I fixed a tractor using John Deere's self-repair service. Farmers aren't sold

Why isn't this an apples-oranges comparison?

Good regulation: right to repair, manufacturers must supply manuals.

Bad regulation: JD bribed senators to write regulations that make it insurmountably difficult for new players to enter.

Calling regulation bad because corruption is baked into the US Constitution makes it really hard to get anything done.

This is just not true - their machines are purposely opaque and loaded with DRM. Regulation in this area could potentially make the entire system more efficient and cheaper for everyone at the cost of JD's predatory practices. In addition to owners there are lots of independents who could work on JD equipment, but they are all literally locked out.

the cost of starting a company that makes a line of tractors combines and sprayers is probably second only to an aircraft manufacturer in difficulty and complexity

So are for some regulations but not others. I think that is most people's stance. It's more constructive if we talk about which specific ones.

Given how each tractor manufacturer is essentially associated with its own specific country, I'd say this industry is a great example of how mature industries tend to consolidate into monopolies while getting propped up by regulatory capture greased by concerns over natural security. So while the regulatory costs you cite may indeed be onerous, simplistic calls merely for "less regulation" don't bear out.

I call bullshit until you cite evidence. Farm equipment doesn't even need to comply with road vehicle requirements. What special regulations does a farm equipment manufacturer need to comply with that don't apply to any other industrial manufacturer?

> I was just looking at a small open source utility. As I was going through the code I found cases where certain arguments could be set to magic values that cause useful, but undocumented behavior. Should the developers be forced to document these options?

You were able to do that because it was open source. If a car mfr was willing to do that, it would be plenty enough for me. They shouldn't be forced to do any additional work beyond the 5 seconds it takes to type `git remote add origin github.com/honda/civic`. Then the community would have everything it needs to carry things forward.

Failing that, yes, I do think everything should be documented.

Between reading basic diagnostics and documenting every signal and field is routine or recurring write operations that will need to happen in the field.

Resetting the oil/maintenance light, recoding key fobs, resetting the battery stats upon replacement, etc.

I want independent mechanics to be able to do that. I also want to be able to do that myself, if I’m so inclined.

> I don’t think a manufacturer should be able to lock you out of reading diagnostics on your own devices, or that anyone should be prevented from reverse engineering what those values mean.

But they do do that. Also what’s the difference between a lot of obfuscation and prevention and how will you enforce that without lawsuits and discovery?

Also, what is those values have the ability to do damage and cause safety issues? Like losing your own software onto a control by wire car? Then you can rent a car and install your own software surreptitiously.

the issue is not that this information is undocumented, it's that an "authorized service center" gets information that an "owner" does not. Also cars are not "small open source utilities" with undocumented arguments; do you think that an auto manufacturer has hidden, untested diagnostics that only the dealer uses?

>> don’t think there should be any requirement that they are forced to do additional work

At one time seatbelts, airbags, emission controls, etc were all viewed in this category. Now we have regulations enforcing aspects of all of these. Why would diagnostics be different?