Most of the opinions have now been expressed.

I have a Revo Stage 2 on my car. I guess it would have been a relatively simple matter to flash it off my ECU and post it up here and, specifically, to have benchmarked the key maps against the base 240 PS TT Clubsport and 225 PS maps so we could get a good handle on which maps the pro tuners change and how.

Something tells me this is hacking though, or is it that I don't want the dealer to find out in case they get huffy and refuse to work on my car. It might not be technically illegal, but my conscience has stopped me up to now.

Are pro tuners licensed by the OEM of the ECU (usually Bosch) to 'reverse engineer, dissassemble and modify' their software code? Surely the ECU codes are treated legally the same as any computer software with respect to hacking/tweaking?

The bordeline must be if someone sells, publishes or passes off modified code as their own. Messing with your own ECU doesn't cause a material or financial loss to anyone.

Doug

So the rumour goes. However, I couldn't possibly comment! ;-)

After having looked into tuning in a bit more depth, I now appreciate that states of tune are relatively minor tweaks and adjustments in key sections of a small number of maps so it's academic. Had I decided to get it done a month earlier, the car would have had an APR flavour Stage 2 instead.

Doug

Doug

I agree with parts of almost everyone here.  It really is a tough call.  There are a couple of cases where I see it clearly as unethical, and one is:
- An individual straight clones another's modified ECU and sells it as their own (like, say, the alleged 10secS4 Marc situation, if he didn't tweak it)

Other than that, we're all modifying someone else's stuff.  And I agree that we're paying the tuner for a service (ie to modify our maps), and after that, I have the right to do whatever I want with it on my personal stuff (like, for example, I paid retail to an authorized GIAC dealer for a stage 1+ tune for my B6 A4, and I wish I would've copied the tune before I sold the car so that I could put it on another B6 if I ever get one).

Same goes for hardware for me.  For example, if I pay someone to design and fabricate me a custom, one-off piece of hardware (maybe a turbo inlet or something), then I would feel no shame in getting that replicated in China and selling it, or whatever.  I paid the designer good money for his time to design and fabricate something that I requested of him, and I then own the hardware and am free to do what I will with the design and hardware that I bought off of him.  This is all IMO.

Like I said before, I believe they are paying for the service.  I'm sure the people who are contributing here are already well at terms with that possibility.  If someone is willing to pay for a tune, then so be it.  I just hope at least that the tuner is competent enough and put his effort into understanding the stuff though, but I can't see how people who would be happy taking someone else's code could be conflicted about someone using their freely released code.  Plus, most of what is released by the community are rough baselines that need to be tuned for the car anyways, so it's not really a cut-and-paste deal.

I don't understand why are you so bitter about possibility of somebody selling tunes... They are posted here for FREE, if somebody wants to come around and resell them, what do we care, I mean really care?

This idea of this site is based on openness and allowing people to do what previously they had to pay for @ tuners. Since anybody can come and grab a tune and then flash it for a total of $15 (for cable) them this in itself will limit a number of possible clients and reseller can get since now the stuff is for free. Why would anybody pay for free stuff then except maybe and small fee for doing actual flashing if you don't have a cable!

The apparent value of tunes to date was in difficulty to obtain any information regarding tuning process on ME 7.x and lack of tools to do it "on a budged". This era just ended. What was worth $599 at APR just couple of months ago is now FREE here, or will be shortly anyway.

So post all relevant info without holding back as this will advance the research. If you're holding back - enjoy. If you have no resources or skills to contribute but still want to participate, take tunes, test them, spread the word, whatever - just enjoy.

If you're completely clueless, there are alternatives to paying somebody for doing the tuning work/flashing, like Maestro from Eurodyne. All in-one product that will still allow you to do high-level tuning but takes care of flashing/logging and other associated headaches with creating tunes in current state of affairs.

I appreciate your point of view.

I merely tried to point out that for every person who can figure stuff out since they have a mix of necessary skills to succeed or at least get by, there are tons of people who are not programmers or have no necessary knowledge to at least properly tune a car but can still benefit from this forum and they are still very interested in cars. Maybe they can wrench much better than we can but are otherwise challenge when it comes to electronics and programming.


Influx of people with silly questions who can't even properly search is inevitable but I hope that at least the entry level of knowledge will stop the worst ones in their tracks

Cheers.

Funny what happens when you sign a NDA and break it...

Noobs:
If there is an influx of noob questions that become repetitive, then that just shows that the wiki or forum needs more information to help new users get started. If we can educate noobs on what it really means to tune a car, then they can learn to do it themselves, or they can learn the value of what a real tuner does. If more people know what it takes to tune a car, and the value that a skilled tuner provides, then hopefully more of them will be willing to pay a skilled tuner, instead of random person on eBay.

Copying tunes without understanding:
If the ME7 tuning community is open and accessible, then when people do their google searches looking for eBay tunes, they should instead be finding the information we post ,about why it is worth while to pay a professional tuner, or do it yourself instead. We can't stop people from taking credit for others work, but we can try to educate people about better options.

Using commercial tunes as reference:
Everyone used Bosch OEM code and data as a reference. Now amateurs are using commercial tunes with code and data changes as a reference. Maybe it's an oversimplification, but it seems like this is no different than what the tuners did to Bosch. You can say that the tuners paid a lot of money to learn what they know, but Bosch also paid a lot of money to develop the hardware and software in the first place.

Open tuning in the ME7 platform:
The ME7 platform is about a decade old. If tuning the ME7 and standard modifications to the code doesn't become public knowledge now, then why should I bother with this old car?

Ownership and stealing:
It is not possible to steal something from someone if they don't own it in the first place. Aside from Bosch, I don't know if any ME7 tuner is able to legally claim they own the files they tuned. Ethics aside, ownership is a legal issue.