31 ms·

Nebraska farmers vote overwhelmingly for Right to Repair

1536 points by howard941 7y ago

coachtrotz 7y ago
This is a big deal, not only for the farmers using machinery from manufacturers like Deere, but for the rest of society who may now have some precedent for right to repair.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- azernik 7y ago
  This doesn't establish any precedent - it's not a law or regulation, just an expression of the opinion of an association of farmers. In the equipment market, they're effectively a consumers' rights organization (except B2B? analogies to the consumer electronics market are inaccurate). Equivalent maybe to large corporate purchasers or a Chamber of Commerce endorsing R2R. (And also, as the article notes, the national Farm Bureau that the Nebraska group belongs to has already endorsed R2R!)
  - bshacklett 7y ago
    Perhaps not legal precedent, but many people may feel more comfortable pushing for right to repair if they see "down to earth" farmers calling for it. The ideal is much closer to entering the mainstream now that people other than technophiles are calling for change.
    - asdff 7y ago
      Mainstream isn't fighting against right to repair, mainstream doesn't know the conversation even exists.
t34543 7y ago
I’m so thankful this has finally come to be. I’m not sure what power the American Farm Bureau has, though. Will this become law?
- denimnerd42 7y ago
  I'd love to hear more too, I always hear that farmers have big sway because of the Iowa primary.
- spazmoose 7y ago
  I would say that there's a high probability of it becoming law. Politicians in Ag heavy states, like Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. are much more likely to listen to AFB, and if there's enough of a push, it could absolutely lead to new laws.
spazmoose 7y ago
I've been paying attention to this for several years. I have an affinity for John Deere, having grown up on a farm that had almost nothing but JD tractors, but their heavy-handed approach to repair work in recent years is unacceptable. Farmers don't have the funds available to constantly be taking equipment (that sometimes costs upwards of $200,000) to a dealership when it breaks down (and it will break down).
- deadmetheny 7y ago
  And it will break down at the worst possible time, when you can't wait for a JD tech to come down and troubleshoot the issue. Time is money for farmers, especially these days when there's so much consolidation of land happening.
- MisterOctober 7y ago
  Yep! In fact, the orchardist Michael Phillips in "The Apple Grower" specifically recommends older, purely-mechanical tractors for small / family operations, largely for repair reasons
korabas 7y ago
Honest question: what would be the rationale to prevent farmers from repairing their machinery themselves instead of through the manufacturer (in this case, Deere)? To my mind, from the point of view of the "user" (i.e. the farmer), that can be seen as somewhat monopolistic. I tried to find similarities between this situation and that of Apple not letting users tamper with their hardware, but it could be argued that the latter makes a bit more sense given that most of their customers, statistically speaking, are not necessarily tech enthusiasts who know their way around hardware, but in the case of a farmer, I'd imagine most would be perfectly capable of messing around with the internals of a tractor, albeit some software-heavy parts would of course prove almost impossible to "repair". EDIT: Grammar
- taurath 7y ago
  Money. You’re not buying a tractor, you’re buying a “platform”.
  - korabas 7y ago
    Right, that makes sense, at least from the point of view of the manufacturer, in that you're also "buying" support, etc. It's still a bit sad that there's no opt-in into such deal, ad that farmers don't seem to have another alternative.
  - Eric_WVGG 7y ago
    Well, he said “rational,” as in, how does Deere rationalize it. As far as I can tell, they’re just parroting the usual DMCA talking points… > John Deere declined to be interviewed but sent a lengthy statement outlining its concerns. The company doesn’t want people altering its copyright-protected code because, said director of public relations Ken Golden, “changes could lead to the unsafe operation of products, disruption of machine capabilities and performance, changes to emissions controls, voiding of warranties and lack of transparency to the changes when the equipment is sold to another user”. But yeah, money. One thing that gets lost in this particular controversy, IMO, is that John Deere is effectively a monopoly in this space. If farmers were able to choose between tractors that were built like Dell laptops vs ones built like iPads… So this is a problem of digital rights, but one could argue that it’s also a problem of deregulation and lack of competition.
yobananaboy 7y ago
I'm shocked someone actually voted no. What would their justification for that vote be? Legit curious if they had a proper argument, didn't understand the issue, or if it was some type of corporate influence.
- unnouinceput 7y ago
  I bet was the latter.
- jsight 7y ago
  In some cases, it may be a legitimate desire to let the market sort it out. It isn't as if there are laws barring manufacturers from allowing end-users. Arguably, the "right" answer would be for customers to go to vendors that provide support for end users repairing their own products.
- sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
  In any given vote some small percentage of people tick the wrong box by mistake.
- celeritascelery 7y ago
  With that many votes there is a good chance it was just an accident.
- viggity 7y ago
