Interesting article here. Having lived in rural Wisconsin I am fully aware of how farmers must frequently repair their machinery without the benefit of a technician who might take several days to get to the farm. Here is the article:

The fight for our right to repair the stuff we own has suffered a huge setback.

As anyone who repairs electronics knows, keeping a device in working order often means fixing both its hardware and software. But 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.



The ability to maintain their own equipment is a big deal to farmers. When it’s harvest time and the combine goes kaput, they can’t wait several days for John Deere to send out a repair technician. Plus, farmers are a pretty handy bunch. They’ve been fixing their own equipment forever. Why spend thousands of dollars on an easy fix? But as agricultural equipment gets more and more sophisticated and electronic, the tools needed to repair equipment are increasingly out of reach of the people who rely on it most. That’s amplified by the fact that John Deere (and the other equipment companies represented by the Far West Equipment Dealers Association) have been exploiting copyright laws to lock farmers out of their own stuff.

Repair is a huge business. And repair monopolies are profitable. Just ask Apple, which has lobbied over and over against making repair parts and information available to third-party repair shops. That’s why Big Ag has been so reluctant to make any concessions to the growing right-to-repair movement.

At first blush, last week’s deal between the Farm Bureau and the equipment dealers might look like a win for farmers. The press release describes how equipment dealers have agreed to provide “access to service manuals, product guides, on-board diagnostics and other information that would help a farmer or rancher to identify or repair problems with the machinery.” Fair enough. These are all things fixers need.

But without access to parts and diagnostic software, it’s not enough to enable farmers to fix their own equipment. “I will gladly welcome more ways to fix the equipment on my farm. Let’s be clear, though, this is not right-to-repair,” explained San Luis Obispo rancher Jeff Buckingham. “At the end of the day, I bought this equipment, and I want everything I need to keep it running without relying on the manufacturer or dealer.”

There’s also nothing new in the agreement. John Deere and friends had already made every single “concession” earlier this year, and service manuals had already been available to purchase. They must have read the writing on the wall when California’s Electronics Right to Repair Act was introduced in March. Right-to-repair bills have proved overwhelmingly popular with voters—Massachusetts passed its automobile right-to-repair bill in 2012 with 86 percent voter support.

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. The flyer and the agreement list the same four restrictions:

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.
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. When electronics control the basic functions of all major farm equipment, a single malfunctioning sensor can bring a machine to its knees. Modifying software is a routine part of modern repair.

Prohibiting modifications to systems that might affect emissions also means that farmers can’t upgrade tractors to meet new requirements. This could force farmers to buy new equipment when emissions standards change—an insidious move toward planned obsolescence.

That’s why a national group of farmers has been fighting for their right to modify software. Together, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Farmers Union are working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation to petition the US Copyright Office to exempt farm equipment from the anti-modification provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which has been bafflingly stretched to cover tractors and combines (equipment manufacturers claim they’re worried about piracy). The petition explains:

It is necessary to access the electronic control units to diagnose and repair a malfunctioning agricultural vehicle, as well as to lawfully modify the functions of a vehicle based on the owner’s specific needs in cultivating his or her land.

There are many farmers modifying their equipment to fit their land’s needs. Members of the farm equipment electronics community Farm Hack have designed custom 3-D-printed seed rollers, programmed Arduinos to consolidate greenhouse operations, and developed all kinds of sensors and warning lights. A group of university students at Cal Poly is working to reverse-engineer John Deere’s software protocol. And a third-party company called Farmobile makes a device that plugs into all different kinds of large farm equipment so farmers can access their data without going through John Deere.

Where California farmers go, the rest of America follows—and in this case, that’s dangerous. The state produces more food by far than any other in the nation, accounting for two-thirds of all US-grown fruit and nuts. By agreeing to the spurious distinction between “repair” and “modification,” the California Farm Bureau just made the EFF’s job a lot harder. 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.

As a nation of repair advocates, we need to reject toothless deals like this. We must define right to repair in a way that supports the needs of individuals and small growers, not the bottom line of enormous corporations.

This deal is no right-to-repair victory. Don’t let John Deere—or the California Farm Bureau—call it one. Real progress isn’t going to come until a state passes real Right to Repair legislation. And momentum is building. Twenty states, including Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, considered bills this year. Although none have passed yet, John Deere is clearly feeling the heat.

LINK:https://www.wired.com/story/john-deere-farmers-right-to-repair/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ZSMICHAEL,

I thought all-cap thread titles were verboten.

quote:

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.

One of these things is not like the others.

Basically nobody lets you have the source code of proprietary software. That's pretty much the definition of proprietary software.

Go ask Microsoft for the source code for Word because you want to fix some problem you have with it and see how far you get.

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

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.

One of these things is not like the others.

Basically nobody lets you have the source code of proprietary software. That's pretty much the definition of proprietary software.

Go ask Microsoft for the source code for Word because you want to fix some problem you have with it and see how far you get.

Sure, we may not be able to see MS source code, but what this article is stating is more than that. Ever try to get a car engine tuned outside of a dealership? Fairly simple as there are plenty of speed shops that play with the factory settings. They take some fine tuning, but generally, you can find a source online as a starting point as long as you have the equipment necessary to make the changes.

This has been true for machinery too. Basically, they are going to shut the machine down and lock you out if you do any kind of work outside of simple maintenance. Some of these machines cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a pretty expensive piece of yard art. Fuck That!

