The Walls Are Closing In On John Deere's Tractor Repair Monopoly (404media.co) 107
samleecole writes: For the last decade, farmers have been warning that John Deere, a company celebrated by farmers, country musicians, and politicians, has been doing something else very American: Concentrating power, stripping away the ownership rights of people who buy their products, and adding a bevy of artificial, software-based repair restrictions that have effectively created a regime in which farmers can no longer fix their own tractors, combines, harvesters, and other agricultural equipment. Farmers have resorted to pirating John Deere's software and firmware on underground forums and torrent sites, and have used software cracked by Ukrainian pirates in order to simply fix the things they own. Farmers often have to wait days or weeks for an "authorized" John Deere dealership to come to their farms to repair their equipment, meanwhile their crops die on the vine.
For years, very little happened to slow down John Deere's march toward total control of the repair market. But interviews with farmers, activists, and lawyers, and a review of court records reveal a turn in the story: There is increased scrutiny on Deere's repair practices not just in this class action lawsuit, but from state legislators, the White House, and a series of federal agencies. The walls on Deere's repair monopoly may finally be closing in.
For years, very little happened to slow down John Deere's march toward total control of the repair market. But interviews with farmers, activists, and lawyers, and a review of court records reveal a turn in the story: There is increased scrutiny on Deere's repair practices not just in this class action lawsuit, but from state legislators, the White House, and a series of federal agencies. The walls on Deere's repair monopoly may finally be closing in.
It's about time the national security question of (Score:5, Insightful)
I also strongly believe in the right to repair and the right to buy parts at a reasonable price - all the pro arguments I've seen so far are about control and profiteering.
Re: It's about time the national security question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: It's about time the national security question (Score:5, Informative)
You see, thanks to the magic of the free market, if a company starts overcharging for parts or pushes a nasty update, consumers will activate their time travel machine and buy a different product.
Re: It's about time the national security questio (Score:1)
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Not a business.
Re: It's about time the national security questio (Score:2)
I think a lot of this is basically caused by overzealous copyright laws. Part of me wants to say that any software that, to the exclusion of all others, is necessary for the operation of a device, then copying, including breaking copyright protection, is fair use.
Re: It's about time the national security questio (Score:2)
Deere does not have a monopoly, they offer the best product for large industrial farms, there are many other companies and smaller farmers have over the past decade switched or never started with John Deere.
They have a monopoly in as much as VW or Toyota have a monopoly over many spare parts, it is just not feasible for third parties to build them because they are so niche. But if you find VW oppressive in the way they do business, you wouldnâ(TM)t keep buying VW, you sell your shit if possible and mov
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You just said that for large farms there's little alternative. In any case this semantic debate is irrelevant. The word "monopoly" does not appear in the anti-trust act. The word "monopolize" does. You don't need to be the only choice to "monopolize" the market. You just need to wield significant market power, which John Deere objectively does.
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Deere does not have a superior product. They have a brand name that farmers, typically older, non-tech savvy people who are conditioned to be brand loyal to American companies. John Deere has not been superior in many many years. Its just farmers trust who they've always trusted just because of FUD even though that company is lubing them up for a rear end pounding every time they continue to buy their products. The tipping point to them realizing it is finally approaching. John Deere is shit products that c
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Japanese heavy machinery has been very good for a long time now, but check out some reviews of Chinese equipment on YouTube. Often you get what you pay for, as in the cheaper stuff has some limitations, but the quality is decent and it gets the job done. A lot of the self-build crowd are importing smaller Chinese machines like diggers now.
I say this not because I want you to buy a Chinse digger, but because John Deere seems to be just the latest company to screw itself by not just failing to remain competit
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There are plenty of other redneck American farm equipment companies.
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Case IH is using their more lenience on right to repair as a feature to attract customers. https://www.caseih.com/en-us/unitedstates/service-support/self-repair There are competent alternatives to JD.
I think the problem is that large industrial farms sign big service contracts with JD and their dealer network. That comes with all the perks of rapid response and everything being handled by JD. But for that to be cost effective you have to have a lot of JD gear (so a large industrial farm).
So it's the farmer
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They have a monopoly in as much as VW or Toyota have a monopoly over many spare parts, it is just not feasible for third parties to build them because they are so niche. But if you find VW oppressive in the way they do business, you wouldnâ(TM)t keep buying VW, you sell your shit if possible and move on.
