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archive.(today|ph|is) [edit: appears to be down for some people], no clue what's going on
https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/archive.ph.html
The AMP page works if you can't reach it via archive:
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/deere-to-allow-farmers-to-r...
Deere’s position on right to repair is heartbreaking to me. I paid for books (and beer) in college as a truck driver and mechanic for a custom harvest operation. We ran Deere 6602 combines from the 1970s, in the early 2000s. Deere’s tagline was “nothing runs like a Deere” but in my experience it was more like “nothing can be made to run like a Deere”. We spent a lot of time on maintenance but very little on repairs. We trusted those machines and they almost always did what we needed. Deere had good parts support locally but we did all the labor ourselves. For us and the farmers we served it would have been economically impossible to hire a Deere tech to do the work. Alienating these equipment operators is a disgrace for a once great brand.
Here's my analysis of what's going to happen if this goes through.
First, quote from the MOU [1]:
> AFBF agrees to encourage state Farm Bureau organizations to recognize the commitments made in this MOU and refrain from introducing, promoting, or supporting federal or state "Right to Repair" legislation that imposes obligations beyond the commitments in this MOU. In the event any state or federal legislation or regulation relating to issues covered by this MOU and/or "Right to Repair" is enacted, each of AFBF and Manufacturer reserve the right, upon fifteen (15) days written notice, to withdraw from this MOU.
It might play out like this:
1. Deere starts a half hearted parts process. They will provide some parts, there will be year long delays in roll out, it will be annoying to use, documentation will be made incomplete on purpose by leaving out random pages or drawings and there will be no way to get them to fix it.
2. Farmers are now locked into using this service for their existing deere equipment because anything else will bankrupt them. Those machines will remain in service for a good 10-20 years which is an important time frame, because
3. Deere will spin off a subsidiary or buy a competitor which will sell what used to be Deere branded technology, "under license". This "new company" will keep all the anti-repair technology in place. New products will primarily come from this company going forward, and the products will be priced so that actual Deere-branded products are not competitive any more, especially second-hand ones.
4. It is now 2028. The MOU cannot be broken because farmers still need parts for their "old" Deere products. Deere anti right to repair lives on in the artificial competitor, which now retains 90% market ownership. Farmers cannot argue for right to repair any more. They've been sold out. Everything has gone back to normal for at least the next 25 years, as far as Deere is concerned.
Another MBA'ed company.
The right to repair is one of those things that shouldn’t be controversial but somehow is.
When I worked on a vegetable farm in Vermont one summer, it was instantly apparent that the farmer spent a lot of time (at least 25%?) maintaining and fixing tractors. It’s a shame that rampant financialization and rent seeking has yet again made farmers’ lives more difficult.
Unless it's red leave it in the shed.
Actual MOU from BBC's coverage[1]: https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf
What's interesting is this appears to be driven by Right to Repair legislation that's been making it's way through various states. There's an explicit ask that AFBF not support any Right to Repair legislation:
"AFBF agrees to encourage state Farm Bureau organizations to recognize the commitments made in this MOU and refrain from introducing, promoting, or supporting federal or state "Right to Repair" legislation that imposes obligations beyond the commitments in this MOU. In the event any state or federal legislation or regulation relating to issues covered by this MOU and/or "Right to Repair" is enacted, each of AFBF and Manufacturer reserve the right, upon fifteen (15) days written notice, to withdraw from this MOU."
Clearly intended as a threat.
> that imposes obligations beyond the commitments in this MOU
That seems like a bit of a loophole for FB organizations - namely, they can support legislation that imposes obligations that are in the MOU, but must not support legislation the reaches beyond that.
Too little too late. They have burned good faith, and this move stinks of more manipulation. As others suggested, this probably aims to thwart legislative action, and they will make everything available at an inaccessibly exorbitant price point and inexcusable lead times.
Seriously, Deere has been a market leader in alienating customers for years. There is no possibility that this is being done for the benefit of their customers. Mark my works, this move will ultimately be revealed as self-serving. Meanwhile, it should be met with nothing but skepticism by customers.
this probably aims to thwart legislative action
In the event any state or federal legislation or regulation relating to issues covered by this MOU and/or "Right to Repair" is enacted, each of AFBF and Manufacturer reserve the right, upon fifteen (15) days written notice, to withdraw from this MOU.
It's a blatant threat that they'll double down on their practices if any state or the federal government tries to pursue right to repair legislation.
