The author is arguing wrong. Because especially automotive is not about security, it is a about safety. That said, security can influence safety, but the goal i

The author is arguing wrong. Because especially automotive is not about security, it is a about safety. That said, security can influence safety, but the goal is completely different. A system is considered functionally safe, when any unexpected input lead to an situation where the system safely shut down. So it does not matter if we have real security or security by obscurity. Because if something unexpected happens, the systems shut down and becomes unavailable. That is what we have in general automation. The same applies for a railway. If something happens then the system shuts down, an emergency brake is issued. That works, because there is a higher level safety designed in, that the currently occupied rail is blocked and no other railway can enter. Then we have highly available systems, or mission cirtical systems as we say. That is for example an airplan or a car. The engine of a car can shut down at any time. That is not considered harmful. But the brakes are mission critical. The brakes have to work under all circumstances. As such safety-related systems are highly regulated and require mandatory third party review called certification. You need to certify with TUV or other such organisation. Part of that mandatory review is to disclose the source. That means the review argument for GPLv3 is obsolete, as there is mandatory review for safety-related systems. The license of the software does not matter. The author then argues, that the Tesla incident would not have happend with GPLv3 software. He argues, it happend because of proprietary software. Which is wrong. It would have happend as well with GPLv3 software. This incident happend because of false claims by Tesla. This systems was never designed to handled this kind of situation. MobilEye, the supplier behind this system said, this kind of situation should be handled by the 2018 version. Tesla gave here a false impression about the completeness and safety features of its Autopilot. BTW the same Tesla that uses GPLv3 software in its MMI, which they have locked down. Then the author argues with VW and thier false claims regarding emissions. As prooven, the ECU came from Bosch with proprietary software. The same ECU is used by many different OEMs and Bosch does not disclose the inner working, as this is the idea that Bosch sells. Even VW does not had the source, but used the ECU in a testing mode. So the problem here is also only partly related to the licensensing of the software. It is more like you can use software for the good cause and the bade cause. Either way it is not related to licensing. The argument that GPLv3 code is reviewed is also unproven and even sometimes wrong. In the past there are several example where review didn't take place. It was more like "yeah, I think someone has reviewed because it is open source and I could too. But why to waste time and instead build on top of it." So, GPLv3 can lead you to false assumptions. Except, you will really do the review your self. Here it comes the question: how many really have done that in their past?