (though not necessarily freely) available, I think that's all we'd need.
Those who know what they are doing can start their own repair business, or repair items themselves, and those that don't know what they are doing can go to a repair shop.
I mean, this is how life was like at one point. *shrug*
Why the narrow thinking? This is a good idea for many more classes of items.
So the farm lobby has greased her palm but what about the rest of us?
I'd like to be able to own things also. You know out of box admin access to my phone without jailbreaking. I'd like to be able to tell game consoles to do what I want them to do rather than what Sony, MS want them to do.
If I buy a TV I do not want someone else making money off my property by having it show me pop up ads by default.
The real root of this problem is the government's protection of corporations via IP laws.
If IP laws didn't exist, John Deere and anybody else would have no leverage with which to prevent their products from being repaired/altered by a customer or other business.
But of course, like any politician, Warren isn't addressing the root cause.
She just wants to levy another patchwork of thousands of pages of laws and regulations and pretend that fixes the problem when in actuality it'll have a myriad of second and third order effects on the economy in various foreseeable and unforeseeable ways.
Darn it!
Now this very practical bit of needed legislation will become politicized. Republicans will oppose it as a knee jerk reaction and Trump will create an agency or executive order banning all aftermarket repairs.
This is not an anti Republican post. Both sides do this with every thing. As an independent I'm thoroughly sick of it.
Forget tractors!
There needs to be a right to repair Politicians!
Someone please shoot her already.
She will probably forget about all these ideas fast, should she get elected.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
....that she's at least 1/1024 farmer.
-Styopa
First they teach us to plant corn, now they want to help us keep our tractors running to harvest corn efficiently. Such a great and giving people.
Bought a Long Tractor because they were cheap and it was the same one the state of Virginia was using. When it inevitably broke down, he just plain couldn't get the parts to fix it, so it just sat out in the yard for several years, immovable. Not sure if he ever got rid of it.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't like Warren for Pres but alongside Sanders as his VP candidate she'd be excellent.
For Pres she has too much focus on women's issues and has taken irrational positions falling in with female groupthink. But as long as the subject of women doesn't come up she is actually pretty solid. Since Sanders lost some of her positions have led me to worry she has been folded into the party.
She is one of the few congress critters that has actually worked to help real people and protect consumers from banks. That goes perfectly alongside Sanders, the only longstanding Senator with a track record of integrity. Sanders has supported the right things for the right reasons. Even where you disagree with the lean of his politics you have to admit, if you were going to give try to make those solutions work his approach is closer to what it looks like. These half-assed water down compromises have neither the efficiency and cost savings of central control nor allow a free market with healthy competition resulting in bloated and monopolized anti-consumer markets.
"So the farm lobby has greased her palm"
Doubt it. Most farming in the US is done by big multinationals, and they couldn't care less about tractor repair.
Just kidding. Sen. Warren's too smart to go sit on a tractor (I hope).
"Obamacare" = the ACA, passed by Republicans, edited by Republicans, invented and successfully implemented by Mitt Romney = ROMNEYCARE = REPUBLICANCARE, for all anyone cares about the name.
Face it, you're just too retarded to understand or have a grown-up adult discussion about the realities of health care, like the fact that sick people also need it.
You're just a child. How's that Brexit working out, comrade?
This is the guy who had $400k when he ran for president and the week after losing the primary bought a beach house for $600k cash?
The same guys who's wife is being investigated for massive theft at the college she ran?
Sanders just figured out he liked the beach house and needs more campaign money in his pocket. That is why he is running again. He learned from AOC how to pocket it illegally and not be charged.
lols, Sanders has integrity.
Why doesn't she put forth legislation to that effect? If she waits till elected President, she'll have to convince someone in either chamber of Congress to put the bill forward.
She's not helpless, she needs to step up.
Ken
So we couldn't just let the free market and consumer choice fix the problem, because that would be supporting EVIL capitalism which is responsible for America's standard of living and affluence. Bad bad stuff. I mean John Deere is like one of a thousand tractor manufacturers. This sounds like more of a consumer advocacy education cause rather than the need for more REGULATIONS. Buy a different brand.
Faith: Belief in Truth. Superstition: Belief in Falsehood.
