Toyota owners have to pay $8/mo to keep using their key fob for remote start

[formulanone]

* of all the increasingly obnoxious jargon that's floating around, this is actually one of my favorite of the last decade

A term used very frequently by defense lawyers in toxic tort claims...

It also describes my driving style and travel choices.

[J N Winkler]

A lot of early 90s Toyotas and Lexi, particularly rear-drive ones, have ECU problems starting around 25-30 years of age. Mine is 29, so it's right there. Replacing the capacitors in the ECU is supposed to fix the problem, as rolling the dice with used ones on eBay has netted me one that sends fuel to one cylinder constantly and one that started to show signs of failure 2 weeks after installing it. The only remaining ones are overseas and rebuilding one of the ones I have already is cheaper than their asking prices.

This issue (which I understand is caused by the Japanese manufacturers favoring capacitors that use quaternary ammonium salts and leak when they get old) is one of the main reasons I backed away from getting a very old LS as a hobby vehicle.  There is someone on Club Lexus who has detailed rebuilding instructions for the ECU, complete with a shopping list for replacement capacitors, but that's still a fair bit of work with a repair kit for printed circuitry.  Plus I think the instrument panel controller also needs rebuilding.

(American makes seem less vulnerable to this particular issue, though the instrument panel in my 27-year-old Saturn has been glitching on rare occasions since last September.)

To take a brief moment on charging speed, it's worth noting that charging even that fast or to 100% with regularity is not good for the battery.  As such, those who need to rely on charge stations are wearing out their batteries faster than those who don't.

I think this issue may prove equally as significant as limited range for people who are accustomed to being able to take long roadtrips cheaply and conveniently in an internal-combustion car.  More broadly, there is no guarantee that society will still support the hypermobile lifestyle when each of us faces the decision to transition to an electrically powered vehicle.

[vdeane]

Oh look, Tesla is having a safety recall.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-recalls-over-475000-electric-vehicles-2021-12-30/

Over a rear view camera?  That's weak sauce by recall standards.

Also the part about trunk latches not working properly.

Still, that's not major enough to not classify as anything but a run of the mill recall.  Exploding Pinto this isn't.

The trunk issues are actually with the front trunk.  So yeah, a bit of an issue if that happens while one is driving.  Imagine if your hood flew up while driving.  A frunk is basically the same thing except with storage space instead of an engine.

I think this issue may prove equally as significant as limited range for people who are accustomed to being able to take long roadtrips cheaply and conveniently in an internal-combustion car.  More broadly, there is no guarantee that society will still support the hypermobile lifestyle when each of us faces the decision to transition to an electrically powered vehicle.

It's also worth noting that those who support EVs for environmental reasons are also likely to support curtailing our hypermobile lifestyle for the same reasons.  To them, the difficulties in taking roadtrips is not a bug - it's a feature.

Between EVs and self-driving cars, I think there is a decent chance that roadgeekdom as a hobby will not exist as we know it 20-30 years from now.

[Max Rockatansky]

Let me rephrase then.  I'm not willing to jump on the "Tesla is total shit bandwagon"  for this recall.  Recalls have been a dime a dozen these days in the automotive industry.  Teslas aren't for me either but there isn't a ton with this recall that's really out of the ordinary or will be notable towards the brand's image long term.

[Takumi]

A lot of early 90s Toyotas and Lexi, particularly rear-drive ones, have ECU problems starting around 25-30 years of age. Mine is 29, so it's right there. Replacing the capacitors in the ECU is supposed to fix the problem, as rolling the dice with used ones on eBay has netted me one that sends fuel to one cylinder constantly and one that started to show signs of failure 2 weeks after installing it. The only remaining ones are overseas and rebuilding one of the ones I have already is cheaper than their asking prices.

This issue (which I understand is caused by the Japanese manufacturers favoring capacitors that use quaternary ammonium salts and leak when they get old) is one of the main reasons I backed away from getting a very old LS as a hobby vehicle.  There is someone on Club Lexus who has detailed rebuilding instructions for the ECU, complete with a shopping list for replacement capacitors, but that's still a fair bit of work with a repair kit for printed circuitry.  Plus I think the instrument panel controller also needs rebuilding.

