Farmers fight for the right to repair their own tractors

This has been an ongoing battle with links popping up here every now and then.

The position of Deere (and others) that [allowing access] "make it possible for pirates, third-party developers, and less innovative competitors to free-ride off the creativity, unique expression, and ingenuity of vehicle software"

Strikes me as totally without merit. Sure those things are possible but it's irrelevant because the software comes with specific hardware. It's not like anyone with a computer can cast axle housings. To me this just sounds like an unwillingness to compete. If manufacturers had hardware that could stand on its own merit then why should they care what you run on it. HP doesn't care if I put Debian on an HP laptop because I still bought the laptop in the first place.

If Deere's business model is dependent on exclusive software or using software to force owners to purchase service for them then that's probably a sinking ship and they should be looking for a different business model.