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That's a really fucking shitty thing to do, and is gonna cause some pretty big waves IMO if they follow through with it. The issues with not being able to modi

That's a really fucking shitty thing to do, and is gonna cause some pretty big waves IMO if they follow through with it. The issues with not being able to modify your own stuff is already really shitty, but its not something that the average Joe really can understand easily, and even less care about it. But not being able to USE your car for some things? That just screams easy headlines and it's a reason I might not get a Tesla in the future.

djsumdog 10y ago
The most interesting thing about self-driving vehicles is that there is a legitimate reason people should never be able to modify the firmware on their vehicles. The risks would be very high. There is also the entire liability and planed obsolescent issues not being dealt with. Will Tesla support these cars forever? Will 10 year old models still get software updates?
- Klathmon 10y ago
  I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. Cars are already extremely risky to modify, but it is still possible (and it's even a protected consumer right). I can go out and accidentally cut the breaks on my own car while changing the tire, if it causes harm, we already have a system in place to deal with it. Why should software be any different?
  - hash-set 10y ago
    Oh baloney. Have you any experience with current car tech? It's pretty freaking basic, all things considered. Anyone who codes enterprise applications for a living can deal with a car's ECU, including ABS, traction control, all of it. The autonomous stuff is "scary AI" but if it's not open sourced, I don't want it.
  - tcpekin 10y ago
    I would argue that cars are not extremely risky to modify mechanically - the parts are usually large, almost everything you'd want to do on your car has youtube videos and forum threads with people doing the exact same procedure, and you have pretty immediate feedback if you really messed anything up/the car is inoperable. I don't think that is the same for self-driving software if you were allowed to hack it. It is easy to test if your brakes work, I think it may be harder to test modified software with the huge number of interactions it must deal with.
    - lisivka 10y ago
      It's not a your business unless you will be hit by such car.
- bsder 10y ago
  > The most interesting thing about self-driving vehicles is that there is a legitimate reason people should never be able to modify the firmware on their vehicles. The risks would be very high. Tough. We have liability law to cover that. You'll be screaming to allow modification when your trip is 20 minutes longer because a bunch of rich assholes paid Tesla to route all traffic around their neighborhood.
- hash-set 10y ago
  There is a fallacy of "appeal to authority" here. If it's my property, I'll do as I please with it. Risks? Look at the risks we face with DRM of all kinds and how are rights are reduced and eliminated for the sake of corporate profits.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > The most interesting thing about self-driving vehicles is that there is a legitimate reason people should never be able to modify the firmware on their vehicles People can already modify their car hardware in dangerous ways, yet no one is welding the hood shut. You may weld spikes on your car to keep prying eyes away if you wish, but when you inevitably impale someone, Ford will not be liable. Why should software be treated differently? All Tesla has to do to avoid liability is to say "The vehicle was running firmware with aftermarket firmware installed by the owner". They won't even need to run diagnostics, they can simply look at the logs they collect.
  - sinxoveretothex 10y ago
    > You may weld spikes on your car to keep prying eyes away if you wish, but when you inevitably impale someone, Ford will not be liable. Because it will be obvious that it was modified, even to journalists, the public and a jury of your peers. Also the cops, who will arrest you for it. But there is no such visibility for software.
    - sangnoir 10y ago
      Expert witnesses exist for a reason - they will be able to answer the question whether the firmware was factory-installed or not. > But there is no such visibility for software Software modification has a lot of visibility, especially since Teslas log everything - why not log when new firmware was loaded? They could also checksum post-facto, but even that is not necessary: Tesla could implement something similar to Androids "fastboot oem unlock" option
