Unlocking potential

In today's automotive industry, software has become a critical component for innovation and success. As vehicles become more connected, autonomous, and electric, the need for reliable and efficient software solutions is paramount. Also horizontal standards beyond organizational borders become very important to handle the complexity of SW. This is where free and open-source software (FOSS) and community projects play a vital role.

One of the key advantages of FOSS and community projects is the collaborative nature they foster. By allowing developers from different organizations to contribute their expertise, these projects encourage innovation through shared knowledge and resources. In the automotive industry, this means that companies can leverage the collective intelligence of a global community to develop cutting-edge software solutions that meet the unique challenges of future mobility.

Though in the automotive industry the demand for new software functionalities and innovations is constant, not every piece of software is a differentiator for a company. These are rather apps that bring a visible and tangible added value for the end customer. Software components, on the other hand, which are needed more in the background, but which are essential building blocks innovative software solutions are built upon, are rather non-differentiating for companies. These essential building blocks do not have to be developed by every company in the industry individually; though they are essential and enable progress and software innovation, they do not require reinvention each time.

Adopting FOSS for these foundational technologies liberates the automotive industry from duplicating efforts to solve the same problems internally. Instead, collaborating on FOSS projects, combining knowledge and resources to develop superior foundational technologies is much more efficient. So, engaging in FOSS projects to jointly develop those enabling technologies allows the automotive manufacturers to allocate time, talent, and resources towards creating differentiating software and thus tangible added value for their customers.

ETAS has been supporting this approach for some time now. Because exactly these foundational technologies, which enable the automotive industry to develop, test and operate innovative software solutions, are core competences of the German automotive software development specialist. Together with their mother company Bosch ETAS is founding member of the Eclipse Working Group “Software-defined Vehicle” and engaged in several projects which deal precisely with the development of these enabling technologies in three project areas: In the “Application Development” area, development toolchains and CI/CD workflows are developed, in the area “Orchestration and Management” collaborative work around communication middleware, the Digital Twin, and vehicle data abstraction are in focus; and in the “Runtime” area, projects take care of operating systems, hypervisor, and container technologies.

Developers from ETAS contribute to several projects in all three areas: “In these projects we are building value together and welcome everyone to participate. We aim to join forces on the non-differentiating software, thus decreasing time-to-market, sharing best practices, and overcome the war for talent”, Ansgar Lindwedel, Director SDV Ecosystem Development at ETAS.

To emphasize their strong believe in the numerous benefits of FOSS ETAS launched their FOSS Manifesto on opensource.etas.com. The various projects to which ETAS experts contribute are also described here. Interested persons can contact the FOSSbassadors of ETAS directly.