“When crunch time comes and we break down, chances are we don’t have time to wait for a dealership employee to show up and fix it,” Nebraska hog farmer Danny Kluthe testified to the state legislature. Like John Deere, General Motors and other automakers also claim they own the software and owners cannot sell it or alter it in any manner.įor farmers in Nebraska, however, the issues with the mandatory John Deere license are time and money. We’ve written about the issue of vehicle software ownership before. Rather than rely on and wait for authorized company representatives to make expensive farm calls, some tractor owners resort to calling local “technicians” who allegedly use hacked firmware they bought from Ukrainian sources to make the repairs. American farmers who own John Deere tractors are getting around what they view as an overly restrictive software licensing agreement they were required sign in October, according to Motherboard. Fitbit Versa 3Īn unexpected market for hacked software appears to be thriving.
