2 ms·

I appreciate your points, I just really dislike paternalism, especially when it means treating farmers who are probably pretty savvy and creative like they are

I appreciate your points, I just really dislike paternalism, especially when it means treating farmers who are probably pretty savvy and creative like they are helpless. I'm fairly certain that building compatible equipment is totally legally protected in the US. It would seem like a huge opportunity for some people living in farm/manufacturing country to start building adapters or other compatibility mechanisms to use add on equipment across tractor brands if the tractor manufacturers aren't interested in doing it. If Henry Ford could build a car in his garage, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that could make a combine work with a tractor that doesn't have the right logo on the side.

ergothus 7y ago
> I'm fairly certain that building compatible equipment is totally legally protected in the US Once software is involved, this isn't true. And software is rapidly involved in every device. Sure, you could go back 100 years and use equipment from then - but yields are increased since then for a reason, and variable-rate-seeders, planters that adjust depth based on soil type (from data), charting your harvester yields and planting density, a crap ton of interactions with fertilizer application/herbicide/fungicide, etc, are a part of that reason. Farmers are perfectly savvy enough to know this, but their options are (1) get the new equipment with the restrictive terms, (2) not get any of that new tech, or (3) change into a new field and try to build what they would want, taking on the big giants that are perfectly willing to Embrace/Extend/Extinguish, etc. Of those options, the savvy person will do #1. Your listed proposal of adaptors isn't legal if software and EULAs are involved, which is where the whole right-to-repair movement gets involved.

2 ms·

I appreciate your points, I just really dislike paternalism, especially when it means treating farmers who are probably pretty savvy and creative like they are

by ltbarcly3 7y ago

ergothus 7y ago
> I'm fairly certain that building compatible equipment is totally legally protected in the US Once software is involved, this isn't true. And software is rapidly involved in every device. Sure, you could go back 100 years and use equipment from then - but yields are increased since then for a reason, and variable-rate-seeders, planters that adjust depth based on soil type (from data), charting your harvester yields and planting density, a crap ton of interactions with fertilizer application/herbicide/fungicide, etc, are a part of that reason. Farmers are perfectly savvy enough to know this, but their options are (1) get the new equipment with the restrictive terms, (2) not get any of that new tech, or (3) change into a new field and try to build what they would want, taking on the big giants that are perfectly willing to Embrace/Extend/Extinguish, etc. Of those options, the savvy person will do #1. Your listed proposal of adaptors isn't legal if software and EULAs are involved, which is where the whole right-to-repair movement gets involved.