Its worth noting that John Deere , for this major equipment, doesn’t really “Sell” it anymore. It’s more a license to use the software on the hardware provided you follow the terms of the license, which comes down to more of a lease structure than a buy.
Yes, you buy the hardware. But you can’t actually use it without leasing/licensing the software. Oh, and putting different software on it is violating the terms of the sale, and knowingly circumventing it is violating criminal copyright law. And they send around auditors to plug into machines (per the sale agreement) to find out if you’ve done any of that.
The enemy of my enemy is just that and nothing more. That doesn’t make them my friend or ally. Too many people, and nations, have made this mistake over the years.
I’m specifically talking about the technology that allows a manufacturer to remotely disable a product like a tractor. That that technology comes bundled with a bunch of other software that does cool and useful things is irrelevant. And sure, there could arguably be a legitimate purpose to being able to remotely disable equipment, but that’s not why they put it in there. They did it to force owners to return to them for service and repair.
But it’s the same feature, if a farmer is standing next to a field where a sprayer is running a pre-programed route and needs it to stop, then they will need a way to abort the program and lock the tractor into a safe mode. That is a software kill switch, just one the farmer has permission to remove.
My point was just that we should not blame the technology for how companies misuse it, and how bad laws have made it a felony to block that misuse.
