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3 Reasons Not to Attend Open Community for Automotive

Monday, August 26, 2024 - 03:37 by Diana Kupfer

So, you’re thinking about attending the Open Community for Automotive (OCA) conference in Mainz, Germany? Let me save you the trouble. Sure, it sounds like an event packed with cutting-edge technologies, collaboration opportunities, and a chance to rub shoulders with industry innovators. But here’s why you should just stay home.

Reason no. 1: Collaboration is Overrated. Silos FTW!

Let’s face it, who really wants to work with other companies? As if you didn’t already have too much work in your own company. The whole concept of communities and sharing code and ideas is so impractical. Why would you want to hear about open source projects like Eclipse uProtocol, where major companies like General Motors and Bosch are teaming up? And honestly, who needs to learn about balancing innovation with policy enforcement? That’s just a headache waiting to happen. You’re better off sticking to your solitary, proprietary bubble, where you can avoid all that.

Image
Soap bubble
Why not just stay in your comfortable proprietary bubble?
Image from Pixabay

 

Reason no. 2: Open Source Should Be Fun and Fluffy. Spare Me the Certification Hassle!

Sure, Dana Vede is going to talk about how the Eclipse ThreadX project became the first open source real-time operating system to hold a safety certification, but why bother? It’s so much easier to just stick to the tried-and-true proprietary certification processes inside your corporate safe space. After all, why innovate when you can just rely on what’s been working perfectly well for decades? As German developers like to say, “never change a running system.”

Reason no. 3: Cutting-Edge Technologies Are an Unnecessary Risk to Your Business.

The automotive industry is diving into innovative technologies like Rust, but really, who needs all that extravagant stuff? Hypes are meant to perish anyway. Christian Eltzschig’s talk about rewriting Eclipse Iceoryx in Rust sounds like a lot of hard work for something that’s probably just a passing trend. High-performance, safe, reliable software? That doesn’t sound like something C or C++ wouldn’t already cover. And let’s not forget we’re talking about cars. Mechanical objects. The hardware, the engine – those are the things that really matter, not some fancy software stack. Why not just stick with what you know and avoid the hassle of learning yet another programming language? After all, who needs memory safety and concurrency models when you’ve got perfectly working legacy systems?

Bonus Reason: Mainz? Really?

You only wanted to go to OCA to check Mainz off your bucket list? Well, Mainz, with its history of technical innovation and being the birthplace of modern book printing, might sound interesting to some. But honestly, who wants to visit a city steeped in history and culture when you can just stay home and stick to your familiar work routine, sitting in Zoom calls and debugging code all day? Plus, all those opportunities to network with professionals across multiple disciplines at three collocated events? Yawn. 

So, in conclusion, why bother attending Open Community for Automotive? Stay in your comfort zone, avoid collaboration, shun innovation, and definitely don’t go exploring new technologies. And Mainz? It’s probably overrated. Who needs all that inspiration, anyway? 

But if, by some strange twist of fate, you do decide to go, just make sure you grab your tickets before September 23, 2024. You wouldn’t want to miss out on those early rates – if you were interested, that is.