engifineer

They arent stopping you from repairing your own car. They are going after people flashing and tuning peoples cars. The article was reaching a LOT in saying you wont be able to work on your own. But its stil bs either way.

rob-2

If I put a sc on my car out of warranty I want to be able to tune my motor!

engifineer

I agree. I think the whole thing will just serve to make bigger enemies of the big auto corps to the customers. But, I still feel that whole thing (not just for cars) is on shaky legal ground anyways. I buy something, its mine. THAT install, per any EULA, is owned by me. If I want to change the binaries they should not be able to do a thing about it. And actually they cant. They will go after the shops and those making the tools to flash the ECU. But even then that is potentially filled with legal challenges.

Maybe this will spur companies to make stand alones that actually work well. I feel that industry has suffered with sub par designs from the get go, partially because the use of stand alones is not 100% needed for most of us, but may be if we want to tune newer cars.

I have a team of engineers (5 of them) that are designing a custom implantable spinal stimulator with wireless charging and wireless programming module. That will be about an 8 month project for the first version (not ready for all the FDA items and clinicals at that point, but working). I have to believe someone can design a stand alone ECU that works well

rnye

So does this mean new cars will come with a mile long terms of use agreement that no ever reads - like every computer program a and website registration?? Lol

mosesbotbol

Just like auto manufacturers putting in stipulations that you can't sell your car overseas within a certain time of taking delivery.

rwheelz

Fascinating. I assume this is for limited production exotics?

engifineer

I think all EULA agreements will be changed at some point. It is ridiculous to sell someone a product and expect them to read 50 pages of fine print legaleze and then know their specific rights. And most of these agreement are written that way on purpose. They know no one will read them and many will not understand them well if they do. If these companies want to push their monopolies further by imposing even stricter rules, I figure it will be a matter of time before some good lawyers will push for them to have certain important clauses (like this one for cars) right on the front page of the purchasing contract where the user has to sign those sections. This act of slipping crazy stipulations into fine print needs to have some sort of control set around it.

The biggest surprise to me is that Mazda, who promotes people modifying and racing their cars, is one of the manufacturers supporting this proposal. We as the buying public are not asking to be able to modify code, then run out and sell it as our own. Tuners are not trying to make copies of Mazdas code and sell it on the black market (Why would any sane person pay money for OEM code for their ECU?). People are adding THEIR OWN CODE and changes to binaries of the code install they PAID FOR when they purchased the car. Even if a tuner does it for them, they are still modifying one install of code that user paid for basically.

The warranty issue is different, but I would think the smart developers out there could develop as way to detect tampering of the code. IF someone swapped in a stock ECU after the broke something, well, that is something they cant control today, nor will they be able to with this new rule. People violating rules to fraud warranty are not going to stop because you tell them its against the law .... it actually already is

rob-2

How about MORPA who offers stage options in their after market parts section online. They build factory cars and absolutely encourage people to modify them!

mosesbotbol

Fascinating. I assume this is for limited production exotics?
[/quote]

BMW and Porsche do this on new cars.

Mr.E.G.

I agree with you on a lot of points, but I disagree with you when you say that people aren't selling the OEM code. That is to say that if I take a Nine Inch Nails song and record myself singing on top of it or add in some extra drum riffs, I am still violating NIN's copyright by trying to sell it as an original work of my own. It isn't; my version is a derivation at best. When you hack a stock ECU, you don't delete everything and start from scratch, you tweak things. Maybe you tweak them a little (drawing a mustache on Bart Simpson and claiming he's a new character) or maybe you modify it a lot. Nevertheless, you are still doing so within an existing framework of the OEM's design (taking a drawing of Bart Simpson, deleting everything but the outline, and then drawing on a new face and details and claiming he's a new character).

Companies that sell various implements and / or software that let you tune an ECU are arguably profiting by standing on the shoulders of the OEM, they are not creating code or protocols within the ECU from scratch. All of the "sky is falling" rhetoric notwithstanding, it seems like the manufacturers are just trying to keep people from monkeying around with their digital creations. I don't think I see what's evil about that.

Lastly, someone suggested that conservative politicians would have a cow when they hear about this proposal. Yeah right. They are often more than comfortable with their pet industries getting protected from on high by the prince of darkness.