John Deere urged to surrender source code under GPL
(2023/03/18)
- Reference: 1679095738
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/03/17/john_deere_sfc_gpl/
- Source link:
The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) has called upon farm equipment maker John Deere to comply with its obligations under the General Public License (GPL), which requires users of such software to share source code.
In a [1]blog post published on Thursday, SFC director of compliance Denver Gingerich argues that farmers' ability to repair their tools is now in jeopardy because the makers of those tools have used GPL-covered software and have failed to live up to licensing commitments.
"Sadly, farm equipment manufacturers, who benefit immensely from the readily-available software that they can provide as part of the farming tools (tractors, combines, etc.) they sell to farmers, are not complying with the right to repair licenses of the software they have chosen to use in these farming tools," said Gingerich.
[2]
"As a result, farmers are cut off from their livelihood if the farm equipment manufacturer does not wish to repair their farming tools when they inevitably fail, even when the farmer could easily perform the repairs on their own, or with the help of someone else they know."
[3]
[4]
Gingerich singled out Moline, Illinois-based John Deere as a particularly egregious offender. He said that for years the SFC has attempted to work with John Deere to resolve the company's non-compliance, but the agricultural equipment maker has failed to cooperate.
[5]Uncle Sam backs right-to-repair battle against Big Ag's John Deere
[6]John Deere signs right to repair agreement with US ag lobbyists
[7]Dual Tesla lawsuits pull Elon Musk into right-to-repair war
[8]New York gets right-to-repair law – after some industry-friendly repairs to the rules
"When Deere does reply (we have heard from others that their legitimate requests for source code have been met with silence), they have always failed to include the 'scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable,' per [9]GPLv2 ," Gingerich told The Register .
"And even when we were already engaged with them, and asked for source for an additional product, it took more than 10 months for them to send us the first (again, incomplete) package, which makes their offer for source hollow."
Living up to the deal?
For years, repair advocates have complained about the barriers that prevent independent farmers from fixing their own John Deere equipment. But lately, those objections appear to be having some effect.
Facing multiple lawsuits from farmers, who now have the [10]support of the Justice Department and the White House, John Deere in January struck [11]a deal [PDF] with the American Farm Bureau Federation to provide farmers with greater access to the internal workings of company's equipment.
While repair advocates considered the deal a win, they remain cautious because the company [12]struck a similar bargain in 2018 that proved insufficient – that deal did not provide access to tools for resetting security and immobilizer locks.
[13]
As the SFC sees it, the right to repair can be best served through John Deere's compliance with the GPL.
"As we have been doing privately for multiple years, we now publicly call on John Deere to immediately resolve all of its outstanding GPL violations, across all lines of its farm equipment, by providing complete source code, including 'the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable' that the GPL and other copyleft licenses require, to the farmers and others who are entitled to it, by the licenses that Deere chose to use," said Gingerich in his post.
Gingerich told us that the most widely-deployed GPL-covered software in Deere machinery is Linux. "As with most Linux distributions, it uses several other programs under copyleft (i.e. right to repair) licenses as well," he said.
[14]
Gingerich said the SFC supports the other organizations challenging John Deere over alleged violations of agreements and laws, including antitrust challenges.
Asked whether the SFC might consider legal action, Gingerich said, "Existing litigation is focused on gaining access to the software used by the dealerships to help fix the tractors, which is also important. SFC is requesting the complete corresponding source code for the software that runs on the farm equipment itself, as Deere is required to provide by the licenses of the software they use."
John Deere did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-violations/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/doj_deere_repair/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/09/john_deere_repair_mou/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/dual_tesla_lawsuits_brings_musk/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/30/new_york_repair_bill/
[9] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/doj_deere_repair/
[11] https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf
[12] https://pirg.org/articles/deere-right-to-repair-change/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
In a [1]blog post published on Thursday, SFC director of compliance Denver Gingerich argues that farmers' ability to repair their tools is now in jeopardy because the makers of those tools have used GPL-covered software and have failed to live up to licensing commitments.
"Sadly, farm equipment manufacturers, who benefit immensely from the readily-available software that they can provide as part of the farming tools (tractors, combines, etc.) they sell to farmers, are not complying with the right to repair licenses of the software they have chosen to use in these farming tools," said Gingerich.
