Re: Car lobby?
let's cripple the scope for creativity & innovation in the automotive software sector ....
The driver for this is (as you'd expect) money. Even now, there's optional extras that are enabled through software (such as those rather pointless "steering" foglights. My VW group car has foglights, all the necessary sensors and switching, but because I didn't pay for that option, the configuration file has something along the lines of "steeringfoglighten=nicht". Some enthusiasts have hacked the software and it can be made to turn on this facility, and other things that VW want people to pay for. My favourite absurdity is that the rear foglights are in the clusters on eacdh side. But even though the wiring is there, the reflector is there, even a bulb is fitted, the nearside foglight is disabled through software on the cheaper variants.
And the car makers are worried that in future more and more capability will be standard on the car (to reduce component count and production complexity) and enabled or disabled through software configuration. But even though the buyers will have paid for all the parts, if they haven't "paid" for the right to have the capability turned on, the makers want to make sure they can't enable it.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
