VW scandal

[Daniel Pocock]

On 09/10/15 07:55, Vitaly Repin wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/volkswagen-pulls-2016-diesel-lineup-from-us-market/ 
> states:
> 
> The VW scandal came to light when researchers from the International
> Council on Clean Transportation and West Virginia University performed
> all kinds of tests on VW vehicles, discovering that when the vehicles
> were on the road, they polluted substantially more than when they were
> being tested for pollution emissions.
> 
> If this software was open-source (not even free!) the process to find
> the problem woudl be much easier and less costly. And most probably the
> issue would not occur at the very first place - VW engineers woudl not
> have temptation to do what they did.
> 
> Do you think VW case can be used as an example of the benefits which
> free software might provide to the society?

Did you see my blog[1] about this?

The key point here is that it is a conspiracy: (a) it involves
/deliberate/ dishonesty, (b) lots of people must have known, (c)
closed-source, non-free obfuscation was used to hide it and (d) it was
used to deceive government(s) and now they all look stupid.

In the law, people convicted for conspiracies are usually given bigger
punishments than people convicted of doing something bad on their own.

I just feel this is an opportunity too good to miss for free software
advocates.

There is a revolving door between industry and the regulatory agencies
and they won't ever fix themselves without outside pressure.

With consumer organizations making lawsuits, it could also be a good
opportunity for FSFE to forge alliances with other groups and share the
free software message more widely.



1.
http://danielpocock.com/the-only-way-to-ensure-the-vw-scandal-never-happens-again