And, yet, farmers are still struggling to get anything promised in the agreement.” Deere, the dealers, and the manufacturers got what they wanted.
No right to repair legislation has been passed. The agreement is supposed to be in effect. In short, they managed to stall right to repair laws in several states in exchange for doing the right thing.Īs it turns out, they never bothered to really follow through:
Hoping to appease angry consumers and lawmakers, in late 2018, John Deere and a coalition of other agricultural hardware vendors promised (in a “ statement of principles) that by January 1, 2021, Deere and other companies would make repair tools, software, and diagnostics readily available to the masses. John Deere certainly isn’t alone in trying to monopolize repair, resulting in massive backlash and proposed legislation in more than fourteen states. These restrictions only worked to drive up costs for owners, who faced either paying significantly more money for “authorized” repair (which for many owners involved hauling their tractors hundreds of unnecessary miles), or toying around with pirated firmware just to ensure the products they owned actually worked. Five years or so ago, frustration at John Deere’s draconian tractor DRM helped birth a grassroots tech movement dubbed “right to repair.” The company’s crackdown on “unauthorized repairs” turned countless ordinary citizens into technology policy activists, after DRM (and the company’s EULA) prohibited the lion’s share of repair or modification of tractors customers thought they owned.