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Former John Deere employee here. The company isn't being spiteful or doing this to corner the repair market; they do it to avoid legal liability and fraudulent

by weberc2 10y ago

Former John Deere employee here. The company isn't being spiteful or doing this to corner the repair market; they do it to avoid legal liability and fraudulent warrantee claims. They're an extremely risk-averse company. EDIT: By the way, I favor owner's rights (my family farms with Deere equipment, and I think there's tons of mutual advantage in open sourcing software in this case specifically and in general), but as is often the case, the "greedy corporate oppressor" narrative is too simple.

ethbro 10y ago
From that perspective, it does start to look dicey in terms of "offer a lengthy and full service warranty" + "allow the end user to make modifications", so I understand that perspective. But I do think there's a lot of room for detecting what changes were made and honoring / invalidating the warranty depending on them. Rather than simply saying "something was changed, therefore we invalidate the whole warranty."
- weberc2 10y ago
  The warrantee issue I mentioned was fraud--that is, sinking costs into investigating additional warrantee claims which turn out to be due to user manipulation. I suspect this is less of a concern compared with the legal liability of injury resulting from modification--I imagine it behooves the company to be able to point to the EULA and say, "look, we're doing everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen". This is complicated by the fact that they have to comply with laws in virtually every second and third world country, not just the US. It's just easier to be conservative with a blanket EULA. They could probably devise a more nuanced approach, but it would probably be costly and they probably have better (read: higher customer value) things they could put that money toward.
  - pacificleo11 10y ago
    This is very similar to CPU overclocking. fraudulent warranty replacement claims were rampant untill recently but that intel fixed it .
joe_the_user 10y ago
"...as is often the case, the "greedy corporate oppressor" narrative is too simple." What part of the things you describe aren't done with the purpose of making the company money? I mean, "we're risk-averse so we force the risk onto you" is kind of the same as "we don't want to spend money so we inconvenience you". Of course, companies are in business to make money and will tend to use whatever avenues are open. When a company starts using a monopoly position to impose legal restrictions on customers (whether to avoid risk of losing money or just to make money), sympathy for their money-making efforts tends to lessen. Edit: Note that the approach of Deer is not warranty voiding if someone hacks the software but a license agreement which effectively terminates the ability of the farmer to use the vehicle and thus the defense above is pretty disingenuous. See: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/
- weberc2 10y ago
  1. My argument was that their incentive is to avoid being sued, not profiting from a monopoly. 2. What monopoly are you proposing? A monopoly on the software that comes with the tractor?
  - joe_the_user 10y ago
    I don't know if avoiding liability for their products is great way to make money or not. But if they are making a large effort to avoid liability, they are doing that as a way to guarantee profits - ie, make money. Deere effectively has a monopoly on tractors at the scale discussed in the article. That's why farmers are buying the tractors and illegally moding them rather than buying competing brands - see comments elsewhere on this page. And, of course, they're leveraging new legal concepts which allow them to sell their tractors while maintaining control over them through software licenses.
    - mathgeek 10y ago
      > But if they are making a large effort to avoid liability, they are doing that as a way to guarantee profits - ie, make money. This can also be viewed as the more general "companies act in a way that gives them the best chance of continued indeterminate existence."
rjmunro 10y ago
In that case, just write the license contract to say "If you change the firmware, John Deere accepts no liability". Make people sign that if they want the unlock key. Presumably John Deere aren't liable for other kinds of misuse - e.g. if you crash it.
- sglane 10y ago
  It's not that simple. A corollary is with cellphone firmware for the radio. They have to answer to the FCC. Updating the firmware will let you broadcast with more wattage, for example. FCC doesn't like that. JD has to answer to the EPA. See Tier IV.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Automakers have to answer to the EPA too. That doesn't stop regular joes from changing their own oil in their garage and buying parts at Autozone. Most cars are not designed to make it impossible for car owners to do regular maintenance or simple repair jobs themselves.
    - syshum 10y ago
      Doing so would actually be illegal for the Automakers, who tried similar things in the early days of the Auto Industry and several laws and regulations were passed to protect consumers for Highway vehicles It is highly unlikely this will work out very well for JD.
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        Yeah, it's called the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975. It doesn't just apply to cars though, it applies to everything, including farm equipment.
        syshum 10y ago
        That was one, but not the only Regulation passed as a result Things like ODBII Regulations, which do only Apply to Highyway Vehicles, and all of the regulations that come out of the USDOT for Highway rated Vehicles.