I don't know about you, but I've bought and installed many 3rd party components on my VW Golf over the years, especially when the OEM parts are hard to come by or obscenely expensive. I also have a 3rd party OBD II scantool that works better than the VW one.
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Yes, the generic and frequently worn (typically used and rebuilt) parts, the more specialized parts that are unique to the car (eg. cylinder head) not so much, you get it either from a wrecker or VW.
Re: It's about time the national security question (Score:5, Insightful)
Because farmers all have a few million burning a hole in their pocket so they can throw the Deere away and buy something else?
It is worth noting that there is a reason I've started seeing more Kubota around, but when equipment is often maintained for several decades because it's so expensive, the changeover happens slowly. In some ways, the various legislators are saving an American company from itself.
Re: It's about time the national security questio (Score:2)
We are talking about large industrial farms, these things are on a lease, they are replaced, maintenance is contracted. I live in farm country, the problem is not mechanical, but many keep treating it like a mechanic should be able to fix it.
Some smarter companies hired IT people like me on a consultancy basis and do fix these things on occasion or talk to the vendor to figure out what the hell is wrong, rarely did I find that the vendor is hostile unless you did something to piss the engineer on the other
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We are also talking about sole proprietor farms who do not get the same level of cooperation (that's why they get to wait days for the dealer while the crops need to be harvested NOW).
From the standpoint of society, we definitely do NOT need or want further consolidation into a small number of corporations.
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No, the problem is Deere is engaging in activities to lock out people's ability to repair their own stuff, then not having the capacity to do it themselves. Circumventing Right to Repair is scummy on its own, but their unwillingness or inability to handle the service load they created has knock-on effects that are incredibly disruptive to food supply. And that's the kind of thing that drives farms out of business and can/does lead to food scarcity issues.
Re: It's about time the national security question (Score:5, Informative)
If the farmers were truly interested (note that John Deere computerized equipment is sold almost exclusively to industrial farming), they have had 10 years to switch to a different system.
Shows how little you know about farming.
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"the right to buy parts at a reasonable price"
Reasonable to who?
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If you've spent much time with farmers you might understand Deere's stance a bit better. Something will break and because farmers are always short of cash they'll duct tape and crazy glue some piece of shit in its place because it's cheaper. Or they'll get the right part but because they're in a hurry they won't configure it correctly. Now the 'Intelligent Farming' system doesn't work right, and rather than accept the blame the farmer will bad-talk the system. Now they have a PR headache which is not of
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The problem with your scenario here is that in a lot of cases the farmer can't get the right part at all, and if they don't get that field taken care of by their really expensive machine within the next 3 days they lose the harvest.
Magnuson-Moss exists for a reason, and one of its functions protects manufacturers as they can deny claims if they can establish that duct tape and crazy glue broke the machine.
Deere's actions are to circumvent individuals rights to repair so they can control the repair chain to
Re: It's about time the national security question (Score:2)
We'll probably continue to disagree on this.
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Re: It's about time the national security question (Score:1)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
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Ever seen the result when someone gets too close to a combine? It ain't pretty.
Re:It's about time the national security question (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like a desperately contrived scenario written by a ten year old trying to justify not allowing repair. Or just trying to avoid an F on the short story assignment due in the morning that he slagged off for the last two weeks.
How does that relate to anything a farmer might actually WANT to do like replacing a faulty module without having to wait for the dealer to come bless the pairing?
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John Deere for releasing an unsafe vehicle.
But your example has fuck all to do with reality, and everything to do with protecting the monopoly.
Our future is quite grim ... (Score:1)
1. Transforming farm or plot of land to be used by robots is easier than making generic robot capable to deal with any situation at the farm.
2. If I develop robotic farm as a complex of specially design facilities, plots of land and machines so it scales. Saying scaling I mean situation when robots build new farms automatically with minimal human participation and the entire farm is operated by robots
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No, the truth is, this has nothing to do with automation or robotization.
This has to do with advanced farm equipment that the owner isn't allowed to repair, isn't allowed to bring in a third party to repair, but must actually call an authorized John Deere service center for ANYTHING THAT GOES WRONG.
You have created an entirely fictitious doomsday scenario out of the excised clippings of the latest Terminator film, and are trying to answer a problem that doesn't exist, while simultaneously ignoring the fact
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The farmer might have property worth a couple of million, but Deere is worth billions. The lawyer is going to do everything possible to ensure that the money comes from Deere, because Deere has more to lose so are more likely to be able to finance their new yacht.