Yeah, I saw that thread when doing research. There's a shop in Texas called Relentless Motorsports that fully rebuilds the ECUs for less than the cost of a used one on eBay. I've sent one of mine off to them and hopefully that solves that. I'd purchase an aftermarket ECU, except they're multiple thousands of dollars to get working properly.

[ZLoth]

Sigh.... now this! From Wired:

A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
In the wake of a voter-approved law, Subaru and Kia dealers in Massachusetts have disabled systems that allow remote starts and send maintenance alerts.

Chie Ferrelli loved her Subaru SUV, which she bought in 2020 because it made her feel safe. So when it was time for her husband, Marc, to purchase his own new car last summer, they returned to the Subaru dealer near their home in southeast Massachusetts. But there was a catch, one that made the couple mad: Marc's sedan wouldn't have access to the company's telematics system and the app that went along with it. No remote engine start in the freezing New England winter; no emergency assistance; no automated messages when the tire pressure was low or the oil needed changing. The worst part was that if the Ferrellis lived just a mile away, in Rhode Island, they would have the features. They bought the car. But thinking back, Marc says, if he had known about the issue before stepping into the dealership he "probably would have gone with Toyota."

Subaru disabled the telematics system and associated features on new cars registered in Massachusetts last year as part of a spat over a right-to-repair ballot measure approved, overwhelmingly, by the state's voters in 2020. The measure, which has been held up in the courts, required automakers to give car owners and independent mechanics more access to data about the car's internal systems.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Sounds a lot like the spoiled child who says "You play the game my way with my rules, or I'm not playing at all."

[kkt]

Every company dreams of having a captive market that has to pay them a service charge every month or for repair information a bit less often.

[hbelkins]

Sigh.... now this! From Wired:

A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
In the wake of a voter-approved law, Subaru and Kia dealers in Massachusetts have disabled systems that allow remote starts and send maintenance alerts.

Chie Ferrelli loved her Subaru SUV, which she bought in 2020 because it made her feel safe. So when it was time for her husband, Marc, to purchase his own new car last summer, they returned to the Subaru dealer near their home in southeast Massachusetts. But there was a catch, one that made the couple mad: Marc's sedan wouldn't have access to the company's telematics system and the app that went along with it. No remote engine start in the freezing New England winter; no emergency assistance; no automated messages when the tire pressure was low or the oil needed changing. The worst part was that if the Ferrellis lived just a mile away, in Rhode Island, they would have the features. They bought the car. But thinking back, Marc says, if he had known about the issue before stepping into the dealership he "probably would have gone with Toyota."

Subaru disabled the telematics system and associated features on new cars registered in Massachusetts last year as part of a spat over a right-to-repair ballot measure approved, overwhelmingly, by the state's voters in 2020. The measure, which has been held up in the courts, required automakers to give car owners and independent mechanics more access to data about the car's internal systems.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Sounds a lot like the spoiled child who says "You play the game my way with my rules, or I'm not playing at all."

Not being a lawyer, I don't know if the family would have a case or not, but on first glance one would think they do. They bought a car with certain features and the manufacturer disabled those features. How is this any different than the manufacturer somehow disabling the speedometer so you don't know how fast you're going, or the gas gauge so you don't know how much fuel you have left, or anything like that?

[kalvado]

Sigh.... now this! From Wired:

A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
In the wake of a voter-approved law, Subaru and Kia dealers in Massachusetts have disabled systems that allow remote starts and send maintenance alerts.

Chie Ferrelli loved her Subaru SUV, which she bought in 2020 because it made her feel safe. So when it was time for her husband, Marc, to purchase his own new car last summer, they returned to the Subaru dealer near their home in southeast Massachusetts. But there was a catch, one that made the couple mad: Marc's sedan wouldn't have access to the company's telematics system and the app that went along with it. No remote engine start in the freezing New England winter; no emergency assistance; no automated messages when the tire pressure was low or the oil needed changing. The worst part was that if the Ferrellis lived just a mile away, in Rhode Island, they would have the features. They bought the car. But thinking back, Marc says, if he had known about the issue before stepping into the dealership he "probably would have gone with Toyota."

