Bought! = Yours: John Deere robs farmers of the right to repair their own tractors

(2018 Wired article)







The California Farm Bureau denied farmers the right to repair their equipment without contacting a dealer.



The war of farmer engineers and tractor manufacturer John Deere began in 2015 and continues to this day. Here is an exemplary chronology on Habré:

• Do-it-yourself tractor repair John Deere - violation of DMCA (2015)
• US farmers are still trying to get the right to repair their own John Deere tractors (2016)
• American farmers hack and install Ukrainian firmware on tractors (2017)
• Why American farmers bypass DRM tractors with Ukrainian firmware - situation analysis (2017)

What future awaits us?



We offer you a translation of the latest article on this subject in the authoritative Wired magazine.



The struggle for the right to mend their own things was a huge failure.



Anyone who has ever repaired electronics knows that you need to repair both hardware and software. Farmers have a "union", and this union has signed an agreement according to which, now farmers are forbidden to have access and change the source code in their tractors and other equipment.

The California Farm Bureau, with 2.5 million jobs, has denied farmers the right to buy parts without going through a dealer. Now farmers can’t change the settings in the engine, introduce new features and customize their equipment to changing environmental standards. Worse, their union is proud of this innovation.



It is very important for farmers to repair their equipment themselves. Waiting a few days for John Deere to send the technician to fix the combine is an impermissible luxury for the farmer during the harvest. In addition, the farmers are rather armful guys. They have been repairing their cars for ages. Why spend thousands of dollars on something that you can easily fix yourself? However, agricultural equipment is becoming increasingly sophisticated and electronic, and farmers often simply do not have the right tools to put everything in order, despite the fact that it is the farmers who are most interested in the operation of their machines. This is further aggravated by the fact that John Deere (and other equipment companies represented by the Far West Equipment Dealers Association) are hiding under copyright law, which is even more difficult for farmers.



Monopolies on equipment repair are very profitable, this is a huge business. You don’t have to go far, for example, Apple has always forbidden the repair of its equipment and the purchase of parts from anyone other than itself. It is for this reason that Big Ag so does not want to make concessions to the movement of farmers for the right to repair .



At first glance, this agreement seems beneficial to farmers. According to the press release, dealers provide access to all the necessary manuals and operating instructions, as well as diagnostics, in general, everything that will help the farmer or rancher to solve all problems with the equipment. That sounds pretty honest.



But if farmers do not have access to spare parts and diagnostic software, then all this makes no sense. “I am for any innovations that will help me repair my cars,” says Jeff Buckingham, rancher at San Luis Obispo. “In the end, I bought it all and I want it to work, but I could fix it without waiting for the help of the dealer.”

There is nothing new in the agreement. John Deere and the company have already “lost” to farmers and earlier this year launched service manuals for sale. They must have realized the inevitability of their situation when a new law on the right to repair electronics was introduced in California in March. Bills on the right to repair proved extremely popular among voters - Massachusetts passed its bill on the right to repair cars in 2012 with the support of 86 percent of voters .



Frightened by the bill, dealers of agricultural machinery began distributing leaflets stating that they strongly supported the new law and were ready to provide user manuals and all the necessary information by 2021. But at the same time, they insisted on the differences between the right to repair a vehicle and the right to change software. But the catch is that software controls the entire machine.







According to Motherboard's Jason Koebler, this flyer is like two drops of water like the agreement the Farm Bureau has just concluded. The flyer and the agreement contain the same restrictions:

• Do not reset immobilizer system
• Do not reprogram electronic control units or engine control modules.
• Do not change equipment or engine parameters that could harm the environment or safety.
• Do not download or provide access to the source code of any embedded proprietary software.

As a result, everything rests on these limitations. If auto mechanics could not reprogram automobile computers, the majority of modern repair work would be simply impossible. If a mechanic needs to repair an air conditioner in a Civic , he will probably need to reprogram the electronic control unit. Electronics controls all the basic functions of the main agricultural equipment, because of one sensor the whole machine may stop working . Changing software is a big part of modern repairs.



In addition, if the farmer cannot change the system that controls emissions, then he will have to buy new equipment every time to meet eco standards. And this is very insidious on the part of companies such as John Deere.



That is why farmers are fighting for the right to make changes to the software. The American Farmers Federation, the National Corn Producers Association, the National Corn Growers Association, the National Farmers Union are working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and are applying to the U.S. Copyright Office to release agricultural machinery from the provisions of the copyright law in the digital age (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

It is necessary to access the electronic control units to diagnose and repair a malfunctioning agricultural vehicle, as well as to lawfully modify the functions of a vehicle based on the owner's specific needs in cultivating his or her land.

Their petition said that farmers need to have access to electronic control units for the diagnosis and repair of their cars, as well as legally change the functions of the vehicle depending on specific needs.



Many farmers modify their equipment to suit the needs of their land. Farm Hack electronics electronics community members developed custom 3D-printed seed rolls, programmed Arduino to strengthen greenhouse systems, and developed all kinds of sensors and alarms . A group of students from Cal Poly University are working on reverse engineering the John Deere software protocol . And also a third-party company called Farmobile is making a device that connects to all kinds of large agricultural equipment so that farmers can access data without going through John Deere.





tractorhacking.github.io



All of America follows California farmers, which is not surprising, since the state of California produces more food than any other in the country, it accounts for two-thirds of all fruits and nuts grown in the United States. Agreeing with the fake distinction between “repair” and “software change,” The California Farm Bureau only complicated the work of the Electronic Frontier Fund (EFF). Instead of giving farmers the right to repair, this agreement is only confusing. Moreover, it can set a cultural precedent for electronics manufacturers who want to prohibit third-party technicians from modifying software devices.



As a nation of repair advocates, we must abandon such toothless deals. The right to repair should be determined so that it is beneficial to individuals and small producers, not corporations.



This deal does not win repair rights, no matter what John Deere or the California Farm Bureau say. Real progress will not come until the state issues a real Right to Repair legislation bill. But the dynamics are gaining momentum. 20 states, including Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, have been considering bills this year. Despite the fact that not one has passed yet, John Deere clearly felt uneasy.

---

Read more useful articles:

• McKinsey: Rethinking Software and Electronics Architecture in Automotive
• Another OS war is already under the hood of cars
• Program code in the car
• In a modern car, there are more lines of code than ...