Your things are mine (Score:2)
Commies at least pretended we're sharing, the new capitalist thing is "pay us to hold onto some hardware or software, it's still ours though". They've always wanted that but now the tech is here to allow them to actually sort of do it.
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As always, no one is making you buy a John Deere, and if enough people cared about this problem, they would look elsewhere.
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Nice flamebait. They're free to buy what they can get. May I interest you in a Lamborghini? No tariffs against Italia (that I'm aware of.)
https://www.lamborghini-tracto... [lamborghini-tractors.com]
Or, how about a homegrown alternative? The Farmall name still lives, in the hands of Case. They make big stuff, too.
https://www.caseih.com/en-us/u... [caseih.com]
Ooh, there's choices... mm. Hardly a monopoly. Well, maybe a monopoly in brand recognition.. but there are choices.
Now, fuck vendor lock-in, and trying to prevent owner repairs.. but fuc
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First monopolies actually *are* illegal, meaning you don't need an additional "right to repair". And second, there are plenty of other tractors you can buy, Mahindra, for example.
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As derpy as saying no one makes you fly Boeing when you have to fly and there's less than a handful of plane manufacturers left in the world. And if the rest of the industry follows suit as airlines did with baggage fees and banks with NSF charges?
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Oh no poor John Deere getting picked on.
Re:Your things are mine (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, if we wave a magic wand, all the problems go away. Turns out, people do care about the problem, and it's still a problem. The effectiveness of the free market solving things assumes the consumers have infinite knowledge, which they don't, and enough competitors to switch to.
So for example people buy an inkjet printer with an asshole company breaking the product if you don't buy their ink, and only after do they learn better and swear off that company, but by then a new wave of suckers is ready to buy a printer. Not only does the magical market not solve this, the market plus human nature is the problem as subsidizing a printer with the ink confuses customers into thinking it's a lower price.
Re:Your things are mine (Score:5, Funny)
This. The new Capitalism is Communism except you don't even get a fake vote and the people who own everything don't even pretend to be "the people".
If you hated Communism, you should REALLY hate the new Capitalism.
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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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In the new Capitalism, the corporations are the state. Everything is owned by the state.
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If you hated Communism, you should REALLY hate the new Capitalism.
I know why this was modded funny. :(
Truth is never to be spoken seriously.
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Who are the "commies" in this situation?
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You can find "commies" in a history book from around the time of the USSR.
Basically, the idea was that if you give them a "transition" government of totalitarian command economy (run by asskissers and calculated on paper), they would eventually transition to a stateless paradise of plenty and equality. It lost out to the rival idea that greed is good so if you give the rich ever more money, they can't help but create a utopia for you in their quest for ever more money.
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Right To Repair (Score:4, Interesting)
I can hear Louis Rossmann gut-laughing from four states away.
Minds need to change. (Score:2)
it is only a very small partial victory.
Minds need to change.
Shame on the feds (Score:5, Informative)
Shame on the feds for letting companies get this point in the first place. If our government had teeth and the fines/punishments weren't so laughably small when they do get called out we wouldn't be in this mess right now. Go after ALL these large asshat companies doing the same thing. Hold the C-suite PERSONALLY accountable as well when laws are broken.
Re:Shame on the feds (Score:4, Informative)
If it's anything like the FDA, the government agency in charge of oversight of these large companies are filled with ex-employees of said companies, and are acting on their behalf first.
Re:Shame on the feds (Score:5, Funny)
Give it a few years and there will be a supreme court case involving John Deere and the government. The justices will cite 16th century witchcraft as a reason why John Deere can remotely shutdown a machine you own outright.
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Give it a few years and there will be a supreme court case involving John Deere and the government. The justices will cite 16th century witchcraft as a reason why John Deere can remotely shutdown a machine you own outright.
Partially right, but the justification will be some Takings Clause B.S.
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Hold the C-suite PERSONALLY accountable as well when laws are broken.
You're putting the cart ahead of the horse. The issue fundamentally is there are few laws protecting consumers in the USA. Before you want to hold people accountable for breaking laws you actually have to have some.
In general other than a few right to repair movements which are very recent there is no law against locking down your product. In general being a monopoly and locking down your product is not an antitrust violation unless you lock out competition unfairly in the process.