Subaru disabled the telematics system and associated features on new cars registered in Massachusetts last year as part of a spat over a right-to-repair ballot measure approved, overwhelmingly, by the state's voters in 2020. The measure, which has been held up in the courts, required automakers to give car owners and independent mechanics more access to data about the car's internal systems.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Sounds a lot like the spoiled child who says "You play the game my way with my rules, or I'm not playing at all."

Not being a lawyer, I don't know if the family would have a case or not, but on first glance one would think they do. They bought a car with certain features and the manufacturer disabled those features. How is this any different than the manufacturer somehow disabling the speedometer so you don't know how fast you're going, or the gas gauge so you don't know how much fuel you have left, or anything like that?

Non-essencial add-on services are not available for purchase. These are not safety critical systems, and they are not required for the car to be legally driven. My Subaru has neither remote start not remote oil change reminders. 62k and still going without a single oil change

[Scott5114]

Sigh.... now this! From Wired:

A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
In the wake of a voter-approved law, Subaru and Kia dealers in Massachusetts have disabled systems that allow remote starts and send maintenance alerts.

Chie Ferrelli loved her Subaru SUV, which she bought in 2020 because it made her feel safe. So when it was time for her husband, Marc, to purchase his own new car last summer, they returned to the Subaru dealer near their home in southeast Massachusetts. But there was a catch, one that made the couple mad: Marc's sedan wouldn't have access to the company's telematics system and the app that went along with it. No remote engine start in the freezing New England winter; no emergency assistance; no automated messages when the tire pressure was low or the oil needed changing. The worst part was that if the Ferrellis lived just a mile away, in Rhode Island, they would have the features. They bought the car. But thinking back, Marc says, if he had known about the issue before stepping into the dealership he "probably would have gone with Toyota."

Subaru disabled the telematics system and associated features on new cars registered in Massachusetts last year as part of a spat over a right-to-repair ballot measure approved, overwhelmingly, by the state's voters in 2020. The measure, which has been held up in the courts, required automakers to give car owners and independent mechanics more access to data about the car's internal systems.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Sounds a lot like the spoiled child who says "You play the game my way with my rules, or I'm not playing at all."

Not being a lawyer, I don't know if the family would have a case or not, but on first glance one would think they do. They bought a car with certain features and the manufacturer disabled those features. How is this any different than the manufacturer somehow disabling the speedometer so you don't know how fast you're going, or the gas gauge so you don't know how much fuel you have left, or anything like that?

I would think it would hinge on whether the seller misrepresented those features as being present on the car or not. If the seller tells you those features are not on the car before you buy it, that's on you for agreeing to the transaction after having been duly informed. If you are told those features are there and take delivery, then the features aren't there, or they are there initially and later disabled, I think it would come down to what was in all of the legal verbiage that is on the sign-here-and-here-and-here paperwork that gets thrown at you during a car buying transaction. If there's a line saying "Subaru reserves the right to disable any feature of your car for any reason or no reason at any time with or without notice" and you sign that, you're probably SOL legally.

[kalvado]

Sigh.... now this! From Wired:

A Fight Over the Right to Repair Cars Turns Ugly
In the wake of a voter-approved law, Subaru and Kia dealers in Massachusetts have disabled systems that allow remote starts and send maintenance alerts.

Chie Ferrelli loved her Subaru SUV, which she bought in 2020 because it made her feel safe. So when it was time for her husband, Marc, to purchase his own new car last summer, they returned to the Subaru dealer near their home in southeast Massachusetts. But there was a catch, one that made the couple mad: Marc's sedan wouldn't have access to the company's telematics system and the app that went along with it. No remote engine start in the freezing New England winter; no emergency assistance; no automated messages when the tire pressure was low or the oil needed changing. The worst part was that if the Ferrellis lived just a mile away, in Rhode Island, they would have the features. They bought the car. But thinking back, Marc says, if he had known about the issue before stepping into the dealership he "probably would have gone with Toyota."

