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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 22 2020, @12:44PM   Printer-friendly
from the next-up:-tractors-as-a-service dept.

'Right to repair' taken up by the ACCC in farmers' fight to fix their own tractors:

The 'right to repair' movement has finally bent the ear of Australia's competition and consumer watchdog, the ACCC, in its pleas to be able to fix their own farm equipment.

[...] Farmers have emerged as an unlikely force in the global right to repair movement.

The movement eschews the disposable culture of consumer electronics in favour of letting independent repairers and home tinkerers fix broken smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

Proponents want access to the code that makes modern machines hum, putting them at loggerheads with tech giants including Apple who own the proprietary software.

In the United States, farmers have risked voiding their warranties by hacking their own John Deere tractors with torrented software so they can carry out their own repairs.

[...] In its first deep dive into the modern agricultural machinery market, the ACCC published its discussion paper on the matter in late February and is seeking accounts from those who buy and use farm machinery, or repair it for a living.

"Broadacre croppers with large tractors, harvesters, seeders … and particularly tractors seem to be an area of some contention," Mr Keogh said.

"We have heard from dealers who say that they have no issues with providing service, yet we hear from independent service providers that they can't get access to the [software] diagnostic tools they need.

"In some cases they can't get access to the [manufacturers'] parts they need.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 22 2020, @02:31PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday April 22 2020, @02:31PM (#985729)

    Farmers have emerged as an unlikely force in the global right to repair movement

    Whoever wrote this doesn't know the farmers I know.

    Around here, farmers make a lot of their own equipment from parts they cobble together from sources like Grainger, Inc. One of our neighbors who developed a "grove trimmer" to keep the sides of orange trees trimmed at a desired slope angle (to maximize solar exposure of the leaves between rows of trees), has been regularly contracted by the DOT to keep roadside mangroves trimmed.

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