Soft ware, and how its affects how we use things we buy, including tractors

thesilentone

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Cumbria
I must admit, I am a technology fan, however having it is one thing, understanding it is another, and getting the best from it, the real objective,

One of the issues is the speed of change, as one door opens ten more. The other issue is components, who made them ? are they reliable? and are they readily available if required ?

Technology is consistent, however that could be consistently wrong. We are the weak link.
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
After the (very clever of them) Volkswagen scandal, what's to stop your tractor manufacturer installing a bug to, say, cut off the hydraulics at a certain hours. The dealer takes it back in, gives you a wacking bill for a new pump etc, but 'mends' it with 5 minutes on his laptop? I'm sure this sort of thing happens. Why does your washing machine always break down just out of warranty?
I have no idea whether this story is true (the teller is a habitual liar) but I was told an ex-Rolls Royce engineer was staying locally on holiday. He was discussing his job as a RR engineer with his host. He mentioned that the problem was not to make modern cars to they wouldn't wear out but to design them so they would wear out but do so consistently. Sounds familiar.
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
I find this thread particularly interesting because it involves the ownership of copyright. The law of copyright, if I understand it correctly, gives the ownership of a work of art to it's creator. Like a lot of law, it has some interesting little quirks. If I hand my camera to a passerby and ask them to take my photograph, being incredibly rich, famous, and reclusive (think Howard Hughes) that photograph is now worth a lot of money. But who owns it? The anonymous photographer owns the copyright but I own the film. Both our individual rights are limited. Does that surprise you?

If it isn't a photograph but a piece of computer code or software needed to operate a tractor, apparently the creator of that code retains certain rights which limit the rights of the tractor owner to operate that tractor. To simple old (but famous) me, that doesn't seem quite fair.

If I write a cookery book, I can (through my agent) give a publisher the right to publish x copies of the book in return for a royalty on every single copy sold (less a commission to my agent, of course). But does that give me the right to control how the recipies it contains are used? Copyright often contains limitations, sometimes by agreement, sometimes by law. Copyright on books usually has a time limit and will be extinguished so many years after the death of the author, depending on the country. Copyright on, say, a painting or a newspaper may be considered "in the public domain" and to have become so generally well know that it no longer exists, and so on.

But should copyright exist indefinitely on a piece of software that is needed to run a machine? And if the machine stops working, should it require a licence from the copyright holder to "mend it" (or whatever needs to be done to make it work again)?

No, I don't know the answer but justice certainly needs to be done, both for the "artist" who creates the work in the first place and for the farmers who relies on the tractor to "work" at all!

Discuss!
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I have no idea whether this story is true (the teller is a habitual liar) but I was told an ex-Rolls Royce engineer was staying locally on holiday. He was discussing his job as a RR engineer with his host. He mentioned that the problem was not to make modern cars to they wouldn't wear out but to design them so they would wear out but do so consistently. Sounds familiar.
Sounds plausible. I do know engineers at Cummins test run new engines to, iirc, 10k hours then strip them looking for components that are NOT worn out. All such components are then refined to reduce cost and working life. The aim is for an engine to last 10k hours then be totally junk.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
I find this thread particularly interesting because it involves the ownership of copyright. The law of copyright, if I understand it correctly, gives the ownership of a work of art to it's creator. Like a lot of law, it has some interesting little quirks. If I hand my camera to a passerby and ask them to take my photograph, being incredibly rich, famous, and reclusive (think Howard Hughes) that photograph is now worth a lot of money. But who owns it? The anonymous photographer owns the copyright but I own the film. Both our individual rights are limited. Does that surprise you?

If it isn't a photograph but a piece of computer code or software needed to operate a tractor, apparently the creator of that code retains certain rights which limit the rights of the tractor owner to operate that tractor. To simple old (but famous) me, that doesn't seem quite fair.

If I write a cookery book, I can (through my agent) give a publisher the right to publish x copies of the book in return for a royalty on every single copy sold (less a commission to my agent, of course). But does that give me the right to control how the recipies it contains are used? Copyright often contains limitations, sometimes by agreement, sometimes by law. Copyright on books usually has a time limit and will be extinguished so many years after the death of the author, depending on the country. Copyright on, say, a painting or a newspaper may be considered "in the public domain" and to have become so generally well know that it no longer exists, and so on.

But should copyright exist indefinitely on a piece of software that is needed to run a machine? And if the machine stops working, should it require a licence from the copyright holder to "mend it" (or whatever needs to be done to make it work again)?

No, I don't know the answer but justice certainly needs to be done, both for the "artist" who creates the work in the first place and for the farmers who relies on the tractor to "work" at all!

Discuss!
When you buy a new machine do you buy the right to it being fit for purpose? In non-commercial the you do. If so then one could argue that a software fault that prevents the machine completing the task it was sold to do, however long after purchase, proves it was not fit for purpose.

This may ask be rather academic these days though as so few new machines are bought outright. If only leased then the above may not apply and a software subscription just become an extension of the lease terms.......
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
Can't see why copywriter only applies to software etc. What about all the mechanical bits that are copied in China and sold by spare etc?
It doesn't. China is notorious for stealing copyright and there are continual battles between governments over rights, not only with China. I can't pretend to be an expert as the law is highly complicated.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Can't see why copywriter only applies to software etc. What about all the mechanical bits that are copied in China and sold by spare etc?
As a patent holder, it seems you are almost guaranteed to see fakes of your product hit the market if you outsource manufacturing to China. Patent and copyright regulations do exist there but seem only to be enforced when the outcome suits the Chinese government.....
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
Where does it end though? Two people on different sides of the world could easily write the same piece of software independently to do the same job. You can sometimes licence a specific programming language or platform, but programmes written using that language would be difficult to prove as being an original piece of work.
 

Dry Rot

Member
Livestock Farmer
Do you or anyone you know use this? I am not capable of using this type of product.


Tom
There are sure to be Youtube videos showing you how. One theory is that pirates/hackers are tolerated because students can't afford the genuine product. They learn on the hacked/pirated stuff, then go on to get jobs using legitimate software financed by the big corporations that they wuldn't have got knowing nothing about the programs. It does sound plausible. Not much profit in Adobe suing Billy Blogs, student, because they don't have the money anyway.
 

holwellcourtfarm

Member
Livestock Farmer
Just read this post today and thought of this thread...

 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,293
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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