"The Section would require Department of Defense procurement contracts to be contingent on a contractor's agreement to continually provide access to all repair materials and information, with no carve-outs or limitations to protect sensitive trade secret information."
"To enable access to sensitive proprietary and trade secret information beyond that necessary for standard repair and maintenance, customized license agreements can be tailored on a case-by-case basis to achieve specified repair and maintenance objectives.
Mainly because I've never heard anyone extend right to repair to software except fellow open source fans.
The average person completely understand why a farmer should be able to fix their tractor. I don't think they're likely to extend the idea to software.
Having worked on DoD projects, often procurement processes change and ask for impossible stuff or things companies won't sign into. Then the sides go back and forth to make the legalese agreeable.
I posted quotes above from the document. I would not agree to those terms either, for exactly these reasons.
That you don't think something could go the way you think isn't enough to make a company sign on to a legally binding contract.
There's zillions of little defense contractors. I've dealt with many, many 2-man shops even (many of which failed).
One of many ways this happens is they supply the prime contractors. Another way is through programs like SBIR, which has ~7500 to 10,000 awards per year to companies max size 500 (but most much smaller). https://ssti.org/blog/useful-stats-2020-sbirsttr-awards-stat...
Any one of these companies may become a supplier. I worked ~20 yrs for a 50ish person company that was a supplier the entire time. As such, and doing SBIR pitches, I competed with many tiny firms, many of which were also suppliers.
So yes, they can go out of business, from the 2-person shop to the 10,000+ person shop, just like any one else.
"To enable access to sensitive proprietary and trade secret information beyond that necessary for standard repair and maintenance, customized license agreements can be tailored on a case-by-case basis to achieve specified repair and maintenance objectives.