My gut feeling tells me that there should be a mandate that requires all safety software to be open-source and liberally licensed. Safety should be very much part of the commons and we all lose out when this type of software isn't shared freely.
Building high quality safety software and sharing it with all car manufacturers wins way more brownie points in my book than using it as a selling point.
I agree 100% however I think this is probably unlikely to happen. Being safer than another brand makes for great marketing copy and Volvo has been able to rely on that for a very long time. Openly sharing their edge with their competitors doesn't sound like "smart" business. Having said that, they did share their seatbelt design once so maybe....
Someone in this thread mentioned that Volvo let anyone use their patented seat belt design. So there's at least a tiny speck of light in the end of the tunnel :)
Building high quality safety software and sharing it with all car manufacturers wins way more brownie points in my book than using it as a selling point.