  I like to play devil's advocate... Imagine this - a sprayer stops working for any reason. Farmer purchases a non-oem electronics replacement part, but that part used a counterfeit FTDI usb controller but it silently fails. Now, the signal to turn off the sprayer when it approaches a waterway, or a school doesn't happen like it should. Obviously, the replacement part maker should take all the blame. But do you think the media is going to wait for an investigation as to why it didn't turn off, or are they going to roll footage of the gigantic green tractor and the sprayer it is towing? What if the replacement part doesn't properly sense that an access cover is open and ergo it doesn't fail safely and crushes the farmers arm and ultimately kills him? What if a bug in the software causes this error to only happen on one day or the year, or only when it is between 4:30 and 5:00? You can bet your ass that JD is testing the ever loving hell out of their parts, but is the replacement manufacturer? This isn't a physical device like a bearing that requires dimensional accuracy, or proper loading capacity. It is so, so, so much more complicated than that. How would you feel if self driving cars on the road had sensors that weren't properly vetted by their manufacturer. It isn't just the driver that is put in danger, it is everyone around them. The same goes for a sprayer and waterways.
pg_is_a_butt 7y ago
This is a big deal, not only for the farmers no longer offered machinery to buy from manufacturers like Deere, but for the rest of society who may now have some precedent to starve.
ISL 7y ago
Right to repair is increasingly hitting people outside of agrarian/industrial contexts. This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. I have a tablet that long-ago met the same fate. This is in the same world where I can 'apt-get update' my seven-year old desktop and work with aplomb. It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware.
- eastof 7y ago
  You can get really good support from Lineage OS for years to come. Been running it on all my android devices for years. The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support. When was the last time you checked on this? As far as I can see, LineageOS support is pretty much restricted to phones that have had it for years. There is no hope if you have a recent phone. There's also no hope if you have an old phone, unless it's already supported. For example, the most recent Pixel with support is... the Pixel. The original.
    - Enginerrrd 7y ago
      This has been my experience, and I feel like I've been lookding pretty hard. I'd really like to see this problem get solved.
    - vorpalhex 7y ago
      Lineage depends on the community to issue device specific builds. For instance, my dual sim traveling phone has no official Lineage support, but is well supported through the community (and indeed, everything works quite well). I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.
kevindong 7y ago
> 3. Include ALL OEM equipment, regardless of age, model, or years in use at the time of the effective date. To me, that clause seems to be overly broad since I'm interpreting it to mean that the manufacturers have to indefinitely support all of their products. If it's limited to all equipment that the OEM is willing to sell to at least one entity, then I'd say it's perfectly reasonable.
- tzs 7y ago
  I believe that it is meant to be interpreted in conjunction with the item above it on the list: > 2. Guarantee farmer/repair technician access to the identical information, parts, and tools that are available to dealerships. These items must be fairly and reasonably priced (taking into account both small and large producers) and be delivered in a timely manner. They could stop providing information, parts, and tool for old models, but only if they also no longer provide the information, parts, and tools to their dealers.
SN76477 7y ago
Queuing the lease only business model in 3...2...1...
galaxyLogic 7y ago
Then what does this mean for Software? Right to repair your software. Isn't that the same as Open Source?
Ididntdothis 7y ago
My only concern is that this may be restricted to farmers while it’s a much more general issue. We don’t need more laws specific for an industry.
- squish78 7y ago
  Farmers create the one product you can't live without
elihu 7y ago
> The measure adopted by the Nebraska Farm Bureau laid out specific standards for any agreement or legislation: > Right to Repair: Nebraska Farm Bureau supports the implementation of comprehensive right to repair legislation OR a negotiated written agreement between ag producers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This legislation or agreement must: .... > 4. Differentiate between repair (the restoration of hardware to its original intended function) and illegal “modding,” (modification of original hardware to bypass environmental controls). To be pedantic, there are mods that are neither restoring originally intended functionality nor illegally bypassing environmental controls. I think that the ability to add functionality that the original manufacturer never intended is an important right that the owners of the equipment should have.
- WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
  This bothered me as well. Modding to a non-illegal condition should be as equally unencumbered as a restoration of hardware to it's original intended function.
- userbinator 7y ago
  The EPA has always had laws about environmental controls (whether people care about them is a different issue, however...), so it's not something any new laws should really need to cover.
  - elihu 7y ago
    Also, a user may conceivably want to convert diesel equipment to be electric.
  - bityard 7y ago
    It is deliberately specified in order to preemptively counter the industry's argument that their proprietary systems and repair tools are there to protect the environment and the law.
wiremine 7y ago
Disclaimer: I'm a VP for an IoT software company. I also grew up in farming communities. I'm all for the right to repair, but I'm concerned we're creating a bit of false hope for famers. As more and more software gets injected into the equipment, "fixing" things requires touching both the physical devices and the software. Obviously, the right to repair for non-software related problems is easy to understand. I'm wondering, however, how the current proposals handle software fixes or mixed use cases (software/hardware fixes)?
