Mercedes Benz is already for example using KWin from KDE as Wayland compositor and likely many other open source components. So this sort of move is not without precedent.
It's a smart move to do so instead of switching to Android Auto and loosing control of one of the most important component of the experience of the car.
They will have to fix their attitude towards the people who build software before they can be successful.
In a typical German corp software developers even in RnD are not seen as an asset but as a mixture of line workers and support staff.
The problem is: The world best assembly line worker will not boost your companies performance in a measurable way, but a better dev will make a heavy impact in his project.
Nice example:
A friend of mine worked in RnD in a German DAX corp. C-Level regularly had them fix bugs in other projects. Why? RnD is the only department that can adapt its planing fast enough to fit in stupid side tasks. As a result the best people left, were replaced and the average skill of the department regressed to the mean.
There's one area where EU software industry is on the cutting edge: The gaming industry.
Again, the platforms are all American but Europeans know how to make kick ass games that are delightful and awe inspiring. French, Polish, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, so many legendary people are from Europe.
They should hire game developer to guide the user experience and listen to them very carefully.
The serious move would be centralizing their budgets they have for developing these functions in a new independent company, and until that happens it's likely to get stuck in analysis paralysis.
If in doubt take a look at what they're referring to: https://eclipse-score.github.io/
I saw a video where a mechanic replaced a pack on his Model S with a 100Wh pack. There were some minor issues of fit, which he had all figured out. There was a connector change and some sheet steel around the edges that needed changing out to make it physically fit. The procedure was to keep a table under the vehicle, lower the vehicle so that the pack rested on the table, remove the last retaining bolts on the bottom, and lift the car back up. Reverse for install except he had to align it first. He estimated it would take 2 hours total. This car was designed for fast pack exchange. The coolant connections were self connecting and disconnecting.
Then came the software. The amount of complexity and jargon and issues and roadblocks that come out of nowhere is extraordinary. You have to dive several layers deep in a menu system to do step 1, then get hung up on opening a "gateway", then dive down the same menu to do step 2 of a 2-step process. He had another problem that kept him busy but what impressed me is the amount of time and complexity to do the simplest things. He wasn't performing many steps, but just getting to the step required rebooting, waiting, pressing the brake pedal to see when it was time to move the right turn signal stalk, didn't work, go back, do something else for 10 minutes, try again, it seemed endless.
German automotive companies have historically been terrible at software. Just because Tesla hasn't simplified or integrated their various software components yet, doesn't mean others can't do it nicer. But any company that doesn't value software like the Americans do is going to have a real tough time with the EV software problem.
Everybody just uses QT Auto and they create horrendous interfaces plus they use cheap electronics with not enough resources to power all of that eye candy.
The chinese can create good looking and useful UIs and they can even go deeper in the stack.
As always there is a difference between what course of action is widely agreed to make sense for everyone involved, and what course of action is in agreement with the structure of the corporation. The Audi/ Cariad disaster being just one example.
I'd like to see some insight on whether this has a realistic chance of being the winning bet within the companies involved. So far it sounds too obviously useful to win the politics game.
1. Personally, I don't want software in my car, I want physical buttons and switches (then I can control my car without looking at any distractive screens).
2. The German car industry already successfully teamed up on sharing map data (https://www.here.com/).
3. However, while this may work for Libre Office installs in a city administration and (non-critical) car infotainment software, this likely cannot work for the most important automotive control software, due to the legal responsibility of the car manufacturer (they would need to review/audit all changes of open source contributors line by line, patch by patch) - because bugs can cost lives there.
This doesn't surprise me. Here's my hot take, having worked building these kinds of ecosystems in automotive and related industries (RV), and also working with German automotive/caravan companies in those spaces.
1) They don't want to invest in building vehicle software ecosystems as it's expensive, time consuming, and not exactly in their wheel house. Wireless and cloud connectivity just aren't their language.
2) They don't want to work with existing proprietary off the shelf ecosystem solutions -- they feel that because it's "their vehicles" they should "own" the technology and IP. They don't want vendor lock in, so they avoid existing proprietary solutions they can't "take over". And by "take over" I mean "have the vendor give their proprietary stack to them for free, so they can then share it with their other suppliers".
3) They expect the vendor base to "partner" to develop "open" software stacks for free -- which most vendors aren't keen on doing as there is little upside for the vendor to spend their own internal NRE building a system that their competitors benefit from and can quickly undercut them on. They generally refuse to pay for the development of a stack that they can own and build upon.
The root cause seems to be magical thinking from the higher ups - "Hey connectivity stuff is everywhere, it can't be hard, why should we pay for this?"
They don't want to build it. They don't see the value in paying for it. So of course open source is the obvious solution. Hey, just have the nerds build it! They love doing that kind of work for free.
This is basically AUTOSAR reinvented, by mostly the same companies. That's not a bad thing, AUTOSAR is a flaming pile of trash and this is at least picking a better foundation. It doesn't solve the core issue though, which is that the auto industry struggles to understand software.
"...that accelerates the transition to the software-defined vehicle."
Ew. I want more buttons and less software but better (most car software, visable to the user at least, is junk).
Year of the Linux car!
I'm 100% in favor of the open source approach.
The only thing that slightly irks me is that these are the same companies that were found to have kept innovation back by colluding on synching technology adoption per generation across the brands.
Most automotive software is targeting real time operating systems from what I understand. Their are some Linux projects built around RTOS that are open source, but current Linux OS is mainly focused on non RTOS systems.
It's always the same story. When I worked in the blockbuster VFX industry, in the early to mid 2000's, whenever anyone suggested we open-source stuff, people would shake their heads.
After all, your craptacular pipeline was surely the secret sauce that made you get jobs and/or be cost effective while everyone else was definitely cooking with water ...
I remember a friend of mine getting openly mocked at a pub in Soho, in 2007, by his co-workers from MPC for suggesting this. DNeg, the company I worked for at the time, wasn't any better.
Mind you, this was after ILM already open-sourced OpenEXR and Alembic formats years ago and they had become industry standards more or less over night, afterwards.
Now there is the Academy Software Foundation and everyone in VFX is using OSS (that came from various big studios, mostly) all over the place.
When I worked in the automotive software industry in Germany, half a decade ago, it was the same. People shook their heads at me and I was mocked for suggesting this.
But I actually made a bet then (just a crate of beers, but hey) with one of the mockers. I guess it will soon be time to cash in on that.
Ok, being the German automotive industry (or rather: BMW & Mercedes, for now, if I read the press release right) -- when it comes to anything software it could still be anywhere between 1--5 years, before the intent "materializes" ...
Of course, because after years overpricing for cars nobody needed they've starter to see China is eating their market share. If you bought a VW, and Audi or a MB in the last 7-8 years you know what I mean.
Wonder if they will be funding the open source projects they use, and or contributing employee time.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
The Chinese car firms are coming for them, so they are banding together.
Notably Volkswagen is missing
I don’t care what kind of software do they supply with their cars as long as they don’t lock seat heating behind paywall.
Nearly one year ago the German federal government passes an amendment to law on preferential use of open source software.
Now they push projects like OpenDesk[1] to fully replace MS Office (365) and OpenCode[2] where they open-source all software that is build with public money.
In my view, this has led to the German economy having more confidence in open source, and that open source can be used and maintained as a model for software over a period of 5-10 or even more years. Instead of buying licences and hoping that the manufacturers will maintain the software for at least 5 years and provide updates. In addition, there is the realisation, not least as a result of the change in the law and the current global political situation, that sovereignty is a very important factor.
[1] https://www.opendesk.eu/en
[2] https://opencode.de/en && https://gitlab.opencode.de/explore