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Wired has published a long article about how the farming equipment manufacturer John Deere has just swindled farmers out of their right to repair their own equipment. Basically the manufacturer was allowed to write the agreement governing access to the firmware embedded in the farming equipment.
Farmers have been some of the strongest allies in the ongoing battle to make it easier for everyone to fix their electronics. This week, though, a powerful organization that's supposed to lobby on behalf of farmers in California has sold them out by reaching a watered-down agreement that will allow companies like John Deere to further cement their repair monopolies.
Farmers around the country have been hacking their way past the software locks that John Deere and other manufacturers put on tractors and other farm equipment, and the Farm Bureau lobbying organization has thus far been one of the most powerful to put its weight behind right to repair legislation, which would require manufacturers to sell repair parts, make diagnostic tools and repair information available to the public, and would require manufacturers to provide a way to get around proprietary software locks that are designed to prevent repair.
Motherboard also covered the topic about how farmer lobbyists sold out their farmers and helped enshrine John Deere's maintenance monopoly.
Earlier on SN:
The Right to Repair Battle Has Come to California (2018)
Apple, Verizon Join Forces to Lobby Against New York's 'Right to Repair' Law (2017)
US Copyright Office Says People Have the Right to Hack their Own Cars' Software (2015)
Jailbreak your Tractor or Make it Run OSS? (2015)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @09:14PM (2 children)
Does the farmer make more money faster with Deere equipment? (or lower personnel costs / less training? or gets some other compensation for using it?) It's easy to say "Hey, don't buy [lease] that!" if you're not the one managing the profit and loss.
We might not like it, but last I checked walled gardens are legal so long as one has an alternative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @10:06PM
Walled gardens and digital restrictions management should not be legal, however. That is the point.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Saturday September 22 2018, @06:10AM
I'm not a farmer nor do I know any, but I should know a bit more about this. I doubt any major brand is any better. The story I've read recently is that there will be a single brand equipment dealer in a particular area and the farmers either buy that brand, or have to travel great distances to buy equipment and parts.