Re:John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment ...
by ggoo on Thursday July 09, 2026 @12:08AM
(#48840877)
> It is not so simple a problem. Should people have the right to do whatever they want with hardware they buy? Yes.
It's actually so simple you answered it right here! It's John Deere's problem to comply with the regulations we as society require of them - that is the cost of doing business.
Re:John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment ...
by sothatsit on Thursday July 09, 2026 @12:28AM
(#48841001)
That part is easy. How much we require John Deere to do to support people repairing their tractors is not.
Re:John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment ...
by jryan49 on Thursday July 09, 2026 @07:49AM
(#48844376)
A tractor is not exactly bleeding edge technology...
Re:John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment ...
by sothatsit on Thursday July 16, 2026 @03:50AM
(#48931493)
Modern tractors can be pretty complicated machines. You could argue they should be simpler, but just like cars they’ve gotten a lot more complex in the last couple decades.
Re:John Deere owners will get the right to repair equipment ...
by AnthonyMouse on Wednesday July 08, 2026 @11:31PM
(#48840668)
There is an obvious way to do this that doesn't impose high regulatory costs. A simple rule: The customer (and their independent mechanic) has access to anything the company has access to. Now you're not forcing them to write new service documentation, only to not restrict documentation they wrote anyway to their own dealers. You're not forcing them to support third party replacement parts, only preventing them from inhibiting it through software locks etc.
You don't have to force them to do anything, all you need is for them to not prevent others from doing certain things. Which is easy, because it's preventing documentation from being copied around or preventing independent third parties from making compatible replacement parts which requires active effort.
But the regulations that would require John Deere to change their practices and designs for repairability are not about your rights, they are about what we require John Deere to provide. And the more you require John Deere to provide, the more costs add up. When designing regulations that we require companies to follow, the costs of those regulations should be considered.
For routine repairs it seems very beneficial for farmers to be able to repair things themselves. But there’s a very long tail of problems where at some point the cost will become meaningful, and the benefits might not be that great.