You have a lot of legal re
There will always be plenty of customers for parts (Score:2)
I don't know what Deere fears so much. The funny thing about all this is that they have plenty of customers that service their equipment at John Deere dealers for reasons other than the parts and service monopoly. Just the other day I had a John Deere tech come out to address a minor electrical problem on a tractor that's well and truly out of warranty.
Sure if third parties can pair the ECUs dealerships might lose a bit of business but not that much honestly. Most farms that regularly buy Deere equipment
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I don't know what Deere fears so much
It is hardware enshittification or HaaS. Deere and others like BMW wants to rent instead of sell hardware where they own the rights, can spy on how you are using the product and sell probably sell your usage to data collectors.
That is why I am driving an auto over 20 years old and I am sure many Farmers regret junking their old tractor :)
Re: There will always be plenty of customers for p (Score:4, Interesting)
This must happen with farmers, you can't just bring a wrench and hammer and it won't hold together with some duct tape and WD40 you now need a laptop in your toolbag, a scope or multimeter etc.
Tell me you don't understand the problem without telling me.
The problem isn't that farmers are bringing a wrench to do a software diagnostic, it's that the equipment doesn't have a 'manual override' mode, so then the farmers who *are*, in fact, bringing laptops and multimeters are *artificially* locked out of the systems and then sued under the DMCA when they crack the artificial software lock to perform the repair.
Re: There will always be plenty of customers for (Score:1)
Prove it to me, because thatâ(TM)s not true. The fact is these systems arenâ(TM)t designed to have the three people on board and two in the field to run it manually. They are designed to be single operator and generally they work great. The problem here isnâ(TM)t that Deere isnâ(TM)t providing service, they are under contract, the problem is that neither Deere nor the farmer have the people (willing and sufficiently paid) to fix their IT systems in the muck and the mud. This is an insigh
Just one side. (Score:1)
Srsly, where is the question. Only reason for Deere to do this is greed to have a monopoly on service. You're free to take your Ford truck to a Honda dealership for an oil change and break job. That doesn't mean that Honda gets to void your warranty, or that your warranty wont be voided if you ask said dealership to put on some engine mods that would void your warranty.
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No its not that would be fine if you provided people with enough information to fix the equipment, the moment you put DRM in your system its malice.
Even in the summary it states:
and have used software cracked by Ukrainian pirates in order to simply fix the things they own
If you are using a hacker to bypass protections, its not a case that the people don't have the skills, you need more skills to hack something than follow an instruction manual, its a case that you are being prevented from fixing your own equipment.
I don't think this can be explained by stupidity, I think it is very clear its attribu
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You have a very dated and stereotypical view of farmers. Some of them have managed to obtain hacked dealer software from Eastern Europe over the dark web to maintain their tractors. Does that REALLY sound like someone bringing a wrench to a job that needs a laptop?
The problem is the DRM ladel lock-outs on the equipment that is primarily there to keep anyone but an authorized dealer from replacing paired parts or getting useful diagnostics.
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So you think its better for a farmer to find out his corn is too wet to chop from a sensor after they've started harvesting, rather than the farmer go out to the field before and checking it? If the sensor catches it, a farmer has already started going down a field with the equipment. Probably followed by a line of trucks. And they'll have to tell the supporting workers like those that received the loads of corn to go find something else to do.
And humidity is a problem not because the tractors can't fill
Unsolicited free advice to John Deere company (Score:1)
Unsolicited free advice to John Deere company: Send a lot of money to Donald Trump's re-election campaign.
Don't think of it as a blatant political bribe -- think of your financial contribution well spent as an investment opportunity. Here's a free, relevant and related citation for you too:
Trump promised to scrap climate laws if US oil bosses donated $1bn [theguardian.com]
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Unsolicited free advice to John Deere company: Send a lot of money to Donald Trump's re-election campaign.
TikTok is another corporate example [time.com] I just remembered to be useful as a citation.
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Which didn't happen [reuters.com].
I get it, Trump is a worthless human being. But Biden was way worse even when he had a functioning brain.
Celebrating dictators certainly falls under a worthless human being, but praising a fictional character [newsweek.com] who ate other people definitely falls under a non-functioning brain.
Deere John (Score:5, Informative)
Moving on...
-Farmers
Not a farmer but... (Score:2)
just knowing human psychology, I'm gonna guess a few farmers are switching away but most prefer to just moan then keep buying more John Deere stuff anyway.
I mean, surely the way to send John Deere the only message they will actually care about, is to just stop buying their stuff. .. or is it that Claas etc. are all doing the same thing too?
