How funny that this pops up just a few hours after I looked into it again.
It's an exciting product. Even if it has no direct use, I feel better being driven around by an open piece of software that I could in theory inspect and change. Closed-source stuff is just a black box expected to do magic. Doesn't feel good.
The story behind the man is quite interesting as well. When I was 9 he was the guy I got the jailbreaks from that would allow me to install cool tweaks and other non-standard software Apple wouldn't allow on my iPod Touch 3G.
Apart from this, I think this rap [https://youtu.be/9iUvuaChDEg] he published when he was sued by Sony for allowing alternative operating systems to be installed onto the PlayStation 3 demonstrates his attitude quite well (admittedly the self driving situation is more complicated, but what a response to a law suit).
You might guess that I'm still a GeoHot fan. While I'm not sure this will be competitive with commercial systems in the future, I'd love it. Having the world's best self driving system be free for everyone to inspect and use in their cars would be a societal gain similar to that of Linux.
Open Pilot will be the only self driving system retrofittable to older cars (by consumers themselves), which is already very cool (it's just unfortunate that none of the cars are old enough for me to consider buying).
I wish them the best of luck (and may they get the tests to a level at which everyone is happy with them).