Fundamentally there may be little difference, but there are definitely cultural differences. Every farm has a repair shop. While some HN readers might also try to fix their cell phones, the vast majority of the population are not comfortable with that idea in the first place. In fact, telephones were typically the property of the telephone company back in the day, so there has never really been an expectation of being able to fix your own phone.

Having farm equipment that you cannot repair yourself is a significant deviation away from the status quo. Farm equipment breaks down frequently - more frequently than you might even imagine - so not being able to repair said equipment does raise alarms for some people. For field crops, you often only have a window of days to plant/harvest, so downtime can cost a fortune.

> implied license to use iOS

The license isn't implied. It's right there in the EULA to which you agreed when you opened the box and turned the phone on for the first time.

You've missed the point, and erected a strawman in the process. No one claims to "own" John Deere's software. No one is claiming the right to redistribution.

This fight is about the legal restraints preventing the owner of the equipment from modifying or repairing it.

If I own my phone (Android), why am I not "allowed" to install AOSP on it?

I can install Ubuntu on an HP laptop, why can't I install a ROM on my phone?

It's all B.S.