Farmers fight for the right to repair their own tractors

[pete_c]

Here on Cocoontech there are a few discussions on the DIY repair of vehicles.
I was unaware of the following issue.
 
 
Farmers fight for the right to repair their own tractors
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore Published July 25, 2016
 

 
Farmers in Nebraska, Minnesota, Massachusetts, and New York are staging something of a mechanical revolt. They're attempting to get legislation passed in their states that would enable them, for the first time since the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to repair their own tractors or get an independent mechanic to help.

At the root of the morass is the software that helps run modern tractors and their sensors, diagnostic tools, and other high-tech elements. If farmers so much as open the metaphorical hood to check out the computers they could be violating the federal act, reports Modern Farmer.

Mick Minchow, a Nebraska farmer for more than 40 years, is among the many who are fed up, reports Lincoln Journal Star. As it currently stands, any problem with his John Deere 8235 R requires a trip to the dealer and costs him important time.
Related:

What he'd like to be able to do, per the paper, is something as simple as looking up the system code to determine if it's a serious problem or something as mundane as replacing a filter.

John Deere's argument, as reported by Wired, is that giving farmers free rein over the software would "make it possible for pirates, third-party developers, and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique expression, and ingenuity of vehicle software." Other potential issues that have been floated: the financial hit such a change could wreak on dealerships, and the complications of buying used equipment whose software was improperly changed.

 

[wkearney99]

John Deere's argument, as reported by Wired, is that giving farmers free rein over the software would "make it possible for pirates, third-party developers, and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique expression, and ingenuity of vehicle software."
 
Other potential issues that have been floated: the financial hit such a change could wreak on dealerships, and the complications of buying used equipment whose software was improperly changed.

 
Two things, the market needs to compete.  If people don't want Deere's crap then they need to shop elsewhere.  If Deere's making such a compelling set of offerings then folks need to decide if that's right for them.  If not then competition has to step up.  

 

[pete_c]

Yeah googling a bit this morning noticed there are two (three) manufacturers left in the US today.
 
1 - Caterpillar Inc.
 
2 - John Deere
 
Not much of a choice. 
 
Well this is similar to when I went looking to repair my Bradford White water heater.
 
I was originally going to replace it and then I was able to repair it easily enough.
 
Globally the largest manufacturer is Mahindra.

 

[dementeddigital]

Interesting.  I'm not sure what they are complaining about, though.
 
Many (most?) tractors use CAN to connect the various nodes, just like modern automobiles.  Tractors, big trucks, and most diesel applications use a communications protocol from SAE called J1939.  The fault messages come as DM1 and DM2 messages, and they are well documented and available to anyone.  (You do need to buy the spec, though.)  Manufacturers do use some proprietary messages, but most of them are standard J1939 messages, AFAIK.  There are aftermarket gauges which can receive and display J1939 fault codes and decode them to some extent.  I wrote software for some of them.
 
I don't see this as being any different from the state of the industry with cars.  You can get an aftermarket scan tool to read codes.  If you have a car that people like to "hack," you can often find tools to reflash your engine ECU or to mess with the lookup tables in the ECU firmware.  These folks don't generally have the source code for the ECU, and they do just fine.  GM doesn't go after HPTuners because of DMCA.
 
I'm not sure that the "tuner" community would be very large for tractors, though.
 
If they just want alarm message data, why don't these farmers just buy one of these?  Plug it in, get the DM1 information, and diagnose from there.

 

[pete_c]

I'm not sure what they are complaining about, though.
 
Me neither.

 

[waynehead99]

Isn't there a law against this? I know there is for cars, but I would think technically this is just an oversized car that has a specialized purpose.

 

[JonW]

Isn't there a law against this? I know there is for cars, but I would think technically this is just an oversized car that has a specialized purpose.

 
Yes, there are laws for cars/trucks, but tractors are not included in that.  What people are looking for is not access to the programming code in the tractor ECU's, but the troubleshooting docs, diagnostic codes, wiring diagrams, etc.  Just like what has to be provided to 3rd party vehicle shops.

 

[wkearney99]

I suspect all the noise being made in the press is going to have some impact on Deere's policy.
 
The home automation market has two example of this kind of arrogance, Crestron and to a lesser sense Control4.  Both actively seek to prevent end user integration.