Serious question, what is it that farmers cant do? From this "wired" article,
https://www.wired.com/story/jo...
- No resetting immobilizer systems.
- No reprogramming electronic control units or engine control modules.
- No changing equipment or engine settings that might negatively affect emissions or safety.
- No downloading or accessing the source code of any proprietary embedded software.
Which doesn't sound out of line. That article then goes on to say:
"These restrictions are enormous. If car mechanics couldn’t reprogram car computers, a good portion of modern repairs just wouldn’t be possible. When you hire a mechanic to fix the air-conditioning in a Civic, they may have to reprogram the electronic control unit."
I was a mechanic for years and this is complete nonsense. No typical repair shop reprograms ECU's.
Even if you could it would probably violate the warranty.
I cannot stand EW. I think she is a horrible, opportunistic politician (I know I repeat myself) - but I agree with this - and hope she pushed all the past Farm Machines and make it for everyone...
if modern tractors are anything like modern cars they are full of computers. Modern cars require really expensive computer diagnostic equipment that makes it impractical to repair them on your own. What her proposal might do though is open it up to 3rd party repair shops that could do it a lot cheaper than the dealer would.
Story that says differently. AOC stole $1 million out of her campaign and pocketed it for personal use, hasn't been charged.
We all know if you are a DNC supporter, you can break the laws and not be charged. Thanks Somollett! So there you go, AOC did it illegally, not charged. It appears Sanders did it also, not charged. His wife also broke laws and stole money and I don't remember her being charge either. What a coincidence!
It's probably reasonable for a 3rd party service shop to be able to reflash a component to a known good factory-provided image.
Your point stands, though. These right-to-repair laws need to be written sensibly. There are all sorts of dangerous scenarios if someone is allowed to freely poke around in firmware. And it is perfectly reasonable to insist on some level of training and certification for servicing certain sensitive parts.
The baseline standard should be that a sufficiently trained & certified 3rd party shop should be able to perform the same sorts of common repairs that your own internal service personnel are trained to perform.
The tricky thing to legislate around is security. What if a product has a good reason to implement lockouts for non-standard code or components? The motivation could at least plausibly be for security or safety reasons.
Donald Trump dies in prison for his lifetime of fraud either way, good point.
Any politics involving tractors always reminds me of British PM John Major's bizarre "Get Your Tractors Off Our Lawn" speech and makes me smile.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I like Bernie more because while Warren gets more done she, like a lot of Democrats, is a bit too defeatist. Democrats give up too easy, even when a position is 70-90% popular. Warren's already backed off Medicare for All into a public option. Now, I know what she's up to (a properly implemented public option would quickly out-compete private, for profit insurance programs) but the trouble is the other side isn't negotiating in good faith, and will use cyclic political changes to undermine the law. They did it with Obamacare, where a popular law is currently on the chopping block because it's been systematically undermined.
I want Warren and the whole of the Dems to stop reaching across the isle. Everytime they do the GOP moves a little further right to escape their grasp. That's how we got Trump, and that's how we got to the point where we're talking about turning Social Security into a Welfare Program.
Back in the 90s Newt Gingrich and the GOP came up with "A Contract for America" which when you stripped away the niceties was a plan to block everything the other side did no matter what while advancing the most radical ideas of their party. It completely revitalized the GOP. The Dems need something like that. They need to draw a line in the sand and say "This is who we are, and this is what's right. This is what we're doing". On the plus side most of their positions (Medicare for All, $15/minimum wage, Tuition Free college, childcare, paid family medical leave, public works and infrastructure programs, etc, etc) are overwhelmingly popular.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
He brought the Green New Deal up for a vote.... and the vote to limit the national emergency powers of the President.
Don't remove the restraining bolt or those droids will run off into the hills. There will be no end to the trouble.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
republicans save america, democrat party only wants to tare it down!
The reality is farmers own their machines less and less. Outside of simple tractors they are too complex and too expensive. Combines today are processing plants on wheels. Pass this and they will just stop selling altogether and only lease.
You want things opened up give manufacturers immunity from liability. Manufacturers don't care about few hundred dollars in service work. The dealer gets most of that anyway. They care about a multi-million dollar lawsuit because some idiot bypassed the safety lock and ground himself into kibble. Jurys don't care about who's really at fault. they just see a poor farmer and a billion dollar company.
