[frombody]

No, they don't know why it's broken.

The cleaning cycle doesn't complete during the night, usually because the hopper is too full, and when they come in the next day they just run the 4 hour cleaning cycle multiple times until the cryptic error goes away.

As the video showed, when someone invented an add-on for the machines to display human readable error messages, they got attacked with a lawsuit.

[jimbob45]

>In a recent legal victory, a judge awarded a temporary restraining order against Taylor after Kytch had alleged in a complaint that the McFlurry machine manufacturer had gotten its hands on a Kytch Solution Devices with the express intention of learning its trade secrets. The complaint also alleged that Taylor had told McDonald’s and its franchisees to stop using Kytch machines on the grounds that they were dangerous, and that the company had begun development on its own version of the Kytch system at the same time.

I think you have it backwards. However, you're still right in essence, since Taylor seems to be attempting to break compatibility with the Kytch machines. Sounds a lot like another company we talk about here...

[thaumasiotes]

> a judge awarded a temporary restraining order against Taylor after Kytch had alleged in a complaint that the McFlurry machine manufacturer had gotten its hands on a Kytch Solution Devices with the express intention of learning its trade secrets.

This seems like a strong argument that the concept of trade secrets should be done away with.

[MobiusHorizons]

I think you have it backwards. Kytch is the company providing a diagnostic tool to fix the machines. The trade secrets were protected by NDA between kytch and someone at McDonald’s. The lawsuit is against someone who broke NDA and leaked information about the diagnostic device to Taylor. The allegation is that the manufacturer wants to prevent the diagnostic device from working.

[drewzero1]

And in turn, the Kytch device is an attempt to crack the trade secrets of the Taylor machines requiring service calls. I have a hard time rooting for either side on this one.

[atoav]

Wait do I get this right:

Company A builds a machine that breaks constantly and requires a lot of service — most of which people could do on site, but they can't because the error messages are not communicating anything.

Company B developed a device to read and display those error messages so the owners (?) of the machine can decide whether they fix it themselves or call support.

If I got this right I'd definitly be rooting for company B, because it offers a service that helps, while Company A apparently is afraid of not being able to compete if they just sell a working product instead of milking their customer via resource- and time-wasting service calls.

Which one of the two is that famous "innovation" capitalism is said to be good at producing?

[drewzero1]

Yeah, that's absolutely fair. I was referring specifically to the keeping of trade secrets on both sides here. I really do respect Kytch for breaking into these machines, but I don't like the way they have to fight to keep it to themselves. (Then again, it's really sh---y that Taylor is trying to maintain power by making their own Kytch-like device, or to block it from working at all. So I guess I'm convinced they're the bad guys here.)

[lsaferite]

You should add that Company A acquired the device from Company B so they could figure out how to make it not work (we all know that's their objective).