ECU Tuning as per Down Under

[Jim Wright]

On Thursday, September 12, 2002, at 06:13  PM, George Roffe wrote:

> I would argue that they Nissan's code is public domain at this time.
> Nissan knows that tuners use their code and rewrite portions of
> it and they do nothing.  This should place it in the public domain.
> OTOH, if JWT defends their proprietary code, that would maintain their
> copyright on their portion wouldn't it?

Im inclined to go along with this until I hear from any lawyers to the
contrary.

However, JWT is making changes to the base code (substantial changes on
some model years) and far more than just new maps.  When people buy the
ECU, theyre buying this code as part of a hardware/software deal.
Owners of a JWT ECU might be legally able to monkey with this code on
their own if they choose, but Id bet money that any attempt to either
sell or even give away their modifications based on JWT code would be
seriously frowned upon by JWT.

Starting from a pure base of Nissan code is the only way to go if you
plan on distributing new code to anyone else.  Software companies have
in the past been sued for copyright infringement if it could be proven
that they based their code on another product, copying even the
smallest section of code from another program.  Copying JWTs maps and
tweaking a few values would be no different.

Someone else mentioned a clean room approach, thats really the best
bet.  If youre comparing results against a JWT ECU, fine, just dont
compare the code itself.