Hmmmm

[TexasBoy]

:thumbdown:

We Can't Let John Deere Destroy the Very Idea of Ownership | WIRED

 

[Poopdeck Pappy]

This is what happens when you start letting lawyers and accountants take control of a company. It takes an enormous amount of balls, stupidity and ignorance of your customer base - or perhaps equal doses of all three - to make an argument like John Deere just made.

I'd be very interested in what the equipment sale contract says when someone buys a new Deere. If I was buying a new John Deere, I'd darn sure read it to see whether I was buying (1) a piece of equipment or (2) a license to use it.

 

[Sysop]

They took a look at how Gates went from a dropout to richest man on Earth. Bill Gates is who made "licensing a product to a user for the user's use" a common thing in today's culture. It's only good business if everyone can do it, if it is limited to certain intellectual property but not others, then is it unfair.

Back when John Deere started, it took a lot of engineering know how to make stuff. Now you can "scan" stuff with laser scanners to get the designs to "copy and paste" over to your CNC machining tools, plug into the ECM and download the code and copy and paste that into another ECM (which also aren't hard to duplicate), and you've created a JD clone. They just want to protect what is theirs rather than having to compete with clones that have no R&D invested.

All that said, I hate the fact that it's come this far this fast...

 

[KevT]

if it passes others will follow

 

[mcrey1]

Ok, If they own the software and it needs updating it is updated for free just like microsoft. correct?

 

[Sysop]

Unlikely someone will be writing viruses for your JD anytime soon. No updates should be needed...