- impalallama 7y ago
  Isn't a large part of this about being able to go to third parties as well?
- squish78 7y ago
  Less reliance on the tech sector for hardware solutions, and more research in logistics and supply chain. Let farmers farm. They are proving that it can be done with more profitability acre-for-acre with hand tools than tractors https://www.neversinkfarm.com/ https://www.neversinkfarm.com/
  - bdamm 7y ago
    That is patently absurd. There is a reason why nearly every corn and wheat farm has a combine.
    - squish78 7y ago
      Explain how what I said is patently absurd. Are we looking at the same USDA data?
      - bdamm 7y ago
        Specific farms may be able to take advantage of their position or specialization and use hand-tools to gain more value per-acre, but that kind of specialization cannot scale up to commercial scale where a farmer with a set of machines can profitably farm dozens of acres or more. They aren't putting as much care into each acre, but in the end it doesn't matter. And, if everyone was doing what the specialized teams are doing, then probably the market that feeds the specialization would collapse because now there's no restriction on supply and prices for the product would go down. This is just basic economics.
squish78 7y ago
This is excellent news, and good awareness for the ag sector. The most existential threat to human survival is the consolidation of the farm sector. If any industry needs to be decentralized (for the sake of resiliency) it's agriculture. We don't want to create single points of failure in the food supply Urban USA doesn't can't comprehend the fact that famine is a logistical possibility if finance/tech fucks up farming.
- jay_kyburz 7y ago
  Many people will argue that finance / tech have already fucked up farming.
  - squish78 7y ago
    I would agree, but we're not yet to the point of massive famine and crop failures - although it seems closer year after year. Every farmer I talk to is worn out and tired of the bullshit.
    - jay_kyburz 7y ago
      I've often wondered if our government has some massive stores of grain somewhere to feed the nation for a few years in the event of a near total crop failure. Seems irresponsible not to have it. Update: I sometimes wonder what it would take for me to have a year of food in reserve here at home, but I worry that its just the crazy Prepper in me trying to come out.
      - squish78 7y ago
        Think on this topic long enough, and you'll find yourself starting a vegetable garden in the spring.
        jay_kyburz 7y ago
        Good exercise away from the computer, and nice fresh food too. Makes a lot of sense.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
Thinking of who wouldn't vote for right to repair I can only come up with: 1. leaders of companies that would be adversely affected by right to repair 2. perhaps employees of same companies but that seems iffy as I doubt the adverse effects would be so great as to threaten employment. 3. People who actually think that although it would be to their benefit to have a right to repair there is an encroachment on a company's rights to make their products as they seem fit by enforcing it. Have I missed anyone? Because I think at that rate the population would vote overwhelmingly for it if offered the choice.
- p1necone 7y ago
  I don't know, Americans seem to be relatively more in favor of allowing corporations to screw them than many other countries.
  - SamWhited 7y ago
    This post may sound flippant and is getting a lot of down votes, but this seems like an interesting discussion to be had. Do we (I am from the U.S.) tend to allow companies to screw us more than other countries? If so is it cultural, or something legal? Is it part of our broader convenience culture? I don't now, but it would be interesting to dig into if anyone can provide evidence for or against this.
    - viklove 7y ago
      It's getting downvotes because it was posted in bad faith. Many Americans would say we give corporations the freedom to act how they wish, and we give individuals the freedom to do business with the corporations they choose. The argument to be had is how much the government needs to watch out for the citizenship, because every "protective" law they pass is a restriction on the aforementioned freedoms. The American school of thought (I'm calling it that to differentiate from the European school of thought) is that the amount of government meddling in interactions between two parties not involving the government should be kept to a minimum, and the individual should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. When you frame it this way, you might get less downvotes and more responses.
daveheq 7y ago
But what about a corporation's right to replace? People having their right to repair infringes on a corporation's right to make you replace your stuff. You're stepping all over their rights by not wanting to be forced to have them replace your broken stuff.
- dreamingincode 7y ago
  Why do cooperations have the right to replace people's stuff? People bought it and it's their own.
Balanceinfinity 7y ago
An economist would say that when considering buying this machinery the farmer would also consider the cost and availability of repairs and that the competition in the machinery market (the primary market) would police the secondary market for repairs. In reality, this kind of policing is hard to come by because of the time and expense of figuring out which company has the cheapest lifecycle1 costs for the equipment (do you figure out how much the blades will cost when you buy the razor). But the real reason is that lots of people just don't think about the long-term costs attached to a purchase.
- bduerst 7y ago
