I Understand But

There's a person who has figured out how to enable the tap-up, tap-down shifting in a 11-17 Caprice PPV.

And, by saying "figured out" I'm saying they looked at the wiring diagram in the service manual for either the Pontiac G8 or the PPV 9C3 shifter.

It's a little cryptic because the BCM is looking for a resistance value on a signal wire to send commands to the transmission.

But it's not rocket science.

It just takes some electrical knowledge (that I don't have) to figure the voltages the PCM needs to see for a given shifter input.

Or you need a shifter out of a G8 or 9C3 and a multi-meter to measure what the voltage is on the wires in question.

Make a box with a switch and a resistor that tells the PCM you're in manual shift mode and then momentary switches and different resistors to signal the shifts. 

Then you connect it to an existing line on the PCM, add a line to the PCM and give it a ground.

Viola!

They'd posted a secret squirrel link to a web page with the instructions.

People found it and were sharing it. 

Now he's pissed that people are sharing proprietary information.

First, reverse engineered information is not protected information.

Second, proprietary, but not patented, information is a trade secret and that is dead meat once someone shares it.  It's set up this way to encourage inventors to patent their ideas to preserve them.

His entire business model is based on reverse engineering what GM did and hoping nobody else is smart enough to figure out the circuit.

Oh and printing an enclosure for the switches and assembling a board with the resistors.

In the end he's selling $30 worth of parts for near $150.

But the secret is out. 

PS: I'd have bought one of his boxes already if I could figure out where I want to put it.  the traditional location is next to the existing shifter and I'm using that big flat spot to hold things.