I think it’s important to understand that while this is a win, it’s only a small step.

> Deere will now be required to make diagnostic and repair tools available to equipment owners and independent repair shops, not only its own network of authorized dealers.

In practice, this means Deere will now operate similar to auto manufacturers. They will make their proprietary scanning equipment, software, and manuals available… for a few-thousand-dollar/ month subscription.

You have options as to where you can replace the physical components… but still need to pay a subscription fee in order to use your vehicle’s full feature set or get access to the data you collected but don’t actually own. Your vehicle’s firmware is still locked.

They will make their parts available… but not necessarily to a common standard (we could have used a common bolt size or hose line, or specced a commonly available alternator, but we decided not to), making it prohibitively costly for third party manufacturers to compete on aftermarket parts, and keeping genuine part costs high.

You can (legally) work on the machine yourself… but work done without a licensed mechanic will likely void your warranty, or prevent you from using necessary software features.

Your local mechanic can now repair your equipment… but in order to do that work they may have to invest in not only scanners and software, but an odd handful of unique task-specific or custom tools in order to complete the repair.

Don’t get me wrong, this is still a win. It’s high time that the FTC addressed Deere’s blatantly anti-competitive behavior. However, this isn’t a silver bullet that will save farmers from the rising tide of extractive capitalism, or isolate their tractors from nation state cyber threats.