Why don’t we start with computers and software first? Let’s eliminate all these different laptop options and force every manufacturer to use 3 government-mandated chassis sizes: Small, medium, and large. Make parts interchangeable with standard connectors and power budgets. Nobody is allowed to innovate or customize because we must be standardized.

Where do you think we’d be now? Typing on our highly optimized MacBook Pros, or working on a clunky box with the fans whirring like a hair dryer because everyone had to fit a standard lowest common denominator design and changing it required years of regulatory work?

Or how about software and operating systems? We allow two OS types: Server and Desktop and they all have to work together within standardized interfaces. Nobody is allowed to innovate unless it’s within the regulated specs.

Doesn’t sound so good when it’s applied to topics we’re most familiar with.

In any industry with high performance machines like CNC machines, pick and place, or precision equipment you will find that the parts are not modular or interchangeable across manufacturers either.

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PaulDavisThe1st a day ago | parent | next [-]

You do this by standardizing interconnection at both the physical and protocol levels, and leave everything else alone. Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate (maybe 10 years for the physical interconnects, maybe less for protocol since back compat is much easier there).

This leaves people free to tweak form factors, energy efficiency, system capacities etc. etc.

We don't need to care about the final results ("small medium large"), we need to care that you can connect things together (which also means "replace one component with another"). Same for automobiles and most other consumer technology products.

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Aurornis a day ago | parent [-]

> Then you allow both to evolve at a reasonable rate (maybe 10 years

Automakers already get 10-15 years or more out of their platforms. The same series of engines will be used across the their lineup for a very long time. Transmissions are shared across car makers, and so on.

That’s not a problem. The request above was for all auto manufacturers to have to fit into a standardized format.

It would be like telling Intel, AMD and Apple that they all had to use the same CPU socket for 5 years and they all had to be interchangeable.

Do you think we’d have MacBook Pros with all day battery life that also have 500MB/s of memory bandwidth if the company was forced to use a standard CPU socket that all manufacturers agreed on? Definitely would not. Some other country without such requirements would be enjoying them, though.

It’s a demand that makes less sense the closer you are to the subject matter.

	▲	PaulDavisThe1st 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Despite 36+ years as a programmer at more or less every level of computing, I don't know that much about CPU sockets. However, my impression is that we'd not be particularly limited by a requirement that a given physical CPU socket design (size, pinouts, power supply) was used for 10 years. As a self-builder, and thus periodic (re)purchaser of motherboards and cpus, my sense is that the majority of the changes to CPU socket specs are gratuitous and unnecessary. I could be wrong.

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jacquesm a day ago | parent | prev [-]

You are purposefully obtuse and I'm not sure what joy you derive from it but just to take your silly strawmen:

Laptops for the most part are put together from standardized parts and you can exchange the major ones (CPU, RAM, storage and often even the displays) from one brand to another and it will work. And if you go to desktop computers the range of parts that can be swapped out between manufacturers increases even further (power supplies, graphics cards, etc).

The 'highly optimized MacBook Pro' is as closed as apple can make it because they are trying to emulate car manufacturers, including 'model years'.

As for OS types, we have a basic common denominator, the boot environment and some abstractions which allow us to run a wide variety of operating systems on the same hardware.

And on that hardware you can run applications, which either talk to the OS directly using a standardized interface and there usually are a number of emulation options and VMs that allow you to run other operating systems and/or their applications, usually with some penalty but for the most part it works.

CNC machines use a lot of standardized tooling (I had a machine shop at some point, founded a CNC machine company, and I think I'm still in touch enough with this domain to be able to do it again if I want to today). Sure, you can't pull a board from one machine and stick it in another, but the G-code they use is for the most part backwards compatible to 1966 or so and it isn't rare at all to see a machine upgraded to the latest controllers and motors but keeping the frame, tooling and such.

Cars are over optimized to the point that the cost to society (in terms of landfill and recycling) is immense, there is most likely a point where a better balance between up front profits and cost to society can be found.

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Aurornis a day ago | parent [-]

I'm sorry, but I'm not being obtuse nor making strawman arguments. I'm trying to explain an industry I'm familiar with. If you're going to start with personal attacks or calling my input "silly" I don't know why I bother, but here goes:

> Laptops for the most part are put together from standardized parts and you can exchange the major ones (CPU, RAM, storage and often even the displays) from one brand to another and it will work. And if you go to desktop computers the range of parts that can be swapped out between manufacturers increases even further (power supplies, graphics cards, etc).

You cannot swap CPUs between laptops, obviously, unless you get the exact same generation CPU with the same footprint. This fact helps basically nobody. It is true that some laptops are built around the same CPUs from a common vendor, but the same thing happens in cars too!

Major parts like transmissions are shared across many vehicles and vendors. The popular ZF 8HP transmission can be found in cars from Dodge, Audi, Jaguar, BMW, Porsche, Land Rover, Jeep, Volkswagen, and others for example.

This patterns repeats across many major components like Bosch ECUs. Automakers aren’t dumb. They’re not custom making every part for no good reason.

Many of the sensors and small pieces used in cars are generic and interchangeable. They're also available across a range of generic vendors.

Common parts like wheels and tires are standardized with small variations, much like the different RAM speeds in computers. Windshield wipers are generic. Cars take generic fuel and oil.

The point is: There are a lot of shared and common parts in the automative world already. Like your CNC example, there are some common parts where it makes sense, but you can't take the motor controller board out of a Haas and drop it into Mazak. You're familiar with this industry so I think you can see why demanding that all CNC vendors standardize their motor controllers and everything else would be a silly proposition. Likewise, I'm familiar with the automotive world and I'm trying to explain that cars do share a lot of parts already, but demanding that everyone conform to a single set of standards is a silly proposition.

	▲	jacquesm a day ago \| parent [-]
		You say that 'there are not 100's of different engines' -> but there are 100's of different engines, even within the same manufacturer and in spite of the core being the same it is often extremely hard to swap an engine of the same basic geometry because of the different sensors, bolt patterns and so on. It would be trivial to require those bolt patterns to be standardized and for ECUs to be standardized to the point that they could be swapped between vehicles. It is the - in my opinion ridiculous - differentiation that leads to vendor lock-in resulting in the fact that even though the underlying component is supplied by Bosch and it is absolutely identical you still can't move it from one vehicle to another because they spliced a different plug onto it and other lock-in increasing tricks. The automotive world is full of such bullshit and given that there is no need for it (wouldn't it be nice to be able to swap an engine from any brand into any other based on a generic form factor and standardized interface) it is clearly all about protecting the profits. When you go to a VAG garage with an Audi the exact same part from Bosch will be 1.5 times as expensive (as will the mechanic that puts it in) as when you go there with a VW. And if you go there with a Porsche the difference will be even larger. And of course there will be tricks to make sure that the cheap parts don't fit the more expensive model. And that's within what is essentially one company, once you go outside of that your ability to swap parts without access to a machine shop drastically diminishes. That transmission you mention is a great example: you could swap it out in theory, but in practice the manufacturers have made it impossible to do so, parts have their own identity, talk to the ECU using custom protocols and so on.