As another user said, it sounds like this is a NHTSA term:
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2023/RCLRPT-23V838-8276.PDF
Thanks. That sure seems like a lazy and wrongheaded move to call an update a recall, but I don’t know why I expected more competent logic from the US govt.
actionable defects are ‘recalls’. How they are remedied is irrelevant.
That’s not really an accurate definition. A recall is a public call to RETURN a product that is defective. There is nothing being returned with a software update.
It is the terminology required by the NHTSA regulations. Those regulations were obviously written before software updates were relevant to automobile components. The public documentation of defects are ‘recall notices’ by regulation.
Yeah, I get that part, but it doesnt change the fact that using the word for a mandated update is lazy and wrongheaded on the part of the NHTSA. Rather than use a different and more correct word, they are just shoehorning it in and leading people to the wrong conclusion.