[2]
"As a result, farmers are cut off from their livelihood if the farm equipment manufacturer does not wish to repair their farming tools when they inevitably fail, even when the farmer could easily perform the repairs on their own, or with the help of someone else they know."
[3]
[4]
Gingerich singled out Moline, Illinois-based John Deere as a particularly egregious offender. He said that for years the SFC has attempted to work with John Deere to resolve the company's non-compliance, but the agricultural equipment maker has failed to cooperate.
[5]Uncle Sam backs right-to-repair battle against Big Ag's John Deere
[6]John Deere signs right to repair agreement with US ag lobbyists
[7]Dual Tesla lawsuits pull Elon Musk into right-to-repair war
[8]New York gets right-to-repair law – after some industry-friendly repairs to the rules
"When Deere does reply (we have heard from others that their legitimate requests for source code have been met with silence), they have always failed to include the 'scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable,' per [9]GPLv2 ," Gingerich told The Register .
"And even when we were already engaged with them, and asked for source for an additional product, it took more than 10 months for them to send us the first (again, incomplete) package, which makes their offer for source hollow."
Living up to the deal?
For years, repair advocates have complained about the barriers that prevent independent farmers from fixing their own John Deere equipment. But lately, those objections appear to be having some effect.
Facing multiple lawsuits from farmers, who now have the [10]support of the Justice Department and the White House, John Deere in January struck [11]a deal [PDF] with the American Farm Bureau Federation to provide farmers with greater access to the internal workings of company's equipment.
While repair advocates considered the deal a win, they remain cautious because the company [12]struck a similar bargain in 2018 that proved insufficient – that deal did not provide access to tools for resetting security and immobilizer locks.
[13]
As the SFC sees it, the right to repair can be best served through John Deere's compliance with the GPL.
"As we have been doing privately for multiple years, we now publicly call on John Deere to immediately resolve all of its outstanding GPL violations, across all lines of its farm equipment, by providing complete source code, including 'the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable' that the GPL and other copyleft licenses require, to the farmers and others who are entitled to it, by the licenses that Deere chose to use," said Gingerich in his post.
Gingerich told us that the most widely-deployed GPL-covered software in Deere machinery is Linux. "As with most Linux distributions, it uses several other programs under copyleft (i.e. right to repair) licenses as well," he said.
[14]
Gingerich said the SFC supports the other organizations challenging John Deere over alleged violations of agreements and laws, including antitrust challenges.
Asked whether the SFC might consider legal action, Gingerich said, "Existing litigation is focused on gaining access to the software used by the dealerships to help fix the tractors, which is also important. SFC is requesting the complete corresponding source code for the software that runs on the farm equipment itself, as Deere is required to provide by the licenses of the software they use."
John Deere did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-violations/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/doj_deere_repair/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/09/john_deere_repair_mou/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/16/dual_tesla_lawsuits_brings_musk/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/30/new_york_repair_bill/
[9] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/16/doj_deere_repair/
[11] https://www.fb.org/files/AFBF_John_Deere_MOU.pdf
[12] https://pirg.org/articles/deere-right-to-repair-change/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZBVFb4DdR4WfPVjorVhOFAAAABE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
why is it so hard to follow a simple license?
mattaw2001
I have never understood why companies find it so hard to comply with a simple license? The GPL has almost no boilerplate or pages of rubbish it's really clear.
In actual fact I feel open source's plain English has helped it stand up in court more than almost anything else. The more complicated the license the easier it is to screw something up or to demonstrate there was no meeting is the minds - that you didn't really understand it.
Re: why is it so hard to follow a simple license?
b0llchit
They probably understand the license very well.
These "big" corporations bet on the "we're to big to lose" and "sue us and it'll cost you more than you us" attitudes. They are at least wilfully blind and most probably wilfully infringing. The only way for them to comply is for the CxO level to face serious personal fines and jail time because of this.
I think that John Deere...
chuckufarley
...Would make a wonderful example for other companies so that they could see why they need to honor the Open Source licenses of the software they use. I say the John Deere should be Sued Early and Often until they comply.
Re: I think that John Deere...
M.V. Lipvig
Might be a little quicker if the courts, or the Feds, ruled that John Deere may not sell or service any equipment in the US until this was resolved.
Not the only one....
Old Used Programmer
Once they get through getting Deere to comply with the GPL, they can go after Medtronic.
All your source code are belong to us!