The fact is these companies can be fined and sued for things they allow others to do with their product.
Just make an DMCA exemptions so hosting leaked software for repair / restore images is 100% legal.
Why the f--- do we no longer have the right to repair something we bought?
What nation wide law was passed that took that right away?
What's next, bread that we aren't allowed to slice?
No brain, no pain.
Instead, just make it so if a company requires repairs be done through themselves or their authorized dealer chain, then the repairs are free. i.e. If the company wants to insist on exclusivity of repairs for 10 years, then their product basically has to have a 10 year warranty. If they want to insist on exclusivity forever, then the product is warranted forever.
The advantage is that a right to repair law can be challenged on the grounds that it's violating the manufacturer's right to offer its products for sale in whatever fashion it sees fit. If you do it my way, companies can still do what John Deere does with tractors, or Epson does with chipped printer cartridges, or Apple does with iPhones. But if they elect to do it that way, then the purchase essentially becomes a lease - the lessee gets use of the product, but the lessor is responsible for the maintenance and repair costs (not always obvious, but if your leased car breaks down and is too expensive to repair, you can just walk away from the lease and leave the car company to eat the loss on their broken product, not you). And the legal framework for leases is very well established so is unlikely to be overturned by a court challenge.
Basically, don't set up a confrontation between the buyer's right to repair and the seller's right to design a product as they see fit. Instead, channel products which come without restrictions on the owner into purchases, while products where the manufacturer retains control over after possession is transferred to the "buyer" become leases.
You can design anything you like but you can't necessarily sell it. Specifically products have to comply with the FCC and UL just a name a couple groups of regulations.
An anti-obsolescence law against waste would be very American. And it would strengthen the security of the country. Products do need minimum standards.
She doesn't actually want right to repair. She just wants votes from the people who put Trump in office. She doesn't mean it, because liberals never mean it.
When they get to mobility scooters let me know. They now work just like tractors and cars and need a proprietary programmer that STILL locks out half the settings after you pay $750 for a $50 controller :( The answer to resetting the very low top speed was buy a new $400 controller module! The only person we knew in the business that could override that has died :(
Only $486 to change the speed of your $1000 chair. How could any one object to wonderful deal like that?
Good luck trying to get separate facilities for transtractors, though I admit I didn't RTFA.
The business of major capital equipment is in the repair and maintenance. This is because the systems need to be complex to gain the benefits and features of modern technology, but because they are so complex they cost to much to manufacture, but the volume is not so high that it's difficult to get an economy of scale. On top of that, if you make one purchase, that's a single point of revenue to maintain a business that has labor that must be paid consistently. As such, without the repair contract, the companies would have to price the systems with margins so high so they could make their payrolls on a regular basis that no small business could afford one.
Basically if you're an equipment manufacturer, you have two options: build in planned obsolescence and force your customers to upgrade when they don't want to, or maintain a system for the long haul on a locked-in, guaranteed contract but ensure it works for decades. This true of aircraft engines, diesel engines, nuclear power plants, etc. If they sold tractors at a cost plus some margin, no small family farm could afford one and you'd be left with only the big farms iwth the financial resources to afford them.
Fox News, the ONLY major news outlet that didn't have weekly bombshells with "proof" that Trump was going to be impeached by Muller by the end of the week. The ONLY news outlet that seems to research stories and attempt to fact check things.
Yes I did.
Sorry you are so fucking stupid that you don't realize whatever news outlet you use has outright lied to you for two years and I guess you still believe them.
at least you moved beyond traitor. Good job. There ishope for you yet.
See subject FAKE NAME FUCK - because that IS all YOU are fucker - don't like that? Too bad you do-NOTHING worthless little fuck.
* :)
(I've just described YOU perfectly & you KNOW it, BOY!)
APK
P.S.=> No balls bitch you are... apk
Companies don't want to get hauled off to EPA-prison for some customer's action, right or wrong. The emissions rules have gotten out of hand and there are no legal protections in place for businesses. Same thing with commercial trucks and passenger vehicles.
LOL.. You guys slay me.. They cannot find a shred of evidence on the man on the most serious of charges after blathering about it for 2 years claiming it was all but proven and you still believe them when they say nasty things about Trump? What's that saying, Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice.... Shame on you.
