7 ms·

John Deere hit with class action lawsuit over alleged tractor repair monopoly

54 points by lostgame 5y ago

klyrs 5y ago
There appears to be an interesting analogy between this case and the Apple store. In each, the company flexes monopoly power over their customers -- Apple in selling apps to idevice users (traditionally an open market) and John Deere in repairing tractors. Neither has a complete monopoly on (tractors, phones, apps for phones, tractor repair) but the monopoly is within their sector of a market. Very curious to see how this plays out, as Deere's fortune may set a precedent that impacts Apple's fate.
- tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
  I don't think having a monopoly should be a requirement to take legal action against nasty practices in general. If somebody is beating his wife, should that be ignored because, you know, she can move out?
  - mrVentures 5y ago
    Unfair analogy. The customer is paying for the product. It's complicated.
  - klyrs 5y ago
    What??? The existence of a law against any specific or general act is necessary for taking legal action. Your unnecessarily crude example is a violation of an existing law. Box checked. It's not a violation of the Sherman Act (Clayton Act, FTC Act), so let's stop talking about that example, thanks. The question in the air in these cases is whether Deere, Apple, etc. are violations of specific anti-trust laws -- the language of those law is intentionally open-ended, and there isn't a ton of case-law. Thus, these cases have a high chance of setting precedent. Now, it seems that what you're suggesting is that we should be able to punish companies, people, etc for being "bad" just because we know it's "bad." This sort of "justice" is literally arbitrary, and leads to incredible injustices. The closest remedies we have as a people, if this behavior is found to not violate existing anti-trust laws, is to persuade Congress to pass new laws (good luck), pass a constitutional amendment (nope), or to wage a class-action suit (here's your gift certificate for a can of beans).
    - omegalulw 5y ago
      > This sort of "justice" is literally arbitrary, and leads to incredible injustices +1. I expect stuff like this from regular social media like reddit but I'm appalled that this is so common here on HN too.
      - tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
        And I expect decent counterarguments, but here we are.
        klyrs 5y ago
        Your opening "argument" asks us to throw out literally centuries of jurisprudence. Little surprise that you find my response lacking.
        torstenvl 5y ago
        The decent counterargument is that your proposed system of law isn't one of law at all. It's arbitrary and capricious. It violates all recognized standards of due process. Under your system, there is no way of knowing whether what you are doing is legal or not. For example, how would you feel if tomorrow you were hauled to jail for incitement toward an ex post facto law? Ex post facto laws are widely recognized as being morally reprehensible. Surely you should have been on notice that it's illegal to push for one, right?
    - tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
      The creation of such laws is only a matter of (perhaps very long) time. You think this is an "arbitrary" viewpoint? Fine, give me your best argument why what John Deere is doing is "good".
      - klyrs 5y ago
        No, I think that John Deere is in violation of antitrust law. Apple, too. And I'm hoping that judges agree with me. And if not, I would hope that Congress could pass laws that Apple and Deere would be made to follow -- would and could, because I have little faith in the legislative branch at this time. Punishing because it feels right is what I take issue with. Punishing on the basis of a violated law is, at least, above-board.
ORCByte 5y ago
Thing is.. all this stuff communicates over CAN and if someone messes up a single value it can literally destroy the vehicle and humans. One byte off and suddenly the wheel sensor speed overrides the engine speed and 50 other devices on the machine react accordingly .. on top of that manufactures are really system integrators most of the time and tons of code belong to downstream manufacturers.. most of the code is something you wouldn’t want outsiders to see (poorly written/documented) so as much as I am for open source and the like but the underestimation of the risk and difficulty of some random person coding to “repair” a tractor should terrify any software engineer. And yes something as simple as a grapple bucket needs proper code now. Just the way it is.
- salawat 5y ago
  >Thing is.. all this stuff communicates over CAN and if someone messes up a single value it can literally destroy the vehicle and humans. One byte off and suddenly the wheel sensor speed overrides the engine speed and 50 other devices on the machine react accordingly .. on top of that manufactures are really system integrators most of the time and tons of code belong to downstream manufacturers.. most of the code is something you wouldn’t want outsiders to see (poorly written/documented) so as much as I am for open source and the like but the underestimation of the risk and difficulty of some random person coding to “repair” a tractor should terrify any software engineer. Bullshit. This is digital logic. One bit off can destroy anything. We don't lock all software behind lock and key because digital logic is digital logic. Yeah. It's a tractor. So what? One bit off and disk firmware can spin up out of control until the platter shatters, controller overvolts/heats. One bit off and a plane can fly itself into the ground. A race condition and an X-ray fires a lethal beam of hard radiation into a patient. Programs, segfaults, symbol tables, the most mission critical software ever, gains no benefit being locked away from the public. Proprietary standards not publically accessible does nothing but internalize corruption or flaws we build into them until that rare person that can eventually mitigate or raise awareness of their implication comes along and blows the whistle. I'm tired of the platitudes and arrogance of these corporate malusers of software to manufacture nothing but artificial scarcity, malusers of lobbyists and marketing to manufacture control and credibility with which to steer the masses perception around what is a legitimate use of digital logic. We, and I mean the entirety of the tech industry need to have a moral "Come to <subject of veneratiom>", and acknowledge that by not paying attention to how our employers utilize that which we've made, we have made the world worse for everyone. I can say that that includes everything from juniors to the most crack programmer/hardware designer out there. The excuses have officially gotten intolerably old and decrepit.

