My dad lives in rural North Dakota. He's not a farmer, but he knows all the farmers in the area and does some work at his neighbor's farm for something to keep

My dad lives in rural North Dakota. He's not a farmer, but he knows all the farmers in the area and does some work at his neighbor's farm for something to keep him busy in retirement. I sent him the Ars Technica article about this. This is his text back to me "But they kept the copyright to all data and electronic tools. You have to buy their equipment and many manuals amounting to over 20k for each piece of equipment in most cases. I talked to one of the john deere mechanics, he said he only knows of one farm that has done so because of the price but did so because he also hired a guy that use to work for john deere. I thing the Most important thing farmer's get out of it is the access to the diagnostic codes and JD manuals that can be used to trouble shoot the problem once you have the code. I've seen the software used and it is dynamite. It talks the mechanic through most steps of the trouble shooting. Since everything is computerized, almost need it to understand the electronic issues which of course is all stored on the individual computer components. One for transmission,engine, power train couplings and all other devices. Yet again, it costs approximately 5-7 hundred dollars just for the mechanic to show up at the farm, each time.. so if it doesn't get fixed or no parts til the next day, that's 2 trips which doesn't include any labor... "