On a 4 hour drive today I was thinking about how much of a rip off it seems to pay 3,000-4,000 for a flash of your ECU. While I understand you are paying for the R&D, it still seems kind of excessive.
I was formerly a Web developer and have been programming most of my professional life along with being a data acquisition engineer for some pro race teams. I've always wondered if it would be possible to take an open source approach to ECU upgrades. Right now, buying an APR or O.CT ECU flash seems like spending a lot of money on Microsoft Server 2008 when open-source products like Linux exist for free.
The first argument that I would hear from people working together on ECU code upgrades would be "I would rather have a solid company behind the product than some nerds hacking away at code that is going to blow up my engine.". This sounds like the same argument that many CIOs and Directors of IT get when "going open source" is pitched to save money with companies like Microsoft. 10 years ago, people laughed at the idea of using open source for mission critical systems and now systems like Linux are a much more robust than any Windows server.
Ok, sorry to digress...
Back to my main point. I have heard of some people doing "custom ECU tunes" and I've always wondered what software they use and flash their ECU. It would be logical that with enough "minds" involved with the development of ECU software, that the open source mentality could be used when approaching this problem. Basically, provide technology upgrades and hacks of our systems used from the collective wisdom of many.
Probably the biggest problem would be for someone to trust this code since our engines are almost non-replaceable.
Just an idea and maybe I'm completely full of BS and need to find something else to think about.
Chris