General Motors Co. in Detroit is joining the Eclipse Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source software foundations.
The Eclipse Foundation is an international non-profit association supported by more than 355 members, including industry leaders who value open source as a key enabler for their business strategies.
GM also has contributed “uProtocol” as a starting point for greater standardization, enabling increased software productivity across the automotive industry that can lead to easy-to-use, software-enabled customer experiences. This protocol aims to speed up software development by streamlining the creation of software that is distributed across multiple devices within vehicles as well as across the cloud and mobile.
GM will participate in the Eclipse Foundation’s Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) working group, which is focused on accelerating innovation of automotive-grade software stacks using open source and open specifications developed by and for a growing community of engineers and member companies. Collaborators on GM’s Ultifi software platform including Microsoft and Red Hat, as well as multiple other automakers, participate in the group.
“By joining the Eclipse Foundation’s SDV Working Group, we aim to bolster collaboration within the industry to increase software reuse and interoperability across the automotive industry, therefore benefitting customer experiences at scale,” says Frank Ghenassia, executive chief architect of software defined vehicles at GM.
“By creating an open, shared software-defined vehicle protocol, we hope we can enable software to be easily shared across multiple companies and across smartphones, vehicle computers and cloud services. We hope others join us in this pursuit so customers can enjoy the benefits.”
With software-defined vehicles expected to grow in number and capability in the coming years, the potential exists for a fragmented ecosystem where apps and software for each automaker require custom code, creating walled gardens that lead to more work and less scalability while taking longer to reach customers.
This brought the team to develop uProtocol, a standard with the potential to connect automotive applications and services everywhere — not just in GM products, or even just in vehicles — but to create efficiency across the phones and other devices talking to vehicles as well.
Introduced at a recent Eclipse Foundation event in Lisbon, Portugal, uProtocol is not owned or trademarked by GM, but will serve as a call to action for other companies to rally around a set of technologies that can be collaboratively deployed. This is a critical time, as GM is preparing to deploy its Ultifi software platform at scale across its global portfolio of electric and internal combustion vehicles sold through the Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC brands in the coming years, and an opportunity for all automakers, suppliers, and others to align around standards that can benefit developers and consumers alike.
“We are excited that GM is joining the Eclipse Software Defined Vehicle industry collaboration. They have clearly recognized the fundamental shift to collaborative open source software development that is taking place within the automotive market,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. “Their contributions will help enable faster time-to-market, reduced development costs, new sources of revenue and new service models for the entire industry.”
The Eclipse Foundation provides the global community of individuals and organizations with a mature, scalable, and business-friendly environment for open source software collaboration and innovation. The Foundation is home to the Eclipse IDE, Jakarta EE, and over 415 open source projects, including runtimes, tools, specifications, and frameworks for cloud and edge applications, Internet of Things, AI, automotive, systems engineering, open processor designs, and many others.
In other GM news, the company announced that Vice Admiral Jan Tighe, former U.S. Navy deputy chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare and Director of Naval Intelligence, has been nominated by GM’s Board of Directors to stand for election at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on June 20, 2023.
Tighe, 60, spent more than 34 years with the U.S. Navy and National Security Agency as a career cryptologist before retiring in 2018. During her career, Tighe also served as fleet commander for the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command, U.S. 10th Fleet, and was the first woman to command a numbered fleet and first woman cryptologic warfare officer promoted to flag rank. She also served as the U.S. Cyber Command deputy director of operations and president of the Naval Postgraduate School.
Tighe has worked around the world for both the Navy and the National Security Agency, specializing in signals intelligence and cyber operations, including flying combat support missions during Operation Desert Storm. She also serves on the boards of the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Huntsman Corp. and IronNet Inc., as well as The Progressive Corp. though she will retire from the Progressive board at their 2023 annual meeting.
“GM’s future will be driven by a software-first approach that enables a faster cycle of innovation, an elevated experience for our customers and a more efficient enterprise,” says Mary Barra, chair and CEO of GM. “Vice Admiral Tighe’s vast expertise in cybersecurity and information systems will be invaluable as GM scales EVs, AVs, and software-defined vehicles to deliver our vision of a world with zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”