  When buying, if there are contractual strings attached to the use of the asset then it's more of a lease purchase than actual asset purchase. As it is now, farmers that are purchasing the asset are saying they want to use the asset as they deem fit, including repairs.
  - Balanceinfinity 7y ago
    agreed. But when they purchased the machines, they should have looked at the services terms and taken that into account when making their purchases. If there's competition in the market (no idea) then presumably someone would try to beat its competitors by offering a better service option (such as unlocked diagnostics). This issue went to the supreme court on the question of whether a manufacturer could "monopolize" its aftermarket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
    - ShroudedNight 7y ago
      Link is missing the trailing period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec.... FWIW, I had to add an extra period at the end to get the original one to get included as part of the link.
acd 7y ago
This is definitely the right step to take. We have global warming of course we should repair things in order to utilize them longer. This will benefit the environment and also hopefully farmers and consumers. Our grandparents stuff was made to last a lifetime we have something to relearn from that.
cletus 7y ago
What many people may not realize is just how long-lived a lot of farm equipment is. There will be tractors out there still working that are 75 years old and just keep getting repaired. Obviously the manufacturers would like to sell those farmers tractors more often than that or, in the very least, generate a revenue stream from existing hardware and honestly that's what I see a lot of computing in vehicles as being: nothing more than guaranteeing a revenue stream. It'll get marketed and sold as "efficiency" but the manufacturers are capturing those (alleged) efficiency gains by charging farmers to repair them. This is also the case with GM crops too. For years, farmers cultivated seeds and replanted them for the next year's harvest. GM crops are typically constructed so they're not fertile beyond the current generation. Why? So the farmer has to re-buy the seed stock from the manufacturer.
- toomanybeersies 7y ago
  I've seen and used farm equipment and machine tools (lathes, mills, etc.) from the 40's and 50's that are still in good serviceable condition. I think it's been a long time since farmers cultivated their own seed though, even before roundup-resistant and GM crops were commonplace. It's a very different science and skill to growing crops.
  - tapvt 7y ago
    I still run a 1949 Ford 8N tractor. No heroic measures needed to keep it going. Just routine maintenance.
    - olivermarks 7y ago
      Designed to last forever if maintained properly..
      - OldManAndTheCpp 7y ago
        A cool thing I learned from watching AvE's channel is that bearing surfaces are meant to last forever if properly lubricated. The oil in them is meant to take all the load, and the metal surfaces should never touch. If you don't replace the oil regularly, or let it get so hot it flows out of the journal, the bearing will wear and need replacing. The design is meant to last a really long time if properly serviced and not overloaded though. (I'd love to hear from a MechE if I misunderstood, I'm just a dumb programmer who watches YouTube).
duxup 7y ago
I wonder if it is like in Minnesota where there is rural support for right to repair...but they vote for representatives who oppose it?
Kyragem 7y ago
Farmers voting for their best interests?
pretendscholar 7y ago
Off topic but if I wanted some info on farming for hackers where would I look? Lets say I wanted gis data on how well a given crop grows on a given spot on earth or how to back together a set of crops/livestock that promote topsoil growth.
someisaac 7y ago
This reminds me of GNU GPL - Right to modify the software I bought.
whazor 7y ago
Farmers are hackers. There is a lot of technology on farms. You have tractor's, irrigation systems, sensors, camera's, sometimes even drones.
Neil44 7y ago
Why does John Deere not simply offer the best service and repair facility in an open market in order to win the revenue stream? This was always a land grab for easy profits.
shrimpx 7y ago
In the limit this doesn't seem like a forward-looking/future-proof move. The gap between technology and consumers is naturally widening as tech becomes more powerful and useful. E.g. smaller scale hardware, more and smaller sensors, complex AI, autonomy. Machinery will self-disable if you tamper with it, for your safety. To continue to provide/enforce right to repair you'd have to insist that technology needs to remain dumb.
supernova87a 7y ago
So, in looking at this from not just the "this year" problem point of view, but a "how do we set up society" point of view: What is the failing here that our current system doesn't address and we need to correct it with these one-off bills? Why is it that the farmers can't make the right choices or put pressure on the manufacturers (by not buying their stuff if they don't agree with it) to make the equipment easily maintainable? If farmers are choosing with full information to value the cost more than maintainability, why is it a problem that rises to having to put in a right-to-repair bill? Haven't they made their choice clear? If the farmers wanted to start an equipment company that served their needs as this bill seeks to do, they are free to do that in this environment. I'm not sure why people's clear choice needs to be counteracted with a patch on the consequences of their choice.
arminiusreturns 7y ago
The right to repair in a computer age requires the right to root. This is the biggest sticking point for me, and why I still think open source is the future, and in particular copyleft open source that doesn't allow itself to be tivoized, which is why I have spent years making the vast majority of my stacks gpl or gpl compat.

