How about an open source tractor?

Hi, I'm Scott Ott with Bill Whittle and Stephen Green.

This episode of Right Angle brought to you by the members at Bill Whittle.com.

And gentlemen, this was not one of the leading stories of the day,

but perhaps will turn out to be one of the most significant stories of the day.

I found it in the Wall Street Journal, but it was everywhere. NPR,

the BBC, CNN, all over the place. I saw this story on Reuters. And that is that the American

Farm Bureau Federation has struck a deal for a memorandum of understanding with John Deere,

the makers of heavy farm equipment, large tractors and such.

And the deal is to let farmers fix their own tractors or to let them take their tractors to

independent mechanics who are not dealer authorized mechanics necessarily.

And in order to do that, John Deere has to make available to these people, document who are not dealer authorized mechanics necessarily.

And in order to do that, John Deere has to make available to these people diagnostic and repair guides and codes and tools and manuals in a timely manner.

So basically, we now have an open source tractor.

And the reason I say open source tractors is because much of what

happens with farm equipment these days is software driven. I know that people tend to think of,

you know, that sort of green acres chugging tractor that is just a steering wheel and a six-cylinder

motor. But these are highly technical pieces of equipment

that farmers spend tens of thousands,

if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase.

And up till this agreement,

they pretty much had to go to a John Deere dealer repair shop

...