 

[pete_c]

Interesting mention of Crestron.
 
A few months ago I started to edit and update the Home Automation Wiki.  It has been very fluid.  Noticed a couple of months ago much mention of Crestron and it appeared to have been edited by them for a bit.  Now just looked and it is different and getting better.  One interesting paragraph on the Home Automation WIki.  (I did not write this).
 
While there are many competing vendors, there are very few world-wide accepted industry standards and the smart home space is heavily fragmented. Popular suites of products include X10, Ethernet, RS-485, ZigBee and Z-Wave, or other proprietary protocols all of which are incompatible with each other. Manufacturers often prevent independent implementations by withholding documentation and by suing people.
 
Personally here thinking that Deere's thinking is ancillary.  Having written that there is good and bad sometimes to this kind of thinking.  For Deere it is bad I guess.

 

[dementeddigital]

Yes, there are laws for cars/trucks, but tractors are not included in that.  What people are looking for is not access to the programming code in the tractor ECU's, but the troubleshooting docs, diagnostic codes, wiring diagrams, etc.  Just like what has to be provided to 3rd party vehicle shops.

 
Thanks for the details on that.  It makes more sense. 
 
I have worked with some of the manufacturers on these things, but I didn't know that they kept ALL of the diagnostic information to themselves.

 

[pete_c]

Unrelated to the OP when I was first editing the Home Automation wiki relating to history I did mention the thermostat. (IE remote control of heating)
 
It is interesting that reference was removed in the first paragraph of what I wrote relating to history.
 
Not much of a Wiki writer here and I have always liked the idea of the Wiki.
 
That said there are a few out there today relating to history that changed or rewrote (fantasy wise) stuff that I have seen first hand which has annoyed me. (pragmatic)
 
There was a major battle that started in 2012 and was settled in 2016. (ancillary versus digital I guess).
 
Updated May 6, 2016 11:37 a.m. ET

Honeywell International Inc. has settled its patent dispute regarding Google subsidiary Nest Labs, whose thermostats Honeywell claimed infringed on several of its patents.

In a joint statement Thursday evening, Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Honeywell said they had reached a “patent cross-license” agreement that “fully resolves” the long-standing dispute between Nest Labs and Honeywell. Other details of the settlement were undisclosed.

Shares of Honeywell were down 0.3% to $113.25 in morning trading in New York as Alphabet’s stock rose 0.4% to $717.46.

 

[linuxha]

I gave up on Wikipedia when I added some information on Home Automation, the wiki folks bashed me for it and they removed it (I made a few mistakes). Then someone else posted it, word for word, and got credit for it. It remained there until a war of words between 2 companies messed everything up for a short time. I'm not making a cent off that stuff but I hate it when credit due is not handled correctly. I don't need that kind of aggravation, writing a book was easier than dealing with Wikipedia.

 

[pete_c]

Yeah here did it for a bit in March, 2016 and was told it was probably going to get changed and it did. 
 
I took from a Gastroenterologist in Spain who is part of the Wikipedian physicians group.  I was very impressed that she had an interest.
 
She is doing some R & D relating to her stuff.  Our little bit of dialog was pleasant.  I just couldn't figure out the why of her interest in home automation though.
 
Totally unrelated (again) purchased my PineA64 plexiglass case from a guitar maker in Granada,Spain.
 
Granada....The word Gárnata (or Karnatah) possibly means "Hill of Strangers".....700's A.D.
 
How the heck did he get involved in making cases for an Arm based RPi like device?
 
Tractor picture I took in 2010...
 

 

[dementeddigital]

i came across this today.  Maybe we can toss the idea of large scale farming (and tractor issues) altogether!
 
Farmbot open source CNC farming machine.
 
It's completely open hardware and software.  It can run on solar power and use collected rain water.  In my opinion, this is fantastically exciting.

 

[Waynedb]

i came across this today.  Maybe we can toss the idea of large scale farming (and tractor issues) altogether!
 
Farmbot open source CNC farming machine.
 
It's completely open hardware and software.  It can run on solar power and use collected rain water.  In my opinion, this is fantastically exciting.

That is very cool, I love CNC machines but this is not a use I would have thought of. It needs a pest detector and deterent to chase off animals that will eat everything, maybe a water spray when it detects a squirrel or something.