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No I get that, but my question is knowing this, why would anyone go ahead and buy a new JD tractor?
presumably you're somewhat safe if you already have an older JD tractor (at least until you are obliged to install a replacement ECU or something) because it didn't come with the newer hardware required to drive this serious amount of lockdown.
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Because "knowing that" doesn't exist -- in fact most of the internet runs on the fact that the free market is a failure (ie, that advertising works). In particular, you're demanding that consumers know not only intricate details of every product they buy, but also how every company will act in the future.
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As far as I understand, farmers are mostly a very tight-knit community that talk together quite a bit, and also operate on skinny profit margins. It seems likely that word would get around pretty quickly when companies they are used to depending on start doing something that endangers their livelihood.
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...and then they will time travel 20 years to the past and buy a different tractor?
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Well, it's one thought. I mean I intentionally avoid buying cars newer than about 2010.
Why do you not think that after they hear from one of their friends getting caught by this, the next time they themselves have to buy a new tractor, they will buy a different brand than JD?
More Garbage (Score:2)
John Deere hasn't made a quality product in over two decades. It's a shitty company ran by shitty people who make shitty products. Are there many other options? No, but they do exist.
Data point from someone who's buying a tractor (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Kubota, New Holland, Kioti, TYM all seem to make fine machines. But guess, dear John Deere Corporation, what's the ONLY brand I took off my consideration list right at the start.
Bonus points: guess why.
Re:Data point from someone who's buying a tractor (Score:4, Informative)
.
Doesn't matter. It's about the company I'm choosing to buy from, and what their attitude towards their customers is. Seeing the people who buy from them as "valued partners" is what I'd want, not "exploitable commodities".)
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There's no alternatives for some John Deer gear. Like CP960 that has a 6 row picker + round bailer.
The productivity of that machine is a game changer for cotton farms.
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I got to ride on that beast as a brand new machine for the contractor. The things a computer on wheels. It even prints out a barcode sticks it on the yellow plastic wrap cotton bail before it ejects it out the back.
People must know of rent seeking! Behind paywall! (Score:1, Insightful)
I find it curious that so much news is behind a paywall, especially news that has some call to action about government protection of corporate rent seeking. I'd like to know more so I could do something about it but if its behind a pay wall then I'm inclined to think this is some relative nonevent, an opinion piece going on some rant that doesn't impact me, or any of a number of things that want to take my money to get nothing just like the government collusion with monopolies on farm tractors.
If you want
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This is wishful thinking (Score:3)
Automobile industry (Score:3)
This is only what the consumer automotive industry has already been doing for decades, and everything I read says they're doing all they can to make it worse too.
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Not true. One example, the head unit in my 13 year old car car failed, It does little more than entertainment and GPS, but it boots from a hard drive (actual spinning rust). (I think just the drive had failed).
The dealer wanted nearly $3000 for a new one so I bought a used head unit on ebay, from exactly the same model and year as my car, for $150.
it took no more than 10 minutes to fit, it powered up fine but wouldn't talk to the car. I then found out that they are locked to each vehicle in software, and th
You should be able to repair what you own (Score:2)
Don't buy a John Deere tractor ! (Score:3)
Not sure anything will happen (Score:2)
"Increased scrutiny" does not equal change in policy. It frequently means increased funding for lobbyists and political donations.
Wake me up when a bill makes it out of committee or "US vs. John Deere" makes it to trial.
Combat aircraft don't require such nonsense. (Score:3)
I fixed fighters and FAC birds for a living (comm/nav on Phantom and Bronco for ~5 years, engines later merged with crew chief on F-15 A/B/C/D/CJ for ~20 years) and they being designed for easy maintenance do not require idiotic device mating rituals. No backshop tech need come to the flightline to cast spells over them.
I know of no military or civilian aircraft requiring the ridiculous vendor lock ritual John Deere inflicts on its customers.
Every terrestrial vehicle system should be legally required to have user operable BIT/self diagnostic capabilities with no "hidden" fault codes. Reading existing info from a system should not require exotic vendor-locked peripherals.
Some external test equipment is reasonable but the armed forces keep it to a minimum for the compelling reason they have to fund and maintain that equipment pool while deploying it on precious, limited airlift pallet spaces. This is manageable for the relatively small fleet sizes of combat aircraft so failure to do it for larger terrestrial fleets is inexcusable.