
Farmers are hacking their tractors because of a repair ban (2018) [video] - seanalltogether
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8JCh0owT4w
======
montalbano
Some previous discussion which may be of interest:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414211)

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

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13802969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13802969)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13990266)

Edit -- and some more:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10897309](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10897309)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19900022)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14074894](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14074894)

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

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16386012)

~~~
dang
Also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14176195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14176195)

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abetusk
Are there any open source or open source hardware efforts to create or replace
tractor software and electronics? I know of the Global Village Construction
Set [1] but are there any others that exist that are gaining any sort of
traction?

Are there any forums, GitHub (or other) repositories or other resources for
folks to see what's going on and/or to help out? I'd love to see what's
available and, if possible, help out myself but I don't even know where to
start (I'm not a farmer and live in an "urban/city" environment).

It seems like this industry is "ripe for disruption" but I'm woefully
ignorant. What stops farmers from slapping a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino with
an array of sensors, GPS, modems and other electronics to "DIY" their tractors
and other electronic/automated farm equipment?

I also know of FarmBot [2] but that project looks to be targeted at a
different market. I also see OpenFarm [3] but that seems like it's more about
knowledge sharing of crop growing rather than the
mechanics/electronics/software aspect of farming.

[1]
[https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/](https://www.opensourceecology.org/gvcs/)

[2] [https://farm.bot/](https://farm.bot/)

[3] [https://openfarm.cc/](https://openfarm.cc/)

~~~
simion314
The solution is a legal one, force the companies to provide the software
required for you to use your hardware. It is stupid as a user you can only see
a red light and only an "authorized dealer" can plug a laptop and see the
exact problem and detailed diagnostics.

Without the law your open source software would be blocked by DRM and I am
sure the companies would attempt to void your warranty if they can find you
modified anything.

~~~
supportlocal4h
This again? The solution is almost never legislation.

If just 20% of prospective buyers devoted 1/2 their budgets to a common open
solution, they could break out. If there were a tiny company offering an old
school model with modern features at a competitive price, that would be
enough. Then, if farmers choose to lock themselves in, it would be a real
choice and their own fault.

BSD didn't need legislation. GNU didn't. Windows still thrives, but people
have a choice. Just convince ADM and a few others to throw some pennies at a
startup. Except that the new licensing greatly benefits those giants. So you'd
have to convince 100s of little guys to throw big money your way.

~~~
zrail
BSD didn’t need legislation but it did need a long legal process to resolve in
its favor.

~~~
magduf
I think there's even a theory that one of the reasons BSD is a small niche OS
and Linux powers the world is because BSD was tied up in litigation for a
while.

~~~
kls
I don't know if it's a theory as so much as it actually happened. I remember
the SCO lawsuits and it scared a lot of people away from BSD, the user base
was a decent portion on free *nix at the time and it was virtually overnight
Linux became the uncontested dominate force when that happened. SCO had a huge
chilling effect on BSD which was it's intention all along.

~~~
anoncake
Unless you have proof (not just evidence) it remains q theory.

------
mvidal01
I thought Horace Clemmons and his Oggun tractor was on HN before but I can't
find the story. [https://thinkoggun.com/](https://thinkoggun.com/)

~~~
kome
that's such an awesome concept and story! thank you for sharing the link.

------
asdfasdf1231
The perverse incentives that nobody spell out: this is good for monopolies.

from soy farmers in brazil to local contractors bidding on government road
work in new york. Everywhere the bigger company, that can have several more
machines than it need for the daily operation, all leased with warranty, will
destroy the competition that can't lease because of bad credit etc and so will
have downtime/missed deadlines/lost harvests because they cannot get repairs
on time.

Some big pockets benefit a LOT from all this, not just the dealers.

Also, the root cause for this was when car dealerships start doing this with
cars and nobody cared.

------
dusted
There must be a market for repairable tractors and other farming machinery by
now?

~~~
Cthulhu_
Yeah I'm not sure I understand the problem; the US is a free market, there are
a lot of investors and a lot of engineers out there, why aren't there
competitors putting John Deere out of business with products that the farmers
do want?

Or are JD tractors so far ahead of any competition that their customers just
suck it up? There has to be some anti-competitive lock-in for that to be a
thing.

~~~
Ididntdothis
Building tractors efficiently at scale is not an easy task and requires lots
of investment and experience. John Deere has decades of experience in
production, building supplier networks and dealer networks and making tractors
reliable. This is very hard to build up quickly and very expensive.

Big hardware is much more difficult than for example software or small
consumer devices.

That’s why we barely see any new car manufacturers either. Tesla may make it
but it has taken them a very long time and very hard work.

~~~
dreamcompiler
Decades? John Deere has been in business for 183 years. That said, I think
most of their products today are overpriced and under-reliable, and they
richly deserve to be disrupted.

------
dang
We changed the URL from
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPYy_g8NzmI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPYy_g8NzmI),
which is a copy of this.

It was discussed at the time, but only a bit:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292410](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16292410)

------
Dirlewanger
I fully support Right to Repair movements. John Deere/Apple et. al doing this
is pure unchecked corporate avarice.

With that said, I have a hard time feeling sympathetic for midwestern farmers.
They most likely vote straight Republican every election, and I'm pretty sure
fixing this problem is something their Congress reps don't care about too
much.

~~~
mindslight
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act)

> _The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States
> copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual
> Property Organization (WIPO). ... Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous
> vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill
> Clinton on October 28, 1998_

The political blame lies with both popular teams, as they both carry out the
will of big business. They divide us over issues of taste, to push their
dressed-up authoritarian agendas. Don't fall for it.

~~~
Dirlewanger
That may be true, but Democrats will at least be more ostensibly receptive of
the issue. Bernie Sanders makes it an explicit point on his campaign website.
I'm guessing other candidates have as well.

~~~
mitchty
> That may be true, but Democrats will at least be more ostensibly receptive
> of the issue. Bernie Sanders makes it an explicit point on his campaign
> website. I'm guessing other candidates have as well.

As someone that grew up in a pure Red state for decades and grew up on a
farm/ranch, there is zero chance of them voting Democrats for the reasons you
think they should.

Want to know at least one reason why? Know those farm "subsidies" democrats
love to hate? Also known as: the government pays for farmers to keep fields
fallow so we don't get another dust bowl. Farmers like those subsidies,
they're a good thing. City people hate them, think they're a bad thing "we
spend taxes for farm states". Yes I'm overgeneralizing but i've real work to
do today so I can't get super complex.

Get to know a few farmers and understand that your perspective on Democrats is
highly skewed on their policies towards places with population centers. You
can argue Republicans are worse in as many ways as you want, but until you
understand why none of those ways matter to farmers, you'll forever lack an
understanding of why things are the way they are.

~~~
lotsofpulp
> Farmers like those subsidies, they're a good thing. City people hate them,
> think they're a bad thing "we spend taxes for farm states"

Could it be because those same farmers turn around and vote against government
handouts for everyone else?

~~~
mitchty
No, from the farmers I grew up with. They hated Democrats for wanting to
remove those specific subsidies because it was good for the environment. But
to do it it means you have to have land be otherwise "unproductive".

So they get rather angry at being forced to farm every acre of land knowing it
will spite themselves later. Its a bit more complex than anyone makes it out
to be. But easier to just call farmers dumb and that they vote against their
interests. Which is ultimately self defeating and ignores the realities of
modern farming and the history of how we got here.