Broken clock. Right at the moment, but for all the wrong reasons, and it keeps going cuckloo cluckoo.
they have to call an authorized dealer and wait for them to show up -- a fix that's too slow and too costly for a farmer.
Why do they insist on buying John Deere tractors then? Isn't this where the invisible hand of the free market makes consumers prefer tractors that CAN be repaired on site by anyone, and where John Deere goes out of business because it can't sell tractors any more? I'm sure Ford or Massey or Tracto Universal or any of a hundred other tractor manufacturers wouldn't mind the extra business. There's something fishy here if a law is required.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Farmer Bill: Hey, John Deere, my tractor broke down. I need it fixed ASAP as the window for planting in Spring 2019 is closing.
John Deere: Sure, Bill, no problem. We'll get your tractor fixed at no charge - in time for the 2020 planting season.
Farmer Bill: I can't wait that long! If I can't plant my crop in time I'll lose my farm.
John Deere: We're happy to help. If you fork over $25,000 we'll get it fixed by Easter. $65,000 for expedited service if you want it by the weekend. Have a nice day!
So how to you craft a law that fixes this?
Perhaps the first thing to do is to prevent using IP laws (especially DMCA) to impede repair. (Provide an exemption to IP rules for something you own. Make it clear that if it smells like you bought it, but a license says you don't, then the exemption still works.)
Require the enablement after repair to be available with menus on the equipment available from information in the owner's manual. Provide EPA guidance to allow this when the repair deals with environmental safeguards. Provide liability limits for the manufacturer when the repair deals with safety guards. (In other words, eliminate excuses for the manufacturer not to do this.)
Require the manufacturer to make available to the customer what is available to their dealer's repair shop at a reasonable price.
Require some sort or disclosure on how locked into the s/w the information needed to repair is before purchase. (A repair friendly indicator, like an epa milage indicator)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btEpF334Rtc
As much as I dislike the woman, her Pocohontas bullshit and most of her policy stances.
As much as I wish the market would fix itself on this. It ain't gonna happen.
As such, I'm all for a right-to-repair. I mean, we're not talking about a cheap.
We;re not talking about a $300 lawmower here.
We're talking about actual farm equipment. Where each individual vehicle is worth HUNDREDS of thosuands of dollars.
And they've been engineered in such a way that if something small breaks, the entire damn vehicle is USELESS.
And the only to fix some of these things is to pay a vendor certified mechanic and WAIT for him to come out. Or try to ship the thing to him and hope it comes back in a timely manner!
And it's not like an 80 year old tractor. Where all you need is a couple parts and you can tear it down and rebuild yourself.
You need parts which either which most vendors won't sell to you directly.
Or you need to buy grey-market versions.
And all of this adds up to LOTS AND LOTS of additional cash outlay for a piece of equipment whose payments are a MAJOR chunk of said farmer's monetary outlay every year.
Here's a little something-something off the John Deere Site.
https://configure.deere.com/cb...
8400R Wheeled (Tracked option available too) Row-Crop tractor.
Base Price: $424,055.
And you can slap in upwards of $125,000 in additional equipment (not options).
You can tweak options up to about $80,000
Hell, their longest warranty is 5 years and costs an extra $17,000!
Yes, that's right. A warranty for one of these things is OPTIONAL!
I truly think that, while manufacturers have made lots of great advances that make a farmer's life easier, that they're too far into lock-in mentality to view this equitably.
And "Just go out and buy a different vehicle!" doesn't work because ALL OF THE VENDORS DO THIS.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
She's already committed to only accepting individual donations. Don't be a mean dunce.
We need Elon Musk to sell an electric tractor.
With separate oxygen and LCH4 turbopumps.
If farmers hate John Deere that much, why aren't they transitioning to Claas, New Holland, Kubota.... Seems like if it's that much of an issue it ought to have become a key driver to get farmers using other brands.
Liz found another bandwagon to try and ride. So what if she's years late to that party. So what if she is just pandering to the illiterate and ignorant proletariat in her effort to get hers too.
What a cunt.
If something is legal to do by oneself, it should always be legal to pay someone else to do it for you.
...
Already in-progress. Seriously: https://www.termlimits.com/
Now get to work!