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They weren't selling software licenses here, they were selling a very real piece of hardware. It would be ethical to disable noncritical software updates under

They weren't selling software licenses here, they were selling a very real piece of hardware. It would be ethical to disable noncritical software updates under some time based constraints, its completely unreasonably to disable the use of the hardware all together. The customer bought it, that's their hardware to use however they wish. It would be completely unacceptable to me if an auto manufacturer baked in a time lock in a car I purchased. Heck, Apple got slapped for appearing to throttle performance based on age. Why is it reasonable for a train manufacturer to pull this stunt? To be clear, plausible deniability is also a big gray area when it comes to moral or ethical questions. It a timelock in the software seems unusual, engineers aren't off the hook simply because they didn't ask. If they did push back or ask for an explanation and were given false answers, sure they likely didn't do anything most would consider immoral. But if they just wrote the time lock because it was in a spec and didn't ask why a train should include a time bomb? Totally unethical in my book.

krisoft 3y ago
> They weren't selling software licenses here, they were selling a very real piece of hardware. I don’t know. I didn’t read the contract. Neither did you I suspect nor did the developers. Jet engines are leased by the hour. Yes they are very real pieces of hardware bolted to your airplane. That has nothing to do with the business model. Why can’t the same be true for trains? Even if I would know how trains are usually sold/purchased, which I don’t, I could be convinced by a boss that we are trying a different model. Why is this important? Two reasons: if your mental model is that these kind of things are done by “unethical developers” then you are not looking for the real culprits, and your interventions trying to prevent such things will be inefective.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  Do they turn off the jet engines if they don't pay, or do they send them a bill? There is a huge difference. Also, writing it in a contract doesn't make it ethical or even legal. Just because someone writes it in a license agreement doesn't mean that we as a society should blindly accept it. We don't allow people to sell lots of things, why should we just say 'well it was in the license' because someone tried to sell 'being able to have turn off your own passenger train for more than 10 days'?
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > Just because someone writes it in a license agreement doesn't mean that we as a society should blindly accept it. People who buy trainsets are sophisticated buyers. They have lawyers, accountants and engineers advising them. You don’t sucker a semi-senile grandma into buying your trains unseen. Nobody buys trains on a drunken dare, or as an impulse purchase. Because of this, if the financing is more viable that way, companies should be able to purchase, rent or lease their trains under whatever model makes the most sense in their particular circumstances. This of course assumes that the manufacturer deals fairly and the purchaser is properly informed about what they are buying, leasing or renting. (Which does not seem to be the case here, and that is unethical and a problem. The kind where people should go to prison in my opinion.)
    - hakdbha 3y ago
      [dead]
    - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
      I don't have anything substantial to add, but this got me: > or as an impulse purchase. as the whole case is about an Impuls purchase! :)
- klausa 3y ago
  >Jet engines are leased by the hour. I'm... very surprised by this, do you have any resources I could read about it?
  - schiffern 3y ago
    https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12528/jet-engines-are-they-owned-by-the-airline-or-just-rented https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12528/jet-engin... https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2623&h=Engine-Leasing https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2623&h=Engine-Leasing The engines also have an always-on connection back to the mothership via satellite, eg: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/13/aircraft-engine-monitoring-how-it-works-and-how-it-could-help-malaysia-air-370-crash-investigtors/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/13/aircraft-...
    - klausa 3y ago
      Thank you for the links!
- TomaszZielinski 3y ago
  This was very informative, thanks! It's so easy to assume a very simplified (or outright incorrect) model of how the world works and then point fingers in the wrong direction...
roughly 3y ago
This is not an argument I necessarily believe, but to steel-man this one: You know your trains will need service after 12 months in service or some number of miles. Absent that service, the train could fail, the failure could be catastrophic, and a catastrophic failure on a train kills people. You also know that municipal train operators in a great many parts of the world will absolutely run their trains until they kill someone rather than pay for downtime and maintenance. Therefore, you put in a lock on the train that if it hasn’t been serviced after 12 months, the train disables itself to force the owner to get the train serviced.
- chiggsy 3y ago
  Or, you'd make sure that your liability was limited to one year, absent of any servicing. Maybe you'd have a renewable service contract, yearly, and one of the requirements is local inspection. >force the owner to get the train serviced. This is coercion, implemented via subterfuge. It's no different than if they sent guys with sacks full of door handles or whatever to take control of the trains, to accomplish the same result. Or if the client hired staff to crack the provider's server, and either installed ransomware, or stole the solution. Ridiculous. The way to operate is through the laws in question, rather than removing agency from the client. If the client does not want to pay, you warn them of possible consequences, ask them if they would like to purchase an extra diagnostics package, and remind them that after a year, maintenance of the product is required to bring you back into the picture formally.
- tasuki 3y ago
  Not bad, can you steel man the geo fencing too?
- p_l 3y ago
  The background to this is European Union mandating unbundling of maintenance from purchase contracts. Specifically, it's been no longer possible for manufacturers to claim that maintenance documentation is trqde secret or otherwise not possible to be made available to third parties, which opened the door for third party workshops to do deeper maintenance. And the train manufacturer started losing tenders for maintenance.