54 points by lostgame 5y ago

There appears to be an interesting analogy between this case and the Apple store. In each, the company flexes monopoly power over their customers -- Apple in selling apps to idevice users (traditionally an open market) and John Deere in repairing tractors. Neither has a complete monopoly on (tractors, phones, apps for phones, tractor repair) but the monopoly is within their sector of a market. Very curious to see how this plays out, as Deere's fortune may set a precedent that impacts Apple's fate.

tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
I don't think having a monopoly should be a requirement to take legal action against nasty practices in general. If somebody is beating his wife, should that be ignored because, you know, she can move out?
- mrVentures 5y ago
  Unfair analogy. The customer is paying for the product. It's complicated.
- klyrs 5y ago
  What??? The existence of a law against any specific or general act is necessary for taking legal action. Your unnecessarily crude example is a violation of an existing law. Box checked. It's not a violation of the Sherman Act (Clayton Act, FTC Act), so let's stop talking about that example, thanks. The question in the air in these cases is whether Deere, Apple, etc. are violations of specific anti-trust laws -- the language of those law is intentionally open-ended, and there isn't a ton of case-law. Thus, these cases have a high chance of setting precedent. Now, it seems that what you're suggesting is that we should be able to punish companies, people, etc for being "bad" just because we know it's "bad." This sort of "justice" is literally arbitrary, and leads to incredible injustices. The closest remedies we have as a people, if this behavior is found to not violate existing anti-trust laws, is to persuade Congress to pass new laws (good luck), pass a constitutional amendment (nope), or to wage a class-action suit (here's your gift certificate for a can of beans).
  - omegalulw 5y ago
    > This sort of "justice" is literally arbitrary, and leads to incredible injustices +1. I expect stuff like this from regular social media like reddit but I'm appalled that this is so common here on HN too.
    - tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
      And I expect decent counterarguments, but here we are.
      - klyrs 5y ago
        Your opening "argument" asks us to throw out literally centuries of jurisprudence. Little surprise that you find my response lacking.
      - torstenvl 5y ago
        The decent counterargument is that your proposed system of law isn't one of law at all. It's arbitrary and capricious. It violates all recognized standards of due process. Under your system, there is no way of knowing whether what you are doing is legal or not. For example, how would you feel if tomorrow you were hauled to jail for incitement toward an ex post facto law? Ex post facto laws are widely recognized as being morally reprehensible. Surely you should have been on notice that it's illegal to push for one, right?
  - tdsamardzhiev 5y ago
    The creation of such laws is only a matter of (perhaps very long) time. You think this is an "arbitrary" viewpoint? Fine, give me your best argument why what John Deere is doing is "good".
    - klyrs 5y ago
      No, I think that John Deere is in violation of antitrust law. Apple, too. And I'm hoping that judges agree with me. And if not, I would hope that Congress could pass laws that Apple and Deere would be made to follow -- would and could, because I have little faith in the legislative branch at this time. Punishing because it feels right is what I take issue with. Punishing on the basis of a violated law is, at least, above-board.

ORCByte 5y ago

Thing is.. all this stuff communicates over CAN and if someone messes up a single value it can literally destroy the vehicle and humans. One byte off and suddenly the wheel sensor speed overrides the engine speed and 50 other devices on the machine react accordingly .. on top of that manufactures are really system integrators most of the time and tons of code belong to downstream manufacturers.. most of the code is something you wouldn’t want outsiders to see (poorly written/documented) so as much as I am for open source and the like but the underestimation of the risk and difficulty of some random person coding to “repair” a tractor should terrify any software engineer. And yes something as simple as a grapple bucket needs proper code now. Just the way it is.

salawat 5y ago
>Thing is.. all this stuff communicates over CAN and if someone messes up a single value it can literally destroy the vehicle and humans. One byte off and suddenly the wheel sensor speed overrides the engine speed and 50 other devices on the machine react accordingly .. on top of that manufactures are really system integrators most of the time and tons of code belong to downstream manufacturers.. most of the code is something you wouldn’t want outsiders to see (poorly written/documented) so as much as I am for open source and the like but the underestimation of the risk and difficulty of some random person coding to “repair” a tractor should terrify any software engineer. Bullshit. This is digital logic. One bit off can destroy anything. We don't lock all software behind lock and key because digital logic is digital logic. Yeah. It's a tractor. So what? One bit off and disk firmware can spin up out of control until the platter shatters, controller overvolts/heats. One bit off and a plane can fly itself into the ground. A race condition and an X-ray fires a lethal beam of hard radiation into a patient. Programs, segfaults, symbol tables, the most mission critical software ever, gains no benefit being locked away from the public. Proprietary standards not publically accessible does nothing but internalize corruption or flaws we build into them until that rare person that can eventually mitigate or raise awareness of their implication comes along and blows the whistle. I'm tired of the platitudes and arrogance of these corporate malusers of software to manufacture nothing but artificial scarcity, malusers of lobbyists and marketing to manufacture control and credibility with which to steer the masses perception around what is a legitimate use of digital logic. We, and I mean the entirety of the tech industry need to have a moral "Come to <subject of veneratiom>", and acknowledge that by not paying attention to how our employers utilize that which we've made, we have made the world worse for everyone. I can say that that includes everything from juniors to the most crack programmer/hardware designer out there. The excuses have officially gotten intolerably old and decrepit.