Just one more way corporate farming/big ag businesses are putting a stranglehold on the little guy.

Time for farmers to unload their JD equipment and buy something else. Easier said than done due to cost of new equipment and value of used but it needs to be done. Losing market share is the only way JD will listen.

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:

quote:

Originally posted by maladat:

quote:

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.

One of these things is not like the others.

Basically nobody lets you have the source code of proprietary software. That's pretty much the definition of proprietary software.

Go ask Microsoft for the source code for Word because you want to fix some problem you have with it and see how far you get.

Sure, we may not be able to see MS source code, but what this article is stating is more than that. Ever try to get a car engine tuned outside of a dealership? Fairly simple as there are plenty of speed shops that play with the factory settings. They take some fine tuning, but generally, you can find a source online as a starting point as long as you have the equipment necessary to make the changes.

This has been true for machinery too. Basically, they are going to shut the machine down and lock you out if you do any kind of work outside of simple maintenance. Some of these machines cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. That's a pretty expensive piece of yard art. Fuck That!

Just one more way corporate farming/big ag businesses are putting a stranglehold on the little guy.

I wasn't saying the entire article is invalid.

They point out four restrictions.

They argue that the four restrictions are oppressive.

They argue that an analogous common activity (car repair) would be impossible with these restrictions.

For the first three, they have a point.

I disagree with the last one. Since you didn't like the Microsoft example, I'll give you a different one. There is no way Ford will give you the source code for everything running on the dozens of computer systems in an Explorer and there is no way a mechanic is digging into that source code when something breaks.

Glad my farm tractor was built in the early 1970s before all this bullshit started.

I know of farmers collectively hiring programmers to program replacement modules.
Or should I say I know programmers that have been hired to reverse engineer controllers.

Who gave California Farm Bureau the authority to make a deal like this?

I read this and simply don't understand its signifigance. The car analog seems wrong. GM does not give anyone the source code, or anything else to help them modify their vehicles. People reverse engineer that stuff. The statement above that there are plenty of speed shops that play with factory settings, really isn't actually true. Using products that have reversed engineered the factory product you can get changes. Depending on the vehicle it might be a rewrite to the factory ECU, or a piggy back, or a sensor slave, or lots of options. But none of it is using factory tools to modify factory code. In addition I might add that even though there is a completely robust industry of modifying cars and trucks ecu's, it is mostly illegal at the federal emissions level. That's why you have the famous offroad only designation on lots of stuff. The problem for the farmers is that when Ford sell 1M trucks a year its a market to design and sell updates, but if you sell 10K combines its not worth the effort.

Since a JD Combine is listing for almost $300K used (2015)....not sure on new costs, there should be a booming programmer business.

I would guess the market really depends on how bad a job JD does. If there was an easy fix to 25% better fuel economy I'm sure there is a market. But I'm guessing the gains are small and really don't depend on the price of the original product. These are expensive machines but generally have very modest engines.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Who gave California Farm Bureau the authority to make a deal like this?

I'm wondering if there is a parallel here to Illinois Firearms Manufacturers Association (IFMA) lobbyist selling out the 2A for SB-1657. In other words, did California Farm Bureau represent their consituency's wishes.

JD has been pressing hard on this. They are being total thugs.

I think in the end it will come down to pre and post warranty period. They have an argument during the warranty period. They also have an argument on leased equipment.

Beyond that I don't think they have much of a case

Which is pretty much the case with cars. If GM determines you did a mod then no warranty. So the aftermarket guys always give you a way to put back the original firmware. But of course GM etc. have now designed their diagnostic computers to know if the firmware is put back. Its pretty much a war.

It's all a part of a deliberate shift by JD (and other manufacturers in various industries) to prevent end users or 3rd Parties from performing maintenance and upgrades. It's a backhanded monopoly sort of thing, achieved by incremental design changes.

Certain car manufacturers are doing the same with a shift from copper wire to fiber optics. They're clever cocksuckers, too, knowing those changes have other tangible benefits to consumers (fiber weighs less than copper and all other things being equal the vehicle would get better gas mileage carrying less weight), so they're often touted as benign and even positive trends, but it's simply about their bottom line via capturing certain revenue streams and locking out any competition.

Certain states and other entities are working to fight this trend via Right to Repair legislation and similar measures.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:
Which is pretty much the case with cars. If GM determines you did a mod then no warranty. So the aftermarket guys always give you a way to put back the original firmware. But of course GM etc. have now designed their diagnostic computers to know if the firmware is put back. Its pretty much a war.

https://www.torquenews.com/108...are-duramax-problems

California, what else would you expect?
They are just looking out for you so you can't harm yourself, whether you like it or not.
They do it in all sorts of other ways too.

quote:

They are just looking out for you so you can't harm yourself, whether you like it or not.

Living in California is known by the state of California to cause cancer.

The Problem is the Stupid systems required by the EPA under Obama .. Can immobilize a vehicle in the middle of a harvest. It then requires the system to "regenerate" which means you can not move it, and it has to run at a certain RPM for 20 minutes. We have had combines Burn in the field because of this system.. It creates high temperatures in the exhaust, something that is not good in the middle of a very dry wheat field.
So many farmers what to bypass this system, both for safety and the fact that they dont have time to sit 2 times a day and watch their $400K Combine sit and burn fuel for a half an hour while it is doing nothing.
I would love to hear the explanation from the EPA idiot that thinks running an Engine for 20 minutes while it is Burning the particulates in the exhaust is saving the environment..