Subaru disabled the telematics system and associated features on new cars registered in Massachusetts last year as part of a spat over a right-to-repair ballot measure approved, overwhelmingly, by the state's voters in 2020. The measure, which has been held up in the courts, required automakers to give car owners and independent mechanics more access to data about the car's internal systems.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Sounds a lot like the spoiled child who says "You play the game my way with my rules, or I'm not playing at all."

Not being a lawyer, I don't know if the family would have a case or not, but on first glance one would think they do. They bought a car with certain features and the manufacturer disabled those features. How is this any different than the manufacturer somehow disabling the speedometer so you don't know how fast you're going, or the gas gauge so you don't know how much fuel you have left, or anything like that?

I would think it would hinge on whether the seller misrepresented those features as being present on the car or not. If the seller tells you those features are not on the car before you buy it, that's on you for agreeing to the transaction after having been duly informed. If you are told those features are there and take delivery, then the features aren't there, or they are there initially and later disabled, I think it would come down to what was in all of the legal verbiage that is on the sign-here-and-here-and-here paperwork that gets thrown at you during a car buying transaction. If there's a line saying "Subaru reserves the right to disable any feature of your car for any reason or no reason at any time with or without notice" and you sign that, you're probably SOL legally.

From Subaru perspective, they just comply with MA law  by not selling something illegal under that law.
Law requires universal open platform for certain features. Such platform doesn't exist, so Subaru believe they are not allowed to sell proprietary solution.
They do not include free trial with the car, and they do not sell extra paid option. Nothing is disabled, things are just not sold and so not enabled.

[Scott5114]

↑ That's the most corporate-apologist hogwash I think I've ever heard.

You know how you make an open platform? Upload all of the .c and .h files to a public server. Agree not to file suit against anyone who uses the code for anything. Done.

[kalvado]

↑ That's the most corporate-apologist hogwash I think I've ever heard.

You know how you make an open platform? Upload all of the .c and .h files to a public server. Agree not to file suit against anyone who uses the code for anything. Done.

While I don't like Subaru's approach, your solution is certainly an even bigger can of worms to deal with. Not to mention "universal" platform would be had to create that way.
Anyway, here is some writeup on the issue which may be informative:
https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2021/10/25/mass-ag-subaru-disables-telematics-in-2022-vehicles-to-comply-with-states-disputed-right-to-repair-law/

[Scott5114]

↑ That's the most corporate-apologist hogwash I think I've ever heard.

You know how you make an open platform? Upload all of the .c and .h files to a public server. Agree not to file suit against anyone who uses the code for anything. Done.

While I don't like Subaru's approach, your solution is certainly an even bigger can of worms to deal with. Not to mention "universal" platform would be had to create that way.

Nonsense–it's exactly how the OpenDocument universal document standard (which I believe is or was at one point also adopted as a Massachusetts state government standard) was created. The base for the platform was the file formats Sun Microsystems developed for StarOffice. From that, they were then generalized not to be specific to a Sun product. And now the format is universal enough, you can even save to OpenDocument from Microsoft Office, which wasn't ever something you could do with the old SXD format that StarOffice used.

While starting from scratch will obviously result in a cleaner and more elegant design, historically it's been proven that it's much more likely to actually result in a usable standard if you take a working code base and generalize it. It just requires one vendor to do the right thing and take the first step of releasing their code so that it can be used as the base that is improved upon.

[interstatefan990]

Honda has always been my pick in the Honda vs. Toyota debate.

I've definitely wanted to own a Tesla at some points but I don't like some of their business practices. One is listing prices on their website that have "tax rebates and gas savings included", but around $10k more than that value will be actually coming out of your pocket when you go to purchase the car. Also, I'm not a fan of when they sold lower-trim Model 3s that were actually just software-locked versions of the higher trims. It's stupid to sell a car with a seat warmer literally installed but disabled because I didn't give you enough money.

[kalvado]

↑ That's the most corporate-apologist hogwash I think I've ever heard.

You know how you make an open platform? Upload all of the .c and .h files to a public server. Agree not to file suit against anyone who uses the code for anything. Done.

