What I am seeing in this issue now days is the confusion about what repair means. The news media keeps making the point about users actually changing the software package which isn't correct in my area of the US. The issue really is access to simple diagnostics that allow the identification of a fault and the ability to repair the cause of that fault. To put it in the simplest terms, if a speed sensor, pressure switch or proximity sensor goes bad, the dealer and the manufacturer shouldn't be the only option to find and repair the issue.
What I'm hearing from the new media, and apparently Deere is saying it, is that any access will allow wholesale changes to the software allowing end users to in effect make the machine non compliant with pollution or safety laws. Now I've had some pretty deep access at dealer levels of service and in my experience nothing is further from the truth. Even the dealers do not get access to the root code that would change the operating characteristics of a machine to the extent of making it non compliant or unsafe.
I can see three ways to bust this controversy open. First, the farm community needs to get with the political establishment and the news media and correct the misconceptions being broadcast as fact. Second, the farm community needs to find other options than signing agreements that lock their options out. That most likely involves purchase of someone else's machinery that doesn't establish contractural limits to service work. The last item involves the hardest and most expensive pathway and that is to file a class action lawsuit specifying damages for lost production caused by non performance due to the un-availability of service personnel to perform repairs.
So far as I've seen Deere has not tried this tact on the construction industry. That is likely because they are not the largest player and there are plenty of others who already provide the diagnostics in the machines. They know they wouldn't get away with it. This appears to me to be an opening for other farm equipment manufacturers, if they will step up their game.
