The mechanisms in a tractor are different, not necessarily simpler. Replacing a keyboard on a Thinkpad is both mechanical and as siple as it gets.
Messing up a mechanical repair can absolutely be dangerous: it's a few horspower you could suddenly have out of control.
If this is stock equipment with stock software, the manufacture would be at least partly liable (probably fully liable).
If you modify the equipment/software so that it plants seeds at a different density than the settings and inadvertently make it so that when the fertilizer runs it also overfertalizes the field - who is at fault?
You own it. You can modify it. Is the manufacture still responsible for the functionality of the device after you modify it? If the modification is software and after the "oops, I screwed up" do a factory reset of the software - is the company properly able to defend itself from changes to the software?
Simple: you are.
In practice someone facing liability for having done something at the level of killing a pedestrian or illegally poisoning a field will be doing everything they can to reduce their exposure.
Claiming the problems result from the original design and not the changes may be their first step in their defense.
Once that defense has been raised, it won’t necessarily be simple to prove whether the repair was the cause of the problem or not.
But, this is an interesting issue. Perhaps the right to repair would be more palatable if it came with a blanket indemnity from legal liability for manufacturers once the device is repaired or modified in any way.
Product Liability in the Farm Equipment Industry - https://youtu.be/NdN577BbnSY?t=1166
Also: https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/agriculturallaw/2019/05/pr...
> When purchased equipment is altered, the manufacturer is generally released from liability unless the manufacturer could have reasonably foreseen that purchasers would alter the equipment in the manner that resulted in injury.
So if you could have modified a tractor in a way that was not obviously bad and the manufacturer didn't try to stop you from doing it, the manufacturer could still be liable.
Is it reasonable to believe that if the purchaser has the ability to modify the software, they will? If so, how does one rewrite the liability laws for farm equipment?
And while physical modifications may reduce manufacturer liability - what about software? And the ability to reset the software so that evidence of the changes are no longer present?
There's a challenge with the law for repair and liability for farm equipment that needs to be reconciled. That liability issue doesn't exist for other domains (modifying a personal computing device). You aren't likely to find a $6M claim against Apple for ripping someone's arm off - that is an issue with farm equipment.
If you are only talking about banning terms and conditions that forbid repairs or modifications, then I agree.
If you are talking about banning design choices, then clearly we are not just talking about repairing our own property.
the mechanisms are much simpler in a tractor and mechanical in nature.
trying to do the same with other appliances could be dangerous or fatal if mistakes are made. farmers are literally hacking their machines (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPYy_g8NzmI ) likely voiding warranty.