1536 points by howard941 7y ago

This is a big deal, not only for the farmers using machinery from manufacturers like Deere, but for the rest of society who may now have some precedent for right to repair.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
azernik 7y ago
This doesn't establish any precedent - it's not a law or regulation, just an expression of the opinion of an association of farmers. In the equipment market, they're effectively a consumers' rights organization (except B2B? analogies to the consumer electronics market are inaccurate). Equivalent maybe to large corporate purchasers or a Chamber of Commerce endorsing R2R. (And also, as the article notes, the national Farm Bureau that the Nebraska group belongs to has already endorsed R2R!)
- bshacklett 7y ago
  Perhaps not legal precedent, but many people may feel more comfortable pushing for right to repair if they see "down to earth" farmers calling for it. The ideal is much closer to entering the mainstream now that people other than technophiles are calling for change.
  - asdff 7y ago
    Mainstream isn't fighting against right to repair, mainstream doesn't know the conversation even exists.

t34543 7y ago

I’m so thankful this has finally come to be. I’m not sure what power the American Farm Bureau has, though. Will this become law?

denimnerd42 7y ago
I'd love to hear more too, I always hear that farmers have big sway because of the Iowa primary.
spazmoose 7y ago
I would say that there's a high probability of it becoming law. Politicians in Ag heavy states, like Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. are much more likely to listen to AFB, and if there's enough of a push, it could absolutely lead to new laws.

spazmoose 7y ago

I've been paying attention to this for several years. I have an affinity for John Deere, having grown up on a farm that had almost nothing but JD tractors, but their heavy-handed approach to repair work in recent years is unacceptable. Farmers don't have the funds available to constantly be taking equipment (that sometimes costs upwards of $200,000) to a dealership when it breaks down (and it will break down).

deadmetheny 7y ago
And it will break down at the worst possible time, when you can't wait for a JD tech to come down and troubleshoot the issue. Time is money for farmers, especially these days when there's so much consolidation of land happening.
MisterOctober 7y ago
Yep! In fact, the orchardist Michael Phillips in "The Apple Grower" specifically recommends older, purely-mechanical tractors for small / family operations, largely for repair reasons

korabas 7y ago

Honest question: what would be the rationale to prevent farmers from repairing their machinery themselves instead of through the manufacturer (in this case, Deere)? To my mind, from the point of view of the "user" (i.e. the farmer), that can be seen as somewhat monopolistic. I tried to find similarities between this situation and that of Apple not letting users tamper with their hardware, but it could be argued that the latter makes a bit more sense given that most of their customers, statistically speaking, are not necessarily tech enthusiasts who know their way around hardware, but in the case of a farmer, I'd imagine most would be perfectly capable of messing around with the internals of a tractor, albeit some software-heavy parts would of course prove almost impossible to "repair". EDIT: Grammar

taurath 7y ago
Money. You’re not buying a tractor, you’re buying a “platform”.
- korabas 7y ago
  Right, that makes sense, at least from the point of view of the manufacturer, in that you're also "buying" support, etc. It's still a bit sad that there's no opt-in into such deal, ad that farmers don't seem to have another alternative.
- Eric_WVGG 7y ago
  Well, he said “rational,” as in, how does Deere rationalize it. As far as I can tell, they’re just parroting the usual DMCA talking points… > John Deere declined to be interviewed but sent a lengthy statement outlining its concerns. The company doesn’t want people altering its copyright-protected code because, said director of public relations Ken Golden, “changes could lead to the unsafe operation of products, disruption of machine capabilities and performance, changes to emissions controls, voiding of warranties and lack of transparency to the changes when the equipment is sold to another user”. But yeah, money. One thing that gets lost in this particular controversy, IMO, is that John Deere is effectively a monopoly in this space. If farmers were able to choose between tractors that were built like Dell laptops vs ones built like iPads… So this is a problem of digital rights, but one could argue that it’s also a problem of deregulation and lack of competition.

yobananaboy 7y ago

I'm shocked someone actually voted no. What would their justification for that vote be? Legit curious if they had a proper argument, didn't understand the issue, or if it was some type of corporate influence.

