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If cars were licensed like enterprise software, they would detect how many seats were in use for the trip, and we'd have to pay per seat.

(shhhhh don't give them any ideas)

I've had a satellite radio button in my cars for years, but never subscribed. The hardware is there to receive the satellite radio, so it's a content (and software) license I'm missing. Do people not complain about that because satellite radio is not seen as a feature intrinsic to the car?

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Take a moment and imagine how Oracle would handle such an opportunity.

"I see the vehicle you are running our software on has four wheels. Since we license our software per wheel at $10k a wheel, that will be $40k for the vehicle. Let us know if you want to add the support and/or upgrade packages, which are an additional cost. There is a discount that starts at five wheels."

>If cars were licensed like enterprise software, they would detect how many seats were in use for the trip, and we'd have to pay per seat.

There already is a sensor to detect a passenger in most (all?) airbag enabled cars sold in the US, so we're already on our way!

With the weight sensors added to some of the new electric vehicles to adjust forecast range based on the weight of the current cargo, the equivalent of paying for checked bags a la flying will follow.

"Four bags of groceries detected"

It will be amusing if car licensing pushes people towards other forms of transportation, like bicycles.

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