Tractor market will soon be geared towards Farming-As-A-Service. John Deere has already bought multiple autonomous tractor companies. The biggest ones at 305 and 250 million are Blue River and Bear Flag,
Also: JV with GUSS automation orchard spraying tech. And Light for some kind of vision AI. There is a ‘startup incubator’ guy sitting in SF and JD is furiously buying everything they can get their hands on. In fact, I know at least two moderately funded startups whose sole aim is to be acquired by JD.
Meanwhile Case IH/CNH is also invested in Raven(that I like a lot actually and can give a good run for JD who hasn’t been lagging behind in the grain/combine automation equip). AGCO/Massey/Fendt is looking at the retrofit sector. Bless their hearts.
It’s time to consolidate just like with the Ag inputs/seeds/fertilizer where I think a few giants control almost all of the market after a flurry of mergers and acquisitions: Dow/DuPont, Sygenta/ChemChina, Bayer/Monsanto. BASF stands alone but they are not big on seeds. Dow/DuPont merged but then spun off Corteva, but it’s still incestous. It’s the Big4 now. Same thing will happen with the tractor and equipment sector with the main players being JD, CNH and AGCO.
It is what it is.
ETA: Let’s not forget how JD almost bought Monsanto before it went before DoJ to stop the sale and Bayer ended up paying 60 something billion for a lemon right before the Roundup trial. JD desperately wanted Climate Fieldview and Monsanto that owned Climate did NOT include it in the sale to Bayer. Fun times.
"allow farmers to repair their own equipment" - What a terrible state of affairs if this is an exception rather than the norm. :(
> Should state or federal right-to-repair legislation be enacted, both Deere and the federation have the right to withdraw from the agreement with 15 days’ written notice.
Would be useful to compare the terms of this agreement with draft right-to-repair legislation which has been rejected by Deere and others.
Deere's competitors should go all-in on maintainability and documentation as a countermove. When it starts to eat into their marketshare they'll pay attention, until then they will just drag their heels as much as legally possible.
Unfortunately Case IH, New Holland, Claas and Kubota all have a similar attitude towards their customers, which makes this an industry wide problem, not a John Deere problem. Legislators should ignore the veiled threats and force these companies to open up 'or else'.
My dad lives in rural North Dakota. He's not a farmer, but he knows all the farmers in the area and does some work at his neighbor's farm for something to keep him busy in retirement. I sent him the Ars Technica article about this. This is his text back to me
"But they kept the copyright to all data and electronic tools. You have to buy their equipment and many manuals amounting to over 20k for each piece of equipment in most cases. I talked to one of the john deere mechanics, he said he only knows of one farm that has done so because of the price but did so because he also hired a guy that use to work for john deere. I thing the Most important thing farmer's get out of it is the access to the diagnostic codes and JD manuals that can be used to trouble shoot the problem once you have the code. I've seen the software used and it is dynamite. It talks the mechanic through most steps of the trouble shooting. Since everything is computerized, almost need it to understand the electronic issues which of course is all stored on the individual computer components. One for transmission,engine, power train couplings and all other devices. Yet again, it costs approximately 5-7 hundred dollars just for the mechanic to show up at the farm, each time.. so if it doesn't get fixed or no parts til the next day, that's 2 trips which doesn't include any labor... "
Imagine its 1880 and the news of the day is that farmers are allowed to shoe their horses on their own, with horseshoes that they can procure themselves.
They’re only trying to delay the inevitable regulation.
Here’s hoping the EU forces them to get their shit together soon.
I'm not a farmer but harvest time can be pretty intense. You might only have a narrow window to get certain crops in where the crops are ready and the weather has been right and your onward destination can accept them physically and contractually. So have all the other farms. And that crop represents your yearly income. So you have all this demand in this time window and you have equipment sitting there cause computer says no. Very frustrating.
They'll provide "tools and manuals". If this includes service software that is good. Also I wonder what kind of detail is there in those service manuals. For the mechanical components I would at least expect drawings of each assembly showing every gear, every seal, every clip with spec. For electronics I would expect at least board view files if not schematics. Do I believe this will happen before it is law to publish it? Not really.
When finally those laws get proposed I fully expect manufacturers to claim "security and IP theft" exceptions and politicians will fold. I still have electronic equipment made in the 80's that had not just schematics in its manual, but pcb layout drawings so you could remake a pcb if it got destroyed... And somehow we didn't have clones of this equipment appear.
I like the article title from the BBC, "US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment", far more than this Wall Street framing.
Deere fought this tooth and nail and will probably still not play nice. They are being forced to do this and must continue to be forced.
> Should state or federal right-to-repair legislation be enacted, both Deere and the federation have the right to withdraw from the agreement with 15 days’ written notice.
