As an aside, I remember the last time I had a John Deere tech out. Even for him to access the service manual (to fix a mechanical part), which was fundamentally not much more than a simple search tool that displays PDFs, required a surprising level of authorization to access each document, with everything encrypted. It seemed a little extreme just to get a simple diagram. I can sort of see why some worry about where the company is headed.
Can also confirm that aircrafts can do more damage than tractors if things go wrong.
Like the JDs in the article that are so complex that they can steer themselves, aircrafts also do this!
I don't see how tractors are any different either. So JD should cut out this rent-seeking bullshit and stop pretending it's in the best interest of anybody other than their shareholders.
The changes checks are not enforced by software, but by strict FAA rules.