Farmer Lobbying Group Sells Out Farmers, Helps Enshrine John Deere's Tractor Repair Monopoly (vice.com)

Jason Koebler writes: The California Farm Bureau, a group that lobbies on behalf of farmers, reached a "right to repair" agreement with the Equipment Dealers Association (which represents John Deere and other manufacturers) last week. But the specifics of the agreement were written by the manufacturers, and falls far short of providing the types of change that would be needed to make repairing tractors easier. In fact, the agreement makes the same concessions that the Equipment Dealers Association announced in February it would voluntarily give to all farmers. The agreement will not allow farmers to buy repair parts, break firmware DRM, or otherwise alter software for the purposes of repair.

Comments

Question for John Deere

[SuperKendall]

If farmers do not actually own the vehicle they pay for, but instead only receive a âoelicense to operate the vehicleâ as John Deere claims, shouldn't repairs all be at the cost of John Deer, and any losses due to mechanical or software failure mean John Deere is liable for damages...