While I don't like Subaru's approach, your solution is certainly an even bigger can of worms to deal with. Not to mention "universal" platform would be had to create that way.

Nonsense–it's exactly how the OpenDocument universal document standard (which I believe is or was at one point also adopted as a Massachusetts state government standard) was created. The base for the platform was the file formats Sun Microsystems developed for StarOffice. From that, they were then generalized not to be specific to a Sun product. And now the format is universal enough, you can even save to OpenDocument from Microsoft Office, which wasn't ever something you could do with the old SXD format that StarOffice used.

While starting from scratch will obviously result in a cleaner and more elegant design, historically it's been proven that it's much more likely to actually result in a usable standard if you take a working code base and generalize it. It just requires one vendor to do the right thing and take the first step of releasing their code so that it can be used as the base that is improved upon.

Which may work for the simple stuff. We're talking about high-risk things here. Unauthorized start of a car is a can of worms - from possible suffocation to cars idling out of gas with everything in between. So any bugs would incur huge liability for the company...
What could be done more or less realistically - a limited (sub)set of API can be made available to third parties. Still an issue of security, authorization protocol etc - but at least the core functionality wouldn't be exposed. Would that be enough to comply with MA law? I am not sure.

[J N Winkler]

Which may work for the simple stuff. We're talking about high-risk things here. Unauthorized start of a car is a can of worms - from possible suffocation to cars idling out of gas with everything in between. So any bugs would incur huge liability for the company...

It's not a question only of bugs, but also of zero-day vulnerabilities that can be developed into exploits.  But the automakers have kept pushing on with remote access technologies nevertheless.  Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek's Jeep Cherokee hack (which allowed them to take over the steering and brakes and thus, potentially, crash the vehicle) is now seven years old.

[skluth]

Another reason not to buy a Toyota. Most mediocre, milquetoast, anodyne cars in the world. The only thing they have going for them is the "reliable" stereotype, which is a moot point these days because virtually every modern car not built in Italy is reliable.

They and Honda have spent the past 20 years living off that reliability mantle without actually advancing like everyone else.

Companies like Mazda are going to start blowing them out of the water pretty soon.

I feel like Kia is the one that has taken advantage the most.

That didn't age well. Kia owners are now being told to park their cars outside due to risk of spontaneous combustion. I may never have been excited my used 2015 Camry, but yes it's reliable. Not thrilled with Toyota's original plans that prompted this thread, but I'm glad they backtracked for now.

[kalvado]

Another reason not to buy a Toyota. Most mediocre, milquetoast, anodyne cars in the world. The only thing they have going for them is the "reliable" stereotype, which is a moot point these days because virtually every modern car not built in Italy is reliable.

They and Honda have spent the past 20 years living off that reliability mantle without actually advancing like everyone else.

Companies like Mazda are going to start blowing them out of the water pretty soon.

I feel like Kia is the one that has taken advantage the most.

That didn't age well. Kia owners are now being told to park their cars outside due to risk of spontaneous combustion. I may never have been excited my used 2015 Camry, but yes it's reliable. Not thrilled with Toyota's original plans that prompted this thread, but I'm glad they backtracked for now.

A bit of a problem, from my perspective, is a reliance on cell communication - which has a large infrastructural overhead, finite technology lifetime, and needs some sort of periodic payments from customers to keep things running.
It is not unique for cars or cell technology. I have some wifi "smart" devices at my place, mostly running via cloud. What happens if manufacturer goes under? decides to obsolete old platform? Sort of same thing...  It  takes just a glitch for internet connection (which some people get on a regular basis) for the problems to begin.
It may be a big vulnerability of many modern technologies, I would say. Remote start issues are a tip of an iceberg.   

[Dirt Roads]

A bit of a problem, from my perspective, is a reliance on cell communication - which has a large infrastructural overhead, finite technology lifetime, and needs some sort of periodic payments from customers to keep things running.

It is not unique for cars or cell technology. I have some wifi "smart" devices at my place, mostly running via cloud. What happens if manufacturer goes under? decides to obsolete old platform? Sort of same thing...  It  takes just a glitch for internet connection (which some people get on a regular basis) for the problems to begin.
It may be a big vulnerability of many modern technologies, I would say. Remote start issues are a tip of an iceberg.