Is this supposed to be a threat? Should legislation be enacted, they would be forced to comply with it. At that point any "voluntary" agreement seems pointless.
Are they trying to coerce individual states into not passing right to repair under the assumption that should one state pass a right to repair law, they would retaliate by discontinuing access to spare parts and related materials in other states?
Am I missing something?
So, it's this the typical corporate playbook tactic of offering a little concession to sap the momentum behind some positive legislation, after they've realized they can't kill it outright through regular lobbying?
I bet in 5-10 years they'll be back to doing everything they can to make repair impractical.
I cant read TFA but i think if John Deere wants to maintain control over the way machines are repaired they should simply stop selling them as retail and move to a "machine as a service" model.
Where they create a network of rental hubs.
I think a lot of farming machinery has moved this way already where you dont pay to own a machine that you may only need a limited number of days/year.
Deere has been fighting farmers on this for decades and I would be surprised if they gave up now. They want to avoid laws being passed that forces them into worse terms. If they make the decision themselves they can dictate the terms of the “right to repair.”
I frankly don’t trust the product of a company who has been actively trying to screw over their customers for the past 20 years.
My guess is they know that there are enough parts now that are proprietary and difficult to clone that they are going to have to go the the Deere dealer anyway. Like modern cars those things are loaded with computers and sensors. You have the right to repair it, but that doesn’t mean you have any hope to.
It should be illegal to bundle hardware with closed-source copyrighted software.
If you sell hardware you can bundle it with open-source software that people are free to modify.
Or you can sell it without software and other vendors can supply closed-source software that can't be modified, but you can't have exclusive agreements with those vendors or prefer one over another.
Deere's forgotten the point of their business: to provide farmers with what they need to do their jobs.
When you make the company about maximizing profit, you interfere with the purpose of your business. You now get in the way of your customers getting what they need and want. This has been proven by Deere, getting in the way of farmers fixing their equipment.
Deere could have instead opened their business more to repair, maximizing trust and reliability with consumers. Truly maximizing their gain in the market. Instead of making themselves the most desirable business in the market, they tried to trap people into inefficient overly-expensive time-wasting processes for the short-term gain of some shareholders and some greedy shallow executives.
What even are the alternatives for farmers, particularly in the US where I presume Deere reigns supreme. Kubota, Kverneland? Or is it effectively a racket where every agricultural equipment manufacturer behaves the same.
This is not a right-to-repair package. This is loose permission to barely repair anything at all.
> In the agreement, the AFBF says it will encourage “state Farm Bureau organizations to recognize” these commitments and “refrain from introducing, promoting, or supporting federal or state ‘Right to Repair’ legislation.[^1]
[^1]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/9/23546323/john-deere-right-...
Maybe the solution is to add anti-right to repair as a major indicative element to the monopoly legislations (ie if indicated it reduces the hurdle of the other elements that must be proven dramatically). Forcing repair lock in should be indicative of monopoly behavior.
Something needs to change where the perceived "cost" of building out repair lock in revenue is much higher than it currently is.
Why is it illegal infringement if one modifies embedded software locally (as opposed to selling it). Is that not the equivalent of writing a note within a book? “assure that the intellectual property of Manufacturer, including copyrighted software, is fully protected from illegal infringement through the modification of Embedded Software; …”
When I went shopping for a tractor last year this was a huge deciding factor. I bought a Kubota.
"Allow"
It's not theirs to allow or disallow. The farmers own their equipment.
So basically, drop "right to repair" legislation so we can continue doing what we do, but in more subtle ways.
Haven't most of the John Deere hacks come from Ukraine ? This is a story waiting to be reported anew.
This is good for right to repair right? I see this as a massive W for the movement.
On the one hand, I like right to repair.
On the other, Farmers are a terrible group to start with. They've actively resisted it in the past and are very unlikely to have or be willing to gain the skills needed and they are ultimately running businesses and should behave accordingly.
They should be dragged thru coals and fined for the original practice.
What a novel idea!
"allow"
“Allow”
hell has frozen over
Seeing "to allow" and "their own" being used in that way in the title is a disturbingly dystopian sign of the times. I don't think things like this should ever need to be explicitly allowed, in much the same way as one does not need permission for many other things which are naturally assumed to be so.
For contrast:
"Government to allow people to use their own brains."
I’ll believe it when I see it. So far every right to repair compliance on their side has been met with bad faith circumventions. Like making tools available in theory but not actually.
Amazing that there are businesses that do so well financially they can abuse their customers to the point of hatred, yet remain in business.