      - munin 10y ago
        I guess the concern is that both sides will get expert witnesses with equally long CVs to make equally compelling arguments and then it's on the jury to decide which PhD they want to believe. Not sure how that helps.
      - sinxoveretothex 10y ago
        > Software modification has a lot of visibility, especially since Teslas log everything What I mean by visibility is that you can't fudge it, that reality is plainly visible to all actors. Income is not visible directly (although what one's house looks like for example is visible and is a good indication of income). If you meet a well-dressed guy in a Starbucks, you have no idea whether he's crippled with debt or whether he has so much money he doesn't know what to do with. And that's true regardless of the fact that income is regulated by the government, that banks keep records and all that. Software is NOT visible in that sense: whether your microwave is running code that will make it explode when you type in 9999 or not, is not something that can be known by everyone but the first person who has access to the device, let alone the public who couldn't understand how to compare two hashes anyway. As far as any third party is concerned, Tesla could just be faking logs and no one would know. Actually, you may not see it still, so imagine that say, GM, suddenly releases an autonomous car and it crashes. Do you trust them when they tell you that the logs say the driver was at fault?
toomuchtodo 10y ago
> But not being able to USE your car for some things? That just screams easy headlines and it's a reason I might not get a Tesla in the future. Its your car. It's Tesla software. You don't own it, just like you don't own any of the other commercial software you use. I can't really find fault in it; they deserve the lion's share of the revenue (not Uber, Lyft, or you) if you put the vehicle into their shared ridesharing fleet for profit. You don't have to put it into their fleet though. But if you do, them the terms.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  Actually you DO own it in EU, and can do whatever you like with it (borrow, sell).
  - varjag 10y ago
    ..but not rideshare on autopilot. It's not unprecedented to have severe restrictions on software in EU. E.g. you can't use le Windows you legally obtained in France on two PCs simultaneously. Some vendors charge per-CPU/core licenses, some network software (e.g. certain PABX) charge even by the number of connected endpoints.
    - teddyh 10y ago
      That is probably because in order to install Windows on even one PC (let alone two), you have to make a copy of it. Even if an installation is (somehow) not counted as copying, two identical installations is clearly implying a copy has been made somehow. And copyright means you don’t have permission to copy the software. Therefore, you have to have permission to copy it. Another word for permission is “license”, and the license explicitly says under which conditions you are allowed to copy it. A car, on the other hand, is not copied after purchase, so a copyright license is not relevant. A “license” (as stated above) is not a general list of conditions you have to agree on; it is simply a list of permissions for you to do what copyright law (and trademark law, etc.) would otherwise not allow you to do. No such law restricts what a buyer is allowed to do with a car after a purchase is made, unless a contract is signed. A contract can state arbitrary restrictions, but for something to be a contract, it has to fulfill a number of conditions: it must be knowingly and willingly entered into by both parties, it must not be unilateral or even, in some jurisdictions, too beneficial to only one party. Clearly your standard so-called “license agreement” does not qualify. Ideally, and usually, a contract is something on paper which both parties sign. Do you sign such a thing when “buying” a Tesla? If so, does this contract allow resale? Does the contract require the reseller to require the second-hand buyer to also sign it?
sheer_horror 10y ago
Facebook, Google, Amazon, and every other huge company are huge because of their monopolies. Tesla would be making a massive mistake to not start walling in their garden.

