From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,ac9405996d0dcb7f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit From: Brian May Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Would You Fly an Airplane with a Linux-Based Control System? References: <0UCrFDGa5NAr@eisner.encompasserve.org> Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 