Comment by jinzo
10 hours ago
I won't go into details about 'training access for ISTA usage' - cause I don't know what exactly Vanja means by this - but generally speaking in EU BMW provides the easiest access from all OEMs for aftermarket repair. Everyone has to provide it by law, but BMW has the most straightforward way of registering/paying/using it. For sure not ideal, but far from really being problematic IMHO.
But other than that I mostly agree, I don't think that the over-engineering is greed driven - but the EU Manufacturers (but honestly, even other ones) have a really hard time with anything software based. Be it in car or outside of it. But BMW is far from the worst on that front.
P.S: VW ODIS original diagnostic is based on Eclipse :D
My experience with many German mechanical and electrical engineers is that they have a tendency to think of software like a magical cheap and malleable part on a BOM that can make their arbitrary design work. Especially the mechanical engineers like a nice little black box that they screw on and wire into their machine to make it go brrr once they turn it on.
That kind of thinking along with some calcification of organizational structures in/around R&D teams seems to be the cause for the rather dysfunctional software development at the German car companies. Software dev doesn't thrive in this environment.
Volkswagen probably had the right idea on paper when they created Cariad as a subsidiary software development company to isolate the devs, but then they ruined it by importing their own culture into it again.