
Farmers Fight John Deere over Who Gets to Fix an $800k Tractor - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-05/farmers-fight-john-deere-over-who-gets-to-fix-an-800-000-tractor
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chriselles
A big part of this is the result of manufacturers trying to protect the
profits of themselves and their dealer networks.

Dealer network profit is increasingly reliant and dependent on service income.

So attempts to lock in serviceability are to be expected.

I wonder if manufacturers will consider and experiment with a platform
approach?

Perhaps along the lines of Salesforce, Xero, Apple App Store.

And take a cut of the ecosystem income.

~~~
zxcmx
Personal conspiracy theory:

If you're JD what you _really_ want is to get a cut of revenue generated using
the equipment. Like the copier market, all run on "clicks". Service is more or
less free (and responsive), because if you're not harvesting they're not
earning.

I'm inclined to believe that obsession with telemetry collected is partly for
service, partly for sales, but also to support future "pay per unit processed"
contracts and business models.

Hackable tractors undermine the nascent "farm equipment as a service" business
model.

~~~
jjeaff
Might be what they are trying to do, but I feel like few industries have
managed to make that happen.

With the exception of payment processing, I feel like most people avoid deals
that try to take a cut of revenue like the plague. I know I do.

~~~
jjp
Think aircraft engine is closer to the farmer/JD relationship.

Airlines don't buy engines but rent thrust/hours. A little more explanation
[https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8270/what-is-
th...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8270/what-is-the-future-
of-manufacturer-independent-jet-engine-maintenance-repair-and/8283#8283)

~~~
grawprog
Seems more like it should be more like the CNC machines at the shop I was at
and the manufacturer. The price point is the same for the machines(around half
a million), we were heavily encouraged to use their customer service and
support, but we could work on, modify and repair our own machines as we saw
fit, order parts from whoever we wanted and have any technicians we wanted
work on the machines.

The machines were online and could be accessed by the manufacturer but were
only accessed during customer support calls.

------
floatingatoll
HN previously on tractor DRM:

1 day ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482598)

2 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994)

------
JoeAltmaier
A big part of this is the complexity of the project. There are a dozen
sensitive control systems in a modern tractor, working in concert. An
operating tractor is several tons of steel with dozens of large sharp blades
whirling and cutting. Do something wrong and, unlike a Tesla which might crash
and kill you, these things can take out an elementary school.

~~~
tehwebguy
Are they driverless?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Like Tesla, supposed to have an operator monitoring at all times. Who easily
gets bored and watches movies on their phone.

------
ptah
possibly a market for replacing this software with open source versions?

~~~
Accujack
Pretty unlikely. Even replacing car ECUs is not something popularly done with
open source at this point, despite them being much, much more prevalent than
farm equipment.

I'm sure many farmers would love it if there was an open source firmware
alternative, but that's about as likely as an open source firmware being
developed for home microwaves. There's interest, but it's not widespread
enough that someone is going to do it well enough to make it worthwhile.

------
salawat
The primary drivers of the locking down of software capabilities of tractors
came down to emissions, if I recall correctly. Manufacturers are told their Ag
equipment must reach certain goals in terms of output of waste gases which
requires rather tight control of the combustion process. The issue I see
though, is that upon being given that inch of latitude, Deere took a mile by
using that as a likely excuse to enforce things in software like DRM that
gimps the power output of the engine without paying a premium fee. Figure out
a way to get the same results with Free, open source software, and generally
speaking most problems will go away as long as you're willing to actually
operate the thing and not relying on their drive-by-GPS software to do the
work for you.

While tractors are undeniably complex mechanical devices, and always have
been, it's only with the addition of proprietary software in the current rent-
seeking happy buisness environment that these anti-user practices have become
possible. Break the dependence on the software, and you should be good to go.

Though that "break the dependence" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Control software is no joke; but if anywhere would be the place to start
hacking an open-replacement together, at equipment would be the place to
start. Low speed, the operator is safely ensconced away from the whirly bits,
and most importantly, low machine density.

If I had a tractor no one else was using; heck, I might just have basically
tried to create the statechart and kludge together something that'd end up
working.

Off the top of my head the project would require

A)breakdown of the PCB's of the ECU/BCU/ACU(Engine/Body/Accessory Control
Units). These are assumed parts, I haven't seen a block diagram; but the gist
is, if there is a PCB, a schematic will need to be inferred from it. You don't
need to downright copy it, but you do need to make sure you account for every
sensor. Emissions controls are no joke.

B) Experimentally, or through consultation of regulations, figure out the
targets Deere has to hit to meet with regulations. You already know the engine
and emission system itself is capable of hitting it, you just need to derive
the parameters. A dyno and somebody experienced in the art of ECU tuning and
some experimentation with different mappings should eventually find you
converging on Deere's settings.

C)Analyze all signalling between components. This is where things get tricky.
If it's just in the clear CAN bus style, you can tap the lines to build up
your statecharts. If they've gone and thrown a bunch of encryption/obfuscation
into the mix, and there's no way to trivially extract the keys from the
hardware, you at least get an idea of what patterning is present, which can be
enough to at least give you a sense of direction to follow.

One'd best set their goals on replacing the ECU firmware first and foremost,
but I'm guessing there's probably some dependence of the control unit for the
accessories on seeing a John Deere(TM) ECU that'll quickly cascade the scope.
I couldn't imagine so many getting irritated by this otherwise.

I wouldn't be out or willing to replicate their auto-GPS drive features. Those
are innovative enough I'm willing to leave them with a pass on it. The
fundamental operation/repair of the tractor being locked out though is beyond
justifiable. It'd be a multi-year endeavor for someone alone assuming enough
funding to keep them chugging along with working on the project as a day job
as a computer scientist with a rather Jack-of-all-Trades approach; throw in a
competent EE and ME, and you might get something sooner. The scope would
initially only cover a single tractor type, but once the process has been
refined, it could be expanded to other models given that once you find
something that works, you tend to stick with it.

All of this would of course carry an absurdly high risk of being sued most
likely. They'd make the argument we're trying to copy their design. One'd have
to know a skilled enough lawyer to be able to navigate the morass to ensure it
was clear in court that all that was going on would be an independent
reformulation of software that meets the same physical output parameters that
just happens to line up with John Deere's tractors. Similar to how GNU Octave
is a functional clone of MATLAB.

~~~
Accujack
>The primary drivers of the locking down of software capabilities of tractors
came down to emissions, if I recall correctly.

No, the primary driver of locking down who can repair the entire piece of
equipment is protection of profits by the manufacturer and dealer.

Emissions are controlled by only a small part of the system and do not justify
a total lock down, nor refusal to give information to the equipment owners,
because once the equipment is sold, responsibility for emissions no longer
rests with the manufacturer, it rests with the owner, at least in the US.