unnouinceput 7y ago
I bet was the latter.
jsight 7y ago
In some cases, it may be a legitimate desire to let the market sort it out. It isn't as if there are laws barring manufacturers from allowing end-users. Arguably, the "right" answer would be for customers to go to vendors that provide support for end users repairing their own products.
sadfklsjlkjwt 7y ago
In any given vote some small percentage of people tick the wrong box by mistake.
celeritascelery 7y ago
With that many votes there is a good chance it was just an accident.
viggity 7y ago
I like to play devil's advocate... Imagine this - a sprayer stops working for any reason. Farmer purchases a non-oem electronics replacement part, but that part used a counterfeit FTDI usb controller but it silently fails. Now, the signal to turn off the sprayer when it approaches a waterway, or a school doesn't happen like it should. Obviously, the replacement part maker should take all the blame. But do you think the media is going to wait for an investigation as to why it didn't turn off, or are they going to roll footage of the gigantic green tractor and the sprayer it is towing? What if the replacement part doesn't properly sense that an access cover is open and ergo it doesn't fail safely and crushes the farmers arm and ultimately kills him? What if a bug in the software causes this error to only happen on one day or the year, or only when it is between 4:30 and 5:00? You can bet your ass that JD is testing the ever loving hell out of their parts, but is the replacement manufacturer? This isn't a physical device like a bearing that requires dimensional accuracy, or proper loading capacity. It is so, so, so much more complicated than that. How would you feel if self driving cars on the road had sensors that weren't properly vetted by their manufacturer. It isn't just the driver that is put in danger, it is everyone around them. The same goes for a sprayer and waterways.

pg_is_a_butt 7y ago

This is a big deal, not only for the farmers no longer offered machinery to buy from manufacturers like Deere, but for the rest of society who may now have some precedent to starve.

ISL 7y ago

Right to repair is increasingly hitting people outside of agrarian/industrial contexts. This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. I have a tablet that long-ago met the same fate. This is in the same world where I can 'apt-get update' my seven-year old desktop and work with aplomb. It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware.

eastof 7y ago
You can get really good support from Lineage OS for years to come. Been running it on all my android devices for years. The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support. When was the last time you checked on this? As far as I can see, LineageOS support is pretty much restricted to phones that have had it for years. There is no hope if you have a recent phone. There's also no hope if you have an old phone, unless it's already supported. For example, the most recent Pixel with support is... the Pixel. The original.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    This has been my experience, and I feel like I've been lookding pretty hard. I'd really like to see this problem get solved.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    Lineage depends on the community to issue device specific builds. For instance, my dual sim traveling phone has no official Lineage support, but is well supported through the community (and indeed, everything works quite well). I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.

kevindong 7y ago

> 3. Include ALL OEM equipment, regardless of age, model, or years in use at the time of the effective date. To me, that clause seems to be overly broad since I'm interpreting it to mean that the manufacturers have to indefinitely support all of their products. If it's limited to all equipment that the OEM is willing to sell to at least one entity, then I'd say it's perfectly reasonable.

tzs 7y ago
I believe that it is meant to be interpreted in conjunction with the item above it on the list: > 2. Guarantee farmer/repair technician access to the identical information, parts, and tools that are available to dealerships. These items must be fairly and reasonably priced (taking into account both small and large producers) and be delivered in a timely manner. They could stop providing information, parts, and tool for old models, but only if they also no longer provide the information, parts, and tools to their dealers.

SN76477 7y ago

Queuing the lease only business model in 3...2...1...

galaxyLogic 7y ago

Then what does this mean for Software? Right to repair your software. Isn't that the same as Open Source?

Ididntdothis 7y ago

My only concern is that this may be restricted to farmers while it’s a much more general issue. We don’t need more laws specific for an industry.

squish78 7y ago
Farmers create the one product you can't live without

elihu 7y ago

> The measure adopted by the Nebraska Farm Bureau laid out specific standards for any agreement or legislation: > Right to Repair: Nebraska Farm Bureau supports the implementation of comprehensive right to repair legislation OR a negotiated written agreement between ag producers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). This legislation or agreement must: .... > 4. Differentiate between repair (the restoration of hardware to its original intended function) and illegal “modding,” (modification of original hardware to bypass environmental controls). To be pedantic, there are mods that are neither restoring originally intended functionality nor illegally bypassing environmental controls. I think that the ability to add functionality that the original manufacturer never intended is an important right that the owners of the equipment should have.

WarOnPrivacy 7y ago
This bothered me as well. Modding to a non-illegal condition should be as equally unencumbered as a restoration of hardware to it's original intended function.
userbinator 7y ago
The EPA has always had laws about environmental controls (whether people care about them is a different issue, however...), so it's not something any new laws should really need to cover.
- elihu 7y ago
  Also, a user may conceivably want to convert diesel equipment to be electric.
- bityard 7y ago
  It is deliberately specified in order to preemptively counter the industry's argument that their proprietary systems and repair tools are there to protect the environment and the law.

wiremine 7y ago

Disclaimer: I'm a VP for an IoT software company. I also grew up in farming communities. I'm all for the right to repair, but I'm concerned we're creating a bit of false hope for famers. As more and more software gets injected into the equipment, "fixing" things requires touching both the physical devices and the software. Obviously, the right to repair for non-software related problems is easy to understand. I'm wondering, however, how the current proposals handle software fixes or mixed use cases (software/hardware fixes)?

