5 ms·

When we buy a piece of software, we own and "physically" posses a binary which we feel we can rightly take apart, modify, and mess with it because we view it as

When we buy a piece of software, we own and "physically" posses a binary which we feel we can rightly take apart, modify, and mess with it because we view it as analogous to owning a toaster or stereo in the physical world. It's in our home, we can touch it, and we in essence control it. Now the same is never said for software as a service. We buy subscriptions to services all the time but don't demand an ability to modify or control the software. It's defined in our agreement. Now it seems to me that the companies that sell these tractors have decided to pursue a model by which their software is more or less SaSS (providing encrypted updates over the air). Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software?

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
Because software as a service is the wrong model for farmers. When equipment breaks in the middle of the field during harvest you do what needs to be done to fix it right then and there. Edit: grammar
- cmurf 10y ago
  I'd have less of a problem with this if it were a free and open source license, and therefore there's competition available for the service, including do it yourself service should you choose. But most farms are now corporate so it sorta makes sense those types will drive this kind of closed loop proprietary fixed cost maintenance model.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
    That's a good point. If they're corporate and the tractor driver is paid by the hour then the pressure to fix isn't there. Though I suspect a corporate farm would contract out harvesting so they pay a fixed cost per unit-area, and now the contractor is under pressure to fix asap.
byebyetech 10y ago
Except farmers or any customer who buys physical product are under no obligation to understand or believe there is Software that is running the Physical product they purchased. If i buy a physical product i should be able to control it completely, unless i am not buying a physical product but a service that happen to be physical, in which case seller must own all responsibility of its performance in the field.
save_ferris 10y ago
Why is it that farmers don't have a right to modify and fix equipment that they purchased in 2017 because some software they didn't ask to be installed on their equipment prevents them from doing what they've been able to do for generations? Up until a few years ago, farmers used to be able to buy farm equipment with the understanding that they could fix it whenever issues arose and didn't need a gatekeeper to come fix their hardware.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I suspect the main reason is that it makes economic sense to most farmers to keep buying the tractors, despite the gatekeeper. Sucks, but there you go. If they managed (as a group) not to buy the tractors, the gatekeeper would go away.
- statictype 10y ago
  >because some software they didn't ask to be installed on their equipment Are you sure about this? From the article: today's tractors are high-tech machines that can steer themselves by GPS, you also need a software key — to fix the programs that make a tractor run properly So - its not the same as the tractors they purchased a few years ago. Maybe they didn't buy the tractor specifically for those features or maybe you can't even buy a tractor today without those features, but they probably knew what they were getting into before they bought it. Its not a great situation for farmers who don't want those extra bells and whistles but it is what it is.
arca_vorago 10y ago
>Now it seems to me that the companies that sell these tractors have decided to pursue a model by which their software is more or less SaSS (providing encrypted updates over the air). Did you read the article? It doesn't say anything about hacking any SaSS at all. Or about " encrypted updates over the air"... so where in the world are you getting this from? This is a right to repair issue, as the first part of your statement talks about. This is farmers in the feild, and gasketA broke, now either they have the right to modify their own software (that exist on their systems, not on a server somewhere, so not SaSS), or they have to pay a JD contractor to come out, and lose all that daylight in the meantime. >Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software? Because, farmers of all people have traditionally been supporters of the free software movement before the free software movement even exist... in the form that farmers have exercised the second software freedom "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this." and see no reason they should have to stop now just because some corporation wants more money. In the past instead of software it was justy a pair of pliers and a welder. The real question is, seeing how to fundamentally misunderstand and misstate the issue, how is it that you think they shouldn't be able to modify their software? Following this horrible line of thought, what abuse does it not allow? What's next; "You may not weld that axle because it contains our proprietary metal blend and we own the patent on the method for repairing it and we also own the patent on the filler-rod needed "? The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics.
jacquesm 10y ago
> Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software? Because a farmer in the middle of a harvest can't afford to 'wait in line' until the manufacturer or the dealership has time to send someone over to make a repair. I've lived in a farming area and had a pretty good machine shop as well as a ton of welding gear and it didn't take long before farmers knew where to find me in case of a problem just to temporarily fix the issues they would encounter to be properly taken care of once the harvest is in. The weather waits for nobody and losing a crop because of equipment failure can put a farmer out of business. Right to repair. The best outcome of all this nonsense could be that manufacturers of capital goods such as tractors are by law required to fully document what they sell including schematics, board lay-outs and source code or even a reproducible build package.
- abraae 10y ago
  Rather than adding laws, another good market-driven outcome would removing any laws that inhibit a healthy industry in providing plug-in replacement kits for the brains of the tractor. Yes, official warranties would be voided, so new providers of warranty services would spring up.
  - michaelmrose 10y ago
    Every aspect of this is hypothetical and most likely imaginary. Can you provide example's of similar situations that have played out like this?
    - abraae 10y ago
      Well the engine rechipping industry is somewhat similar. But indeed, this is hypothetical - but maybe more likely than the OP's desired outcome that "manufacturers of capital goods such as tractors are by law required to fully document what they sell including schematics, board lay-outs and source code or even a reproducible build package."
cmurf 10y ago
Buy a piece of software? Since ancient times there's no such thing for mere mortals. Read the EULA. You do not own that software. You've bought a temporary, rather one-sided, and revocable license. You absolutely do not have any right to take it apart or modify it. That's the entire point of free and open source software (note not merely open source).
pdkl95 10y ago
> pursue a model by which their software is more or less SaSS A tractor isn't a service. Fixing problems in goods after they were sold doesn't make the purchased product (the tractor) a service either. <side note> In general, "SaSS" (and "SaaS") is a useless buzzword. If you provide an application on a webpage that people can subscribe to, you're offering "service". If you're selling a tractor with automatic software updates, you're selling a good that may include software internally and access to service that provides software updates. Adding "Software as ..." is useless. Like the people that rushed to prefix everything with "Internet ..." in the dot-com era indicates the speaker incorrectly believes that goods and services suddenly lose some of their usual properties and become something fundamentally new when "Software" (or "Internet") is added. No, it's still mostly the same good or service. Maybe adding the unnecessary term "Software" may contribute to this confusion that mistakes goods for services? </side note> > Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software? The same reason everyone else believes they have the right to modify the goods they purchase. This is a fundamental feature of what it means to own property. Yes, they do not have the right to copy the internal software, but that isn't what the farmers are trying to do. They just want to fix the tractor they purchased. If someone else retains the power to forbid you from modifying your own property, you don't actually own it. Why does John Deere think it has the right to undermine the concept of property rights? Why do so many people accept that reinterpretation and defend tying[1] a service and/or software license to the purchase of a good, which is forbidden by the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts?
- jacquesm 10y ago
  And to add to that: there are lots of examples of services that are only tacked on to a sold good in order to turn that sale into a permanent dependency of the buyer on the seller. And that's just plain abusive.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> When we buy a piece of software, we own and "physically" posses a binary which we feel we can rightly take apart, modify, and mess with it because we view it as analogous to owning a toaster or stereo in the physical world. It's in our home, we can touch it, and we in essence control it. In what way does any of that not apply to owning a tractor? > Now the same is never said for software as a service. We buy subscriptions to services all the time but don't demand an ability to modify or control the software. Yes we do! People have been pissed about DRM, hardware locks, and access restrictions in commercial products for about as long as they've existed. It's a big issue and getting bigger every year. Locked smartphones, unremovable Windows telemetry, Garadget bricking some guy's gizmo over a bad review. You've been on Hacker News for over a year, how can you possibly think that?
michaelmrose 10y ago
When you buy software as a service you are effectively renting access to someone else's hardware wherein the software in question runs. We pay more than cost to make everything someone else's problem and we understand that the hardware belongs to someone else. When you are talking about software running on the physical hardware that you have sold to people they have all trials and tribulations of ownership while you the creator are insisting on retaining control in order to suck more money out of their pockets. To make the issue vastly more clear they having paid for ownership are insisting on free usage of the ALL the hardware involved including all processors and storage and insisting that the machine shouldn't deliberately disable itself unless it would be unsafe or damaging to run. This isn't an unreasonable expectation.

TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago

Because software as a service is the wrong model for farmers. When equipment breaks in the middle of the field during harvest you do what needs to be done to fix it right then and there. Edit: grammar

cmurf 10y ago
I'd have less of a problem with this if it were a free and open source license, and therefore there's competition available for the service, including do it yourself service should you choose. But most farms are now corporate so it sorta makes sense those types will drive this kind of closed loop proprietary fixed cost maintenance model.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y ago
  That's a good point. If they're corporate and the tractor driver is paid by the hour then the pressure to fix isn't there. Though I suspect a corporate farm would contract out harvesting so they pay a fixed cost per unit-area, and now the contractor is under pressure to fix asap.

byebyetech 10y ago

Except farmers or any customer who buys physical product are under no obligation to understand or believe there is Software that is running the Physical product they purchased. If i buy a physical product i should be able to control it completely, unless i am not buying a physical product but a service that happen to be physical, in which case seller must own all responsibility of its performance in the field.

save_ferris 10y ago

Why is it that farmers don't have a right to modify and fix equipment that they purchased in 2017 because some software they didn't ask to be installed on their equipment prevents them from doing what they've been able to do for generations? Up until a few years ago, farmers used to be able to buy farm equipment with the understanding that they could fix it whenever issues arose and didn't need a gatekeeper to come fix their hardware.

maxerickson 10y ago
I suspect the main reason is that it makes economic sense to most farmers to keep buying the tractors, despite the gatekeeper. Sucks, but there you go. If they managed (as a group) not to buy the tractors, the gatekeeper would go away.
statictype 10y ago
>because some software they didn't ask to be installed on their equipment Are you sure about this? From the article: today's tractors are high-tech machines that can steer themselves by GPS, you also need a software key — to fix the programs that make a tractor run properly So - its not the same as the tractors they purchased a few years ago. Maybe they didn't buy the tractor specifically for those features or maybe you can't even buy a tractor today without those features, but they probably knew what they were getting into before they bought it. Its not a great situation for farmers who don't want those extra bells and whistles but it is what it is.

arca_vorago 10y ago

>Now it seems to me that the companies that sell these tractors have decided to pursue a model by which their software is more or less SaSS (providing encrypted updates over the air). Did you read the article? It doesn't say anything about hacking any SaSS at all. Or about " encrypted updates over the air"... so where in the world are you getting this from? This is a right to repair issue, as the first part of your statement talks about. This is farmers in the feild, and gasketA broke, now either they have the right to modify their own software (that exist on their systems, not on a server somewhere, so not SaSS), or they have to pay a JD contractor to come out, and lose all that daylight in the meantime. >Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software? Because, farmers of all people have traditionally been supporters of the free software movement before the free software movement even exist... in the form that farmers have exercised the second software freedom "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this." and see no reason they should have to stop now just because some corporation wants more money. In the past instead of software it was justy a pair of pliers and a welder. The real question is, seeing how to fundamentally misunderstand and misstate the issue, how is it that you think they shouldn't be able to modify their software? Following this horrible line of thought, what abuse does it not allow? What's next; "You may not weld that axle because it contains our proprietary metal blend and we own the patent on the method for repairing it and we also own the patent on the filler-rod needed "? The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics.

jacquesm 10y ago

> Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software? Because a farmer in the middle of a harvest can't afford to 'wait in line' until the manufacturer or the dealership has time to send someone over to make a repair. I've lived in a farming area and had a pretty good machine shop as well as a ton of welding gear and it didn't take long before farmers knew where to find me in case of a problem just to temporarily fix the issues they would encounter to be properly taken care of once the harvest is in. The weather waits for nobody and losing a crop because of equipment failure can put a farmer out of business. Right to repair. The best outcome of all this nonsense could be that manufacturers of capital goods such as tractors are by law required to fully document what they sell including schematics, board lay-outs and source code or even a reproducible build package.

