Do we have a “right to repair” thread?

[LittleLebowski]

I found this article (shockingly free of politics, seemingly from the times when tech sites wrote about…tech) to be pretty interesting. I am not surprised that there’s a burgeoning market in older tractors because of issues with repairing newer tractors. Supposedly Biden fixed this (props given as deserved, good move) last summer with the tractors, anyone in farming care to weigh in?


https://www.wired.com/story/mcdonald...ternal-emails/

SIX MONTHS AGO, a tiny startup called Kytch sued Taylor, the billion-dollar manufacturer of McDonald's notoriously broken ice cream machines. For years Kytch had sold a small device that hacks those ice cream machines, letting McDonald's restaurant owners better diagnose their maladies and make them work more reliably—only to find, according to Kytch's legal complaint, that Taylor had conspired to copy its device and sabotage its business.

Now Kytch's lawsuit has revealed another side to that story: the internal communications of Taylor itself. Recently released court documents appear to show that Taylor's executives did view Kytch as a business threat and worked to copy its device's features in a competing product—all while still failing to actually cure McDonald's ice cream headaches.

[MickAK]

https://tractorhacking.github.io/usage/

It's not just a JD problem though.

I don't put a lot of faith in the government being able to prohibit it. A laptop and a sim ECU is as necessary as a torque wrench these days. I think a strong community of small independent machinists and electronics manufacturers is a better solution than 'right to repair' legislation that has been proposed. Rights aren't given but kept.

[octagon]

It is not just farm equipment either. Auto repair and even EVs have the same barriers to repair. SEMA has been trying to pass the RPM act to allow racecars to be converted from factory cars for several years with small gains of supporters each year which has similar implications. Tesla is known for it's closed system access but some have broken it enough to be useful. This issue will only continue to grow as more people buy into newer vehicles and vehicles move out of warranty. Independent repair shops will be left out of the loop and customers will pay more if right to repair is not passed. I didn't read the article but knowing Wired I am sure they discuss cell phone repair and in particular Apple. This also is a bigger issue for not always having disposable devices which the environmentalist can get behind.

[rjohnson4405]

My guess is you will see a growth of aftermarket products that removes these features if at all possible.

We didn't make our living off a small farm when I was younger, but we sure as hell needed that Tractor just to maintain our property, driveway, etc. That thing was fixed and patched together like crazy in the field as required. I can't imagine it being impossible without a computer and diagnostic set up.

[okie john]

Kytch points to documents from the time of Taylor's acquisition by Middleby in 2018 that show the company receives close to 25 of its revenue—from all its customers, not just McDonald's—via repair contracts with Taylor distributors, which Kytch argues provides an incentive to maintain the machines' fragility.

Wait, a bunch of guys in the Midwest are clinging to a tool-belt business model rather than moving to a help-desk business model when a startup comes along and threatens it? Then they get bent out of shape and try to litigate the startup out of existence?

This is my shocked face.

It won't be long until some teenager gets upset that she can't get soft-serve from the burger joint where her cousin works. She'll hack the machine on a borrowed iPhone (because the battery in her phone is dead), fix it, get her ice cream, and release the hack on TikTok. Teenagers all over the world will be able to repair Taylor ice-cream machines, but the Taylor IT team will be so far behind the curve that they don't realize what's going on, and the 25% revenue hit will be the first of many downturns to blindside Taylor management.

Then she'll rewrite the all of the Taylor code to make their machines pillars of reliability.


Okie John

[OlongJohnson]

SEMA has been trying to pass the RPM act to allow racecars to be converted from factory cars for several years with small gains of supporters each year which has similar implications.

RPM act is a different issue. Forever, if you buy a production vehicle and convert it for competition use, once you're not registering it for street use, you can do whatever is necessary to make it a competitive competition vehicle. EPA has stated it believes this violates the non-tampering laws originally applicable to the production vehicle in street use. RPM Act, as I understand it, essentially clarifies that race cars (..., trucks, bikes, etc.) are legal, even when made from production vehicles originally intended for street use. It's not "to allow" it, because it's already allowed and always has been. It's to guarantee that the EPA can't administratively (BATFE-style) prohibit it just by declaring it to be prohibited.

Quite different than right to repair.

@JRB

[octagon]

RPM act is a different issue. Forever, if you buy a production vehicle and convert it for competition use, once you're not registering it for street use, you can do whatever is necessary to make it a competitive competition vehicle. EPA has stated it believes this violates the non-tampering laws originally applicable to the production vehicle in street use. RPM Act, as I understand it, essentially clarifies that race cars (..., trucks, bikes, etc.) are legal, even when made from production vehicles originally intended for street use. It's not "to allow" it, because it's already allowed and always has been. It's to guarantee that the EPA can't administratively (BATFE-style) prohibit it just by declaring it to be prohibited.

Quite different than right to repair.

@JRB

Two sides of the same coin. EPA has been going after aftermarket companies that offer modified ECUs and exhaust parts even when used on off road/race only vehicles. The ECU modification and manufacturers closed systems and encryption is part and parcel in right to repair.

[JRB]

The RPM act started as that, yes, but last I read is that it included critical language that very much addresses a 'right to repair' issue. I am, however, somewhat out of touch on that since I've been out of the industry for a few years.

But many automakers including GM and Ford have been using language in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to justify locking end users out of the ability to alter or change any ECU or computer programming or settings. They contend that such changes violate their copyright on the software in those systems. This is the same premise being used by John Deere and other OEM makers of farm equipment and machinery that created the whole 'right to repair' problem.

Obviously, those changes and the right of the owner of a vehicle to change/edit/alter code and settings in a control box within the vehicle they own is not the same as freely sharing copyrighted music or other IP. I'm hoping that gets addressed, either with the RPM act or otherwise. The right to alter vehicles for uses off of public highways and roads is just one facet of the problem as a whole, and some overzealous EPA dweebs made it a focal point somehow.

Personally it's just validating my preference of much older vehicles. I especially detest any car that does over-the-air updates over cellular data networks and otherwise communicates with the 'mothership', especially when there's no way to permanently disable that feature without causing other issues.

[mtnbkr]

I have two views of this:
First, as a rabid "do it yourselfer", I'm allergic to anything other than my own skill that would prevent me from doing my own repairs or modifications.

But...

Professionally I'm involved in security service design and governance, and new product launches in my company. Allowing customers Read/Write access to the devices we manage on their behalf (some we purchase and deploy for them, others originally purchased by the customer that we later come in and take over) is a difficult thing in an SLA-capable service. We're slowly coming around to this idea, but it requires new tools and thinking to do it and not risk our KPIs. In my head, right-to-repair is like our customers having read/write access to an IPS, SIEM, or other managed security device where the intent is to provide an outcome rather than a thing. It ultimately hinges on what the manufacture is intending to provide; a product or a service.

That said, if manufacturers want to go down this route, they need to significantly improve warranties and after-sale service.

Chris

[peterb]

It ultimately hinges on what the manufacture is intending to provide; a product or a service.

That’s a good way of looking at it.

If I rent a thing or buy a thing with a mandatory subscription, I’m paying for the manufacturer’s solution to my problem. I’m buying a service. It’s reasonable that I don’t hack it.

If I buy a thing outright, and think I’m buying a stand-alone product, I want to be able to modify it to make my solution to my problem.