impalallama 7y ago
Isn't a large part of this about being able to go to third parties as well?
squish78 7y ago
Less reliance on the tech sector for hardware solutions, and more research in logistics and supply chain. Let farmers farm. They are proving that it can be done with more profitability acre-for-acre with hand tools than tractors https://www.neversinkfarm.com/ https://www.neversinkfarm.com/
- bdamm 7y ago
  That is patently absurd. There is a reason why nearly every corn and wheat farm has a combine.
  - squish78 7y ago
    Explain how what I said is patently absurd. Are we looking at the same USDA data?
    - bdamm 7y ago
      Specific farms may be able to take advantage of their position or specialization and use hand-tools to gain more value per-acre, but that kind of specialization cannot scale up to commercial scale where a farmer with a set of machines can profitably farm dozens of acres or more. They aren't putting as much care into each acre, but in the end it doesn't matter. And, if everyone was doing what the specialized teams are doing, then probably the market that feeds the specialization would collapse because now there's no restriction on supply and prices for the product would go down. This is just basic economics.

squish78 7y ago

This is excellent news, and good awareness for the ag sector. The most existential threat to human survival is the consolidation of the farm sector. If any industry needs to be decentralized (for the sake of resiliency) it's agriculture. We don't want to create single points of failure in the food supply Urban USA doesn't can't comprehend the fact that famine is a logistical possibility if finance/tech fucks up farming.

jay_kyburz 7y ago
Many people will argue that finance / tech have already fucked up farming.
- squish78 7y ago
  I would agree, but we're not yet to the point of massive famine and crop failures - although it seems closer year after year. Every farmer I talk to is worn out and tired of the bullshit.
  - jay_kyburz 7y ago
    I've often wondered if our government has some massive stores of grain somewhere to feed the nation for a few years in the event of a near total crop failure. Seems irresponsible not to have it. Update: I sometimes wonder what it would take for me to have a year of food in reserve here at home, but I worry that its just the crazy Prepper in me trying to come out.
    - squish78 7y ago
      Think on this topic long enough, and you'll find yourself starting a vegetable garden in the spring.
      - jay_kyburz 7y ago
        Good exercise away from the computer, and nice fresh food too. Makes a lot of sense.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

Thinking of who wouldn't vote for right to repair I can only come up with: 1. leaders of companies that would be adversely affected by right to repair 2. perhaps employees of same companies but that seems iffy as I doubt the adverse effects would be so great as to threaten employment. 3. People who actually think that although it would be to their benefit to have a right to repair there is an encroachment on a company's rights to make their products as they seem fit by enforcing it. Have I missed anyone? Because I think at that rate the population would vote overwhelmingly for it if offered the choice.

p1necone 7y ago
I don't know, Americans seem to be relatively more in favor of allowing corporations to screw them than many other countries.
- SamWhited 7y ago
  This post may sound flippant and is getting a lot of down votes, but this seems like an interesting discussion to be had. Do we (I am from the U.S.) tend to allow companies to screw us more than other countries? If so is it cultural, or something legal? Is it part of our broader convenience culture? I don't now, but it would be interesting to dig into if anyone can provide evidence for or against this.
  - viklove 7y ago
    It's getting downvotes because it was posted in bad faith. Many Americans would say we give corporations the freedom to act how they wish, and we give individuals the freedom to do business with the corporations they choose. The argument to be had is how much the government needs to watch out for the citizenship, because every "protective" law they pass is a restriction on the aforementioned freedoms. The American school of thought (I'm calling it that to differentiate from the European school of thought) is that the amount of government meddling in interactions between two parties not involving the government should be kept to a minimum, and the individual should be responsible for the consequences of their actions. When you frame it this way, you might get less downvotes and more responses.

daveheq 7y ago

But what about a corporation's right to replace? People having their right to repair infringes on a corporation's right to make you replace your stuff. You're stepping all over their rights by not wanting to be forced to have them replace your broken stuff.

dreamingincode 7y ago
Why do cooperations have the right to replace people's stuff? People bought it and it's their own.

