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The Era of Open Source Cars
An anonymous reader writes: An article at Ars Technica details how open source is slowly but surely working its way into the automotive manufacturing industry. A company named StreetScooter is flattening the design process, having designers and engineers work directly with suppliers right from the get-go. Another company, Local Motors, has built an open source community that's 50,000-strong, whose members include everybody from hobbyists to industrial engineers. Even the existing auto-giants are getting in on it: Ford has created OpenXC, a platform that is attempting to standardize how to get data out of a car's computer. The article concludes, "These various automotive open source advocates come at the topic from different backgrounds and with different approaches, but they can all recognize we've entered an era for open source cars that simply didn't exist before."
Hopefully they know the lesson we've learned in aerospace (e.g. ARINC-653), to partition critical and non-critical assets into separate computing units (hardware and/or software). That way some yahoo can't hack your in-car Facebook app to disable your brakes. Don't these guys watch Battlestar Galactica?
My friend Debbie Ann is so promiscuous, instead of an appointment book she needs a package manager
Regulations for home built and kit cars are usually much more relaxed.
Open-source engine management is alive and well and has been for at least 8 years. I think you have screw loose if you drive a car with closed, proprietary systems in the wake of the On-Star/NSA police alliance, and all of the other privacy-invasive intrusions into your car and your life.
How many /.'ers practice what they preach WRT to their vehicles?
People have been building their own cars for decades and decades. Go get yourself a Jegs catalog. How about a Year One Catalog too. Go buy a kitcar magazine. Get yourself a welder. Kids these days. is everyone a moron now?
Afraid of laws or insurance? Buy a cheap donor car from the junkyard and strip it to the frame.
Will someone please make a systemd joke?
You are welcome on my lawn.
The vast majority of the standards that cars have to meet are about passenger safety, emissions, and fuel economy. There is a standard for electronic interfacing to an automotive computer, but its specifications are widely known. The "open source" side of bringing a car to market (ie, the computer controls) is probably not the hard part.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Would they come with that GNU car smell?
I don't know about the U.S., but in regions with sane laws, there is a rule: If something is only "licensed" and not owned, the license giver is fully responsible for keeping things in order, and he's not even allowed to bill you for repairing it, except he can prove negligence or misuse on your side.