That is already a big problem.  Honda has issued a recall for its high-tech vehicles whereby the cellular data service will degrade as the number of 3G towers dwindle.  The solution is a software patch that will upgrade the cellular data service to 4G and disable the 3G functionality.  If you can't get the software patch downloaded before sometime in early-March 2022, then afterwards it will require a technician to manually download the patch, along with the labor charges.  That tells me two things:  (1) the cellular modem was originally equipped for 4G but had that feature disabled due to the cost differential; and (2) that the cost of [uploading] that many data packets to the vehicles needs to be limited to short period of time so as to manage the impact on their data service rates. 

Many of their customers already pay a monthly fee to Honda for this data service, so there is probably a stiff cost differential between what they are charging and what this recall is actually costing.  It seems to me that Honda had already anticipated this issue and was planning this transition for some time.

[hbelkins]

Regarding whether or not something was "sold" with the car, it seems pretty obvious. Is "remote start" or whatever it may be called on the window sticker, along with other stuff like "power windows," "power door locks," "remote keyless entry," "AM/FM stereo radio with Bluetooth connectivity and USB ports?" If so, it was sold with the car. If there are wiggle words like "remote start service available as an optional service," then one could argue that it wasn't sold with the car, but the car is capable of it. Much like if the stereo comes with SiriusXM capability, but the subscription is required separately. Or GM's OnStar service.

[kalvado]

A bit of a problem, from my perspective, is a reliance on cell communication - which has a large infrastructural overhead, finite technology lifetime, and needs some sort of periodic payments from customers to keep things running.

It is not unique for cars or cell technology. I have some wifi "smart" devices at my place, mostly running via cloud. What happens if manufacturer goes under? decides to obsolete old platform? Sort of same thing...  It  takes just a glitch for internet connection (which some people get on a regular basis) for the problems to begin.
It may be a big vulnerability of many modern technologies, I would say. Remote start issues are a tip of an iceberg.

That is already a big problem.  Honda has issued a recall for its high-tech vehicles whereby the cellular data service will degrade as the number of 3G towers dwindle.  The solution is a software patch that will upgrade the cellular data service to 4G and disable the 3G functionality.  If you can't get the software patch downloaded before sometime in early-March 2022, then afterwards it will require a technician to manually download the patch, along with the labor charges.  That tells me two things:  (1) the cellular modem was originally equipped for 4G but had that feature disabled due to the cost differential; and (2) that the cost of [uploading] that many data packets to the vehicles needs to be limited to short period of time so as to manage the impact on their data service rates. 

Many of their customers already pay a monthly fee to Honda for this data service, so there is probably a stiff cost differential between what they are charging and what this recall is actually costing.  It seems to me that Honda had already anticipated this issue and was planning this transition for some time.

At least, core functionality of the car is not affected by the datacom. Not yet.
I had remote start on some of my cars - it was nice to have, but not more than that.
I don't know how voice recognition works in my current vehicle - is it offline or online. So far, I don't quite care as that is a minor function affecting phone and audio only. It is cool to say "call wife"  but I can survive without that as well. But there are already examples where core functions relied on computation too much for the driver to survive encountering a  software bug.
Would my next car use datacom more? Would I be able to turn on wipers and headlights without online voice service? That may be a real problem (hopefully not, as people speaking any language - or who cannot talk at all - still may get a license).  But that is what I am concerned about.

[Scott5114]

↑ That's the most corporate-apologist hogwash I think I've ever heard.

You know how you make an open platform? Upload all of the .c and .h files to a public server. Agree not to file suit against anyone who uses the code for anything. Done.

While I don't like Subaru's approach, your solution is certainly an even bigger can of worms to deal with. Not to mention "universal" platform would be had to create that way.