djsumdog 10y ago

The most interesting thing about self-driving vehicles is that there is a legitimate reason people should never be able to modify the firmware on their vehicles. The risks would be very high. There is also the entire liability and planed obsolescent issues not being dealt with. Will Tesla support these cars forever? Will 10 year old models still get software updates?

Klathmon 10y ago
I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. Cars are already extremely risky to modify, but it is still possible (and it's even a protected consumer right). I can go out and accidentally cut the breaks on my own car while changing the tire, if it causes harm, we already have a system in place to deal with it. Why should software be any different?
- hash-set 10y ago
  Oh baloney. Have you any experience with current car tech? It's pretty freaking basic, all things considered. Anyone who codes enterprise applications for a living can deal with a car's ECU, including ABS, traction control, all of it. The autonomous stuff is "scary AI" but if it's not open sourced, I don't want it.
- tcpekin 10y ago
  I would argue that cars are not extremely risky to modify mechanically - the parts are usually large, almost everything you'd want to do on your car has youtube videos and forum threads with people doing the exact same procedure, and you have pretty immediate feedback if you really messed anything up/the car is inoperable. I don't think that is the same for self-driving software if you were allowed to hack it. It is easy to test if your brakes work, I think it may be harder to test modified software with the huge number of interactions it must deal with.
  - lisivka 10y ago
    It's not a your business unless you will be hit by such car.
bsder 10y ago
> The most interesting thing about self-driving vehicles is that there is a legitimate reason people should never be able to modify the firmware on their vehicles. The risks would be very high. Tough. We have liability law to cover that. You'll be screaming to allow modification when your trip is 20 minutes longer because a bunch of rich assholes paid Tesla to route all traffic around their neighborhood.
hash-set 10y ago
There is a fallacy of "appeal to authority" here. If it's my property, I'll do as I please with it. Risks? Look at the risks we face with DRM of all kinds and how are rights are reduced and eliminated for the sake of corporate profits.
sangnoir 10y ago
> The most interesting thing about self-driving vehicles is that there is a legitimate reason people should never be able to modify the firmware on their vehicles People can already modify their car hardware in dangerous ways, yet no one is welding the hood shut. You may weld spikes on your car to keep prying eyes away if you wish, but when you inevitably impale someone, Ford will not be liable. Why should software be treated differently? All Tesla has to do to avoid liability is to say "The vehicle was running firmware with aftermarket firmware installed by the owner". They won't even need to run diagnostics, they can simply look at the logs they collect.
- sinxoveretothex 10y ago
  > You may weld spikes on your car to keep prying eyes away if you wish, but when you inevitably impale someone, Ford will not be liable. Because it will be obvious that it was modified, even to journalists, the public and a jury of your peers. Also the cops, who will arrest you for it. But there is no such visibility for software.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    Expert witnesses exist for a reason - they will be able to answer the question whether the firmware was factory-installed or not. > But there is no such visibility for software Software modification has a lot of visibility, especially since Teslas log everything - why not log when new firmware was loaded? They could also checksum post-facto, but even that is not necessary: Tesla could implement something similar to Androids "fastboot oem unlock" option
    - munin 10y ago
      I guess the concern is that both sides will get expert witnesses with equally long CVs to make equally compelling arguments and then it's on the jury to decide which PhD they want to believe. Not sure how that helps.
    - sinxoveretothex 10y ago
      > Software modification has a lot of visibility, especially since Teslas log everything What I mean by visibility is that you can't fudge it, that reality is plainly visible to all actors. Income is not visible directly (although what one's house looks like for example is visible and is a good indication of income). If you meet a well-dressed guy in a Starbucks, you have no idea whether he's crippled with debt or whether he has so much money he doesn't know what to do with. And that's true regardless of the fact that income is regulated by the government, that banks keep records and all that. Software is NOT visible in that sense: whether your microwave is running code that will make it explode when you type in 9999 or not, is not something that can be known by everyone but the first person who has access to the device, let alone the public who couldn't understand how to compare two hashes anyway. As far as any third party is concerned, Tesla could just be faking logs and no one would know. Actually, you may not see it still, so imagine that say, GM, suddenly releases an autonomous car and it crashes. Do you trust them when they tell you that the logs say the driver was at fault?

toomuchtodo 10y ago

> But not being able to USE your car for some things? That just screams easy headlines and it's a reason I might not get a Tesla in the future. Its your car. It's Tesla software. You don't own it, just like you don't own any of the other commercial software you use. I can't really find fault in it; they deserve the lion's share of the revenue (not Uber, Lyft, or you) if you put the vehicle into their shared ridesharing fleet for profit. You don't have to put it into their fleet though. But if you do, them the terms.

rasz_pl 10y ago
Actually you DO own it in EU, and can do whatever you like with it (borrow, sell).
- varjag 10y ago
  ..but not rideshare on autopilot. It's not unprecedented to have severe restrictions on software in EU. E.g. you can't use le Windows you legally obtained in France on two PCs simultaneously. Some vendors charge per-CPU/core licenses, some network software (e.g. certain PABX) charge even by the number of connected endpoints.
  - teddyh 10y ago
    That is probably because in order to install Windows on even one PC (let alone two), you have to make a copy of it. Even if an installation is (somehow) not counted as copying, two identical installations is clearly implying a copy has been made somehow. And copyright means you don’t have permission to copy the software. Therefore, you have to have permission to copy it. Another word for permission is “license”, and the license explicitly says under which conditions you are allowed to copy it. A car, on the other hand, is not copied after purchase, so a copyright license is not relevant. A “license” (as stated above) is not a general list of conditions you have to agree on; it is simply a list of permissions for you to do what copyright law (and trademark law, etc.) would otherwise not allow you to do. No such law restricts what a buyer is allowed to do with a car after a purchase is made, unless a contract is signed. A contract can state arbitrary restrictions, but for something to be a contract, it has to fulfill a number of conditions: it must be knowingly and willingly entered into by both parties, it must not be unilateral or even, in some jurisdictions, too beneficial to only one party. Clearly your standard so-called “license agreement” does not qualify. Ideally, and usually, a contract is something on paper which both parties sign. Do you sign such a thing when “buying” a Tesla? If so, does this contract allow resale? Does the contract require the reseller to require the second-hand buyer to also sign it?

sheer_horror 10y ago

Facebook, Google, Amazon, and every other huge company are huge because of their monopolies. Tesla would be making a massive mistake to not start walling in their garden.