krisoft 3y ago

> They weren't selling software licenses here, they were selling a very real piece of hardware. I don’t know. I didn’t read the contract. Neither did you I suspect nor did the developers. Jet engines are leased by the hour. Yes they are very real pieces of hardware bolted to your airplane. That has nothing to do with the business model. Why can’t the same be true for trains? Even if I would know how trains are usually sold/purchased, which I don’t, I could be convinced by a boss that we are trying a different model. Why is this important? Two reasons: if your mental model is that these kind of things are done by “unethical developers” then you are not looking for the real culprits, and your interventions trying to prevent such things will be inefective.

Eisenstein 3y ago
Do they turn off the jet engines if they don't pay, or do they send them a bill? There is a huge difference. Also, writing it in a contract doesn't make it ethical or even legal. Just because someone writes it in a license agreement doesn't mean that we as a society should blindly accept it. We don't allow people to sell lots of things, why should we just say 'well it was in the license' because someone tried to sell 'being able to have turn off your own passenger train for more than 10 days'?
- krisoft 3y ago
  > Just because someone writes it in a license agreement doesn't mean that we as a society should blindly accept it. People who buy trainsets are sophisticated buyers. They have lawyers, accountants and engineers advising them. You don’t sucker a semi-senile grandma into buying your trains unseen. Nobody buys trains on a drunken dare, or as an impulse purchase. Because of this, if the financing is more viable that way, companies should be able to purchase, rent or lease their trains under whatever model makes the most sense in their particular circumstances. This of course assumes that the manufacturer deals fairly and the purchaser is properly informed about what they are buying, leasing or renting. (Which does not seem to be the case here, and that is unethical and a problem. The kind where people should go to prison in my opinion.)
  - hakdbha 3y ago
    [dead]
  - TomaszZielinski 3y ago
    I don't have anything substantial to add, but this got me: > or as an impulse purchase. as the whole case is about an Impuls purchase! :)
klausa 3y ago
>Jet engines are leased by the hour. I'm... very surprised by this, do you have any resources I could read about it?
- schiffern 3y ago
  https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12528/jet-engines-are-they-owned-by-the-airline-or-just-rented https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/12528/jet-engin... https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2623&h=Engine-Leasing https://www.sps-aviation.com/story/?id=2623&h=Engine-Leasing The engines also have an always-on connection back to the mothership via satellite, eg: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/13/aircraft-engine-monitoring-how-it-works-and-how-it-could-help-malaysia-air-370-crash-investigtors/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2014/03/13/aircraft-...
  - klausa 3y ago
    Thank you for the links!
TomaszZielinski 3y ago
This was very informative, thanks! It's so easy to assume a very simplified (or outright incorrect) model of how the world works and then point fingers in the wrong direction...

roughly 3y ago

This is not an argument I necessarily believe, but to steel-man this one: You know your trains will need service after 12 months in service or some number of miles. Absent that service, the train could fail, the failure could be catastrophic, and a catastrophic failure on a train kills people. You also know that municipal train operators in a great many parts of the world will absolutely run their trains until they kill someone rather than pay for downtime and maintenance. Therefore, you put in a lock on the train that if it hasn’t been serviced after 12 months, the train disables itself to force the owner to get the train serviced.

chiggsy 3y ago
Or, you'd make sure that your liability was limited to one year, absent of any servicing. Maybe you'd have a renewable service contract, yearly, and one of the requirements is local inspection. >force the owner to get the train serviced. This is coercion, implemented via subterfuge. It's no different than if they sent guys with sacks full of door handles or whatever to take control of the trains, to accomplish the same result. Or if the client hired staff to crack the provider's server, and either installed ransomware, or stole the solution. Ridiculous. The way to operate is through the laws in question, rather than removing agency from the client. If the client does not want to pay, you warn them of possible consequences, ask them if they would like to purchase an extra diagnostics package, and remind them that after a year, maintenance of the product is required to bring you back into the picture formally.
tasuki 3y ago
Not bad, can you steel man the geo fencing too?
p_l 3y ago
The background to this is European Union mandating unbundling of maintenance from purchase contracts. Specifically, it's been no longer possible for manufacturers to claim that maintenance documentation is trqde secret or otherwise not possible to be made available to third parties, which opened the door for third party workshops to do deeper maintenance. And the train manufacturer started losing tenders for maintenance.