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Comment by gst | Hacker News Reader

> Comma selling this product like it's some car accessory looks pretty reckless to me.

Comma is not selling openpilot (the software that makes your car self-driving), but they are selling the Comma devices that out-if-the-box just include dashcam functionality and a few additional features.

Openpilot is an open-source project on Github that makes cars self-driving and that also runs on regular Linux PCs as well as those Comma devices.

Do you suggest that Comma should not be allowed to sell the Comma devices anymore (that out of the box work as a Dashcam)? Or do you suggest that Comma should not be allowed to contribute to an open-source project that can make cars self-driving?

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> Comma is not selling openpilot (the software that makes your car self-driving), but they are selling the Comma devices that out-if-the-box just include dashcam functionality and a few additional features.

Come on, this line of reasoning pretty clearly can't work in a lawful society.

Imagine Smith & Wesson making the argument that clearly this gun is just meant for decoration, we can't be responsible for people buying bullets on our webpage and shooting people. That's clearly a bogus argument. It's legal obfuscation.

If comma didn't want people to run openpilot on their dashcam, they wouldn't host a guide, the wouldn't market it, they would lock down the software they build. The hardware is MADE to run openpilot. Openpilot is MADE to be run on the hardware.

Firearm and ammunition manufacturers are already not culpable for people getting shot. Your argument would be better made comparing Comma 3X hardware + OpenPilot software to something that unintentionally causes injury despite being used as intended.

Then again, if you used that line of reasoning you'd have to show a comparable example of OpenPilot unintentionally causing injury, rather than just waving your hands and saying "it COULD happen, because unregulated!"

So, the way you phrased it made me believe that this "openpilot" software is unaffiliated with Comma.ai. But they are, in fact, the owners and maintainers of the openpilot repo and link directly to it on their website.

I didn't mean to say that they are not the owners, but that those two items (Comma devices and the software) are two different things.

Yes - Comma owns that repository and there are instructions on how to put the software on Comma devices. But then also lots of commits are from authors not affiliated with Comma and my understanding is that quite a few users of that software aren't actually using the official repository, but various forks maintained by third parties.

This isn't a serious argument. Comma trains the model that OpenPilot uses. I doubt anyone else has trained their own.

From Comma's website:

"Meet the comma 3X The comma 3X is custom hardware designed to live in your car, and purpose built to run openpilot. The comma 3X has three beautiful HDR cameras, two cameras to watch the road and one night-vision camera to see inside the car. "

"and purpose built to run openpilot" would be the main issue here. Everything else is also required by a regular dashcam. The legal question here would be (and I don't know that answer to that) if someone distributing a hardware device that's optimized for a particular functionality without shipping that functionality, would be liable when users manually add that functionality to the device.

IANAL, but I don't think there's nearly enough insulation here.

I don't think there's much distinction between selling someone a device and then giving them free software that they need to install, and just giving them the device with the software installed.

Imo as long as they intend for the customers to install the software they're responsible, so I don't know if there's anyway in my mind for them to make both the software (or have an active role in developing it) and the device and not be liable.

"t should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could be given as a parameter."

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