Nonsense–it's exactly how the OpenDocument universal document standard (which I believe is or was at one point also adopted as a Massachusetts state government standard) was created. The base for the platform was the file formats Sun Microsystems developed for StarOffice. From that, they were then generalized not to be specific to a Sun product. And now the format is universal enough, you can even save to OpenDocument from Microsoft Office, which wasn't ever something you could do with the old SXD format that StarOffice used.

While starting from scratch will obviously result in a cleaner and more elegant design, historically it's been proven that it's much more likely to actually result in a usable standard if you take a working code base and generalize it. It just requires one vendor to do the right thing and take the first step of releasing their code so that it can be used as the base that is improved upon.

Which may work for the simple stuff. We're talking about high-risk things here. Unauthorized start of a car is a can of worms - from possible suffocation to cars idling out of gas with everything in between. So any bugs would incur huge liability for the company...
What could be done more or less realistically - a limited (sub)set of API can be made available to third parties. Still an issue of security, authorization protocol etc - but at least the core functionality wouldn't be exposed. Would that be enough to comply with MA law? I am not sure.

Document standards are neither simple nor low-risk–billion-dollar companies run on a platform of documents and spreadsheets. If that data isn't accessible, the company can't do business. There may be less physically moving parts than in a car, but the basic requirements of "we need to support X, Y, Z interaction because customer A has requirement R, customer B has requirement S, and customer C has requirement T that conflicts with requirement R" is all really about the same and equally difficult to manage.

The whole point of an open standard is so that the spec can be examined for bugs by people who didn't write it. So if, say, Subaru were to open up their platform as the base of an open standard, a developer for Ford would be able to say "Hey, if an attacker can cause a buffer overrun by playing a song with a title over 32,767 characters long, it will allow someone to take control of the car. We should make the standard here to be more like what Ford uses, which is to require that..."

[kalvado]

↑ That's the most corporate-apologist hogwash I think I've ever heard.

You know how you make an open platform? Upload all of the .c and .h files to a public server. Agree not to file suit against anyone who uses the code for anything. Done.

While I don't like Subaru's approach, your solution is certainly an even bigger can of worms to deal with. Not to mention "universal" platform would be had to create that way.

Nonsense–it's exactly how the OpenDocument universal document standard (which I believe is or was at one point also adopted as a Massachusetts state government standard) was created. The base for the platform was the file formats Sun Microsystems developed for StarOffice. From that, they were then generalized not to be specific to a Sun product. And now the format is universal enough, you can even save to OpenDocument from Microsoft Office, which wasn't ever something you could do with the old SXD format that StarOffice used.

While starting from scratch will obviously result in a cleaner and more elegant design, historically it's been proven that it's much more likely to actually result in a usable standard if you take a working code base and generalize it. It just requires one vendor to do the right thing and take the first step of releasing their code so that it can be used as the base that is improved upon.

Which may work for the simple stuff. We're talking about high-risk things here. Unauthorized start of a car is a can of worms - from possible suffocation to cars idling out of gas with everything in between. So any bugs would incur huge liability for the company...
What could be done more or less realistically - a limited (sub)set of API can be made available to third parties. Still an issue of security, authorization protocol etc - but at least the core functionality wouldn't be exposed. Would that be enough to comply with MA law? I am not sure.

Document standards are neither simple nor low-risk–billion-dollar companies run on a platform of documents and spreadsheets. If that data isn't accessible, the company can't do business. There may be less physically moving parts than in a car, but the basic requirements of "we need to support X, Y, Z interaction because customer A has requirement R, customer B has requirement S, and customer C has requirement T that conflicts with requirement R" is all really about the same and equally difficult to manage.

The whole point of an open standard is so that the spec can be examined for bugs by people who didn't write it. So if, say, Subaru were to open up their platform as the base of an open standard, a developer for Ford would be able to say "Hey, if an attacker can cause a buffer overrun by playing a song with a title over 32,767 characters long, it will allow someone to take control of the car. We should make the standard here to be more like what Ford uses, which is to require that..."

And the price of everything is determined solemnly by the buyer, right?

[hotdogPi]

And the price of everything is determined solemnly by the buyer, right?

Wrong thread? The economics debate is in a different thread (check who made the last 10 posts and who's absent), and I really don't want it to spill into this one.