Tesla Is Making Use Of The Open-Source Coreboot Within Their Electric Vehicles

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Tesla Is Making Use Of The Open-Source Coreboot Within Their Electric Vehicles

Not only is Linux increasingly used within automobiles but it turns out at least one automobile manufacturer is even using Coreboot within their vehicles...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Tesla-Uses-Coreboot

[marlock]

AGL - Automotive Grade Linux may be the greatest, most successful move for general Linux adoption and sustained evolution after supercomputers.

I mean, they got like half the big car companies in the world paying big cash to devs, to do dead-serious work on the whole software stack, stability and security concerns are an integral part of their worries, and they really seem to be happy and supportive of FOSS principles as the work evolves... and now even some open hardware principles seem to be seeping in... into car companies!

It looks plain awesome!

[M1kkko]

Meanwhile all Tesla's software is locked down, and they are literally charging you $2000 for a software fix that allows the car you already bought go faster.

[cl333r]

Meanwhile all Tesla's software is locked down, and they are literally charging you $2000 for a software fix that allows the car you already bought go faster.

Reminds me of Apple purposefully slowing down their older iPhones so that people buy new ones, ain't proprietary software great for this task?

[starshipeleven]

Meanwhile all Tesla's software is locked down, and they are literally charging you $2000 for a software fix that allows the car you already bought go faster.

Yeah because the update is just increasing a number in a setting table, and it's all a conspiracy. It's not like they are elaborating more complex power management stuff based on experience and data collection on vehicles that are out.

[starshipeleven]

Reminds me of Apple purposefully slowing down their older iPhones so that people buy new ones, ain't proprietary software great for this task?

proprietary of FOSS is tangential in this case. You want signed/validated software if you want to enforce restrictions.

People opening up binaries in hex editors or decompiling stuff isn't a new thing, for example bios modding was a thing back then when there was no validation.

With signatures, people is still free to hack around, but your devices won't load/accept the firmware.

[M1kkko]

proprietary of FOSS is tangential in this case. You want signed/validated software if you want to enforce restrictions.

People opening up binaries in hex editors or decompiling stuff isn't a new thing, for example bios modding was a thing back then when there was no validation.

With signatures, people is still free to hack around, but your devices won't load/accept the firmware.

Look up "tivoization". This case is no different. It's a device you own, running free software, that artificially blocks you from exercising the freedom to modify it.

Speaking in terms of the car world, as the owner, you should definitely be able to tune your car yourself (or take it to a third party shop for that), period.

[uid313]

I wonder why Tesla designed their own hardware instead of just using SoC from Qualcomm, Marvell, Broadcom, etc.

[starshipeleven]

Look up "tivoization".

That's exactly what I'm saying, I just said that it applies to proprietary software as well. If you don't validate your firmware with crypto signatures, just being proprietary closed source won't stop people from hacking around with it.

Speaking in terms of the car world, as the owner, you should definitely be able to tune your car yourself (or take it to a third party shop for that), period.

I'm personally against it. A car is a weapon and you should NOT be able to "tune" anything. This is a case where your freedom is hurting the freedom (and safety) of others.

I support only the ability to repair it without being locked down ala John Deere, but NOT to tinker with it.

[sykobee]

Meanwhile all Tesla's software is locked down, and they are literally charging you $2000 for a software fix that allows the car you already bought go faster.

What's the problem with that? You bought a car that could accelerate at X, if you want to accelerate at X+n they have a solution (that they likely didn't have at the time the initial specification was set) that doesn't cost a lot (in comparison to an entire new car).