abraae 10y ago
Rather than adding laws, another good market-driven outcome would removing any laws that inhibit a healthy industry in providing plug-in replacement kits for the brains of the tractor. Yes, official warranties would be voided, so new providers of warranty services would spring up.
- michaelmrose 10y ago
  Every aspect of this is hypothetical and most likely imaginary. Can you provide example's of similar situations that have played out like this?
  - abraae 10y ago
    Well the engine rechipping industry is somewhat similar. But indeed, this is hypothetical - but maybe more likely than the OP's desired outcome that "manufacturers of capital goods such as tractors are by law required to fully document what they sell including schematics, board lay-outs and source code or even a reproducible build package."

cmurf 10y ago

Buy a piece of software? Since ancient times there's no such thing for mere mortals. Read the EULA. You do not own that software. You've bought a temporary, rather one-sided, and revocable license. You absolutely do not have any right to take it apart or modify it. That's the entire point of free and open source software (note not merely open source).

pdkl95 10y ago

> pursue a model by which their software is more or less SaSS A tractor isn't a service. Fixing problems in goods after they were sold doesn't make the purchased product (the tractor) a service either. <side note> In general, "SaSS" (and "SaaS") is a useless buzzword. If you provide an application on a webpage that people can subscribe to, you're offering "service". If you're selling a tractor with automatic software updates, you're selling a good that may include software internally and access to service that provides software updates. Adding "Software as ..." is useless. Like the people that rushed to prefix everything with "Internet ..." in the dot-com era indicates the speaker incorrectly believes that goods and services suddenly lose some of their usual properties and become something fundamentally new when "Software" (or "Internet") is added. No, it's still mostly the same good or service. Maybe adding the unnecessary term "Software" may contribute to this confusion that mistakes goods for services? </side note> > Why is it that these farmers believe they have a right to modify that software? The same reason everyone else believes they have the right to modify the goods they purchase. This is a fundamental feature of what it means to own property. Yes, they do not have the right to copy the internal software, but that isn't what the farmers are trying to do. They just want to fix the tractor they purchased. If someone else retains the power to forbid you from modifying your own property, you don't actually own it. Why does John Deere think it has the right to undermine the concept of property rights? Why do so many people accept that reinterpretation and defend tying[1] a service and/or software license to the purchase of a good, which is forbidden by the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts?

jacquesm 10y ago
And to add to that: there are lots of examples of services that are only tacked on to a sold good in order to turn that sale into a permanent dependency of the buyer on the seller. And that's just plain abusive.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago

> When we buy a piece of software, we own and "physically" posses a binary which we feel we can rightly take apart, modify, and mess with it because we view it as analogous to owning a toaster or stereo in the physical world. It's in our home, we can touch it, and we in essence control it. In what way does any of that not apply to owning a tractor? > Now the same is never said for software as a service. We buy subscriptions to services all the time but don't demand an ability to modify or control the software. Yes we do! People have been pissed about DRM, hardware locks, and access restrictions in commercial products for about as long as they've existed. It's a big issue and getting bigger every year. Locked smartphones, unremovable Windows telemetry, Garadget bricking some guy's gizmo over a bad review. You've been on Hacker News for over a year, how can you possibly think that?

michaelmrose 10y ago

When you buy software as a service you are effectively renting access to someone else's hardware wherein the software in question runs. We pay more than cost to make everything someone else's problem and we understand that the hardware belongs to someone else. When you are talking about software running on the physical hardware that you have sold to people they have all trials and tribulations of ownership while you the creator are insisting on retaining control in order to suck more money out of their pockets. To make the issue vastly more clear they having paid for ownership are insisting on free usage of the ALL the hardware involved including all processors and storage and insisting that the machine shouldn't deliberately disable itself unless it would be unsafe or damaging to run. This isn't an unreasonable expectation.