Balanceinfinity 7y ago

An economist would say that when considering buying this machinery the farmer would also consider the cost and availability of repairs and that the competition in the machinery market (the primary market) would police the secondary market for repairs. In reality, this kind of policing is hard to come by because of the time and expense of figuring out which company has the cheapest lifecycle1 costs for the equipment (do you figure out how much the blades will cost when you buy the razor). But the real reason is that lots of people just don't think about the long-term costs attached to a purchase.

bduerst 7y ago
When buying, if there are contractual strings attached to the use of the asset then it's more of a lease purchase than actual asset purchase. As it is now, farmers that are purchasing the asset are saying they want to use the asset as they deem fit, including repairs.
- Balanceinfinity 7y ago
  agreed. But when they purchased the machines, they should have looked at the services terms and taken that into account when making their purchases. If there's competition in the market (no idea) then presumably someone would try to beat its competitors by offering a better service option (such as unlocked diagnostics). This issue went to the supreme court on the question of whether a manufacturer could "monopolize" its aftermarket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec....
  - ShroudedNight 7y ago
    Link is missing the trailing period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Technical_Services,_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Kodak_Co._v._Image_Tec.... FWIW, I had to add an extra period at the end to get the original one to get included as part of the link.

acd 7y ago

This is definitely the right step to take. We have global warming of course we should repair things in order to utilize them longer. This will benefit the environment and also hopefully farmers and consumers. Our grandparents stuff was made to last a lifetime we have something to relearn from that.

cletus 7y ago

What many people may not realize is just how long-lived a lot of farm equipment is. There will be tractors out there still working that are 75 years old and just keep getting repaired. Obviously the manufacturers would like to sell those farmers tractors more often than that or, in the very least, generate a revenue stream from existing hardware and honestly that's what I see a lot of computing in vehicles as being: nothing more than guaranteeing a revenue stream. It'll get marketed and sold as "efficiency" but the manufacturers are capturing those (alleged) efficiency gains by charging farmers to repair them. This is also the case with GM crops too. For years, farmers cultivated seeds and replanted them for the next year's harvest. GM crops are typically constructed so they're not fertile beyond the current generation. Why? So the farmer has to re-buy the seed stock from the manufacturer.

toomanybeersies 7y ago
I've seen and used farm equipment and machine tools (lathes, mills, etc.) from the 40's and 50's that are still in good serviceable condition. I think it's been a long time since farmers cultivated their own seed though, even before roundup-resistant and GM crops were commonplace. It's a very different science and skill to growing crops.
- tapvt 7y ago
  I still run a 1949 Ford 8N tractor. No heroic measures needed to keep it going. Just routine maintenance.
  - olivermarks 7y ago
    Designed to last forever if maintained properly..
    - OldManAndTheCpp 7y ago
      A cool thing I learned from watching AvE's channel is that bearing surfaces are meant to last forever if properly lubricated. The oil in them is meant to take all the load, and the metal surfaces should never touch. If you don't replace the oil regularly, or let it get so hot it flows out of the journal, the bearing will wear and need replacing. The design is meant to last a really long time if properly serviced and not overloaded though. (I'd love to hear from a MechE if I misunderstood, I'm just a dumb programmer who watches YouTube).

duxup 7y ago

I wonder if it is like in Minnesota where there is rural support for right to repair...but they vote for representatives who oppose it?

Kyragem 7y ago

Farmers voting for their best interests?

pretendscholar 7y ago

Off topic but if I wanted some info on farming for hackers where would I look? Lets say I wanted gis data on how well a given crop grows on a given spot on earth or how to back together a set of crops/livestock that promote topsoil growth.

someisaac 7y ago

This reminds me of GNU GPL - Right to modify the software I bought.

whazor 7y ago

Farmers are hackers. There is a lot of technology on farms. You have tractor's, irrigation systems, sensors, camera's, sometimes even drones.

Neil44 7y ago

Why does John Deere not simply offer the best service and repair facility in an open market in order to win the revenue stream? This was always a land grab for easy profits.

shrimpx 7y ago

In the limit this doesn't seem like a forward-looking/future-proof move. The gap between technology and consumers is naturally widening as tech becomes more powerful and useful. E.g. smaller scale hardware, more and smaller sensors, complex AI, autonomy. Machinery will self-disable if you tamper with it, for your safety. To continue to provide/enforce right to repair you'd have to insist that technology needs to remain dumb.

supernova87a 7y ago

So, in looking at this from not just the "this year" problem point of view, but a "how do we set up society" point of view: What is the failing here that our current system doesn't address and we need to correct it with these one-off bills? Why is it that the farmers can't make the right choices or put pressure on the manufacturers (by not buying their stuff if they don't agree with it) to make the equipment easily maintainable? If farmers are choosing with full information to value the cost more than maintainability, why is it a problem that rises to having to put in a right-to-repair bill? Haven't they made their choice clear? If the farmers wanted to start an equipment company that served their needs as this bill seeks to do, they are free to do that in this environment. I'm not sure why people's clear choice needs to be counteracted with a patch on the consequences of their choice.

arminiusreturns 7y ago

The right to repair in a computer age requires the right to root. This is the biggest sticking point for me, and why I still think open source is the future, and in particular copyleft open source that doesn't allow itself to be tivoized, which is why I have spent years making the vast majority of my stacks gpl or gpl compat.