by weberc2 10y ago

ethbro 10y ago

From that perspective, it does start to look dicey in terms of "offer a lengthy and full service warranty" + "allow the end user to make modifications", so I understand that perspective. But I do think there's a lot of room for detecting what changes were made and honoring / invalidating the warranty depending on them. Rather than simply saying "something was changed, therefore we invalidate the whole warranty."

weberc2 10y ago
The warrantee issue I mentioned was fraud--that is, sinking costs into investigating additional warrantee claims which turn out to be due to user manipulation. I suspect this is less of a concern compared with the legal liability of injury resulting from modification--I imagine it behooves the company to be able to point to the EULA and say, "look, we're doing everything we can to make sure this doesn't happen". This is complicated by the fact that they have to comply with laws in virtually every second and third world country, not just the US. It's just easier to be conservative with a blanket EULA. They could probably devise a more nuanced approach, but it would probably be costly and they probably have better (read: higher customer value) things they could put that money toward.
- pacificleo11 10y ago
  This is very similar to CPU overclocking. fraudulent warranty replacement claims were rampant untill recently but that intel fixed it .

joe_the_user 10y ago

"...as is often the case, the "greedy corporate oppressor" narrative is too simple." What part of the things you describe aren't done with the purpose of making the company money? I mean, "we're risk-averse so we force the risk onto you" is kind of the same as "we don't want to spend money so we inconvenience you". Of course, companies are in business to make money and will tend to use whatever avenues are open. When a company starts using a monopoly position to impose legal restrictions on customers (whether to avoid risk of losing money or just to make money), sympathy for their money-making efforts tends to lessen. Edit: Note that the approach of Deer is not warranty voiding if someone hacks the software but a license agreement which effectively terminates the ability of the farmer to use the vehicle and thus the defense above is pretty disingenuous. See: https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/dmca-ownership-john-deere/

weberc2 10y ago
1. My argument was that their incentive is to avoid being sued, not profiting from a monopoly. 2. What monopoly are you proposing? A monopoly on the software that comes with the tractor?
- joe_the_user 10y ago
  I don't know if avoiding liability for their products is great way to make money or not. But if they are making a large effort to avoid liability, they are doing that as a way to guarantee profits - ie, make money. Deere effectively has a monopoly on tractors at the scale discussed in the article. That's why farmers are buying the tractors and illegally moding them rather than buying competing brands - see comments elsewhere on this page. And, of course, they're leveraging new legal concepts which allow them to sell their tractors while maintaining control over them through software licenses.
  - mathgeek 10y ago
    > But if they are making a large effort to avoid liability, they are doing that as a way to guarantee profits - ie, make money. This can also be viewed as the more general "companies act in a way that gives them the best chance of continued indeterminate existence."

rjmunro 10y ago

In that case, just write the license contract to say "If you change the firmware, John Deere accepts no liability". Make people sign that if they want the unlock key. Presumably John Deere aren't liable for other kinds of misuse - e.g. if you crash it.

sglane 10y ago
It's not that simple. A corollary is with cellphone firmware for the radio. They have to answer to the FCC. Updating the firmware will let you broadcast with more wattage, for example. FCC doesn't like that. JD has to answer to the EPA. See Tier IV.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Automakers have to answer to the EPA too. That doesn't stop regular joes from changing their own oil in their garage and buying parts at Autozone. Most cars are not designed to make it impossible for car owners to do regular maintenance or simple repair jobs themselves.
  - syshum 10y ago
    Doing so would actually be illegal for the Automakers, who tried similar things in the early days of the Auto Industry and several laws and regulations were passed to protect consumers for Highway vehicles It is highly unlikely this will work out very well for JD.
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      Yeah, it's called the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975. It doesn't just apply to cars though, it applies to everything, including farm equipment.
      - syshum 10y ago
        That was one, but not the only Regulation passed as a result Things like ODBII Regulations, which do only Apply to Highyway Vehicles, and all of the regulations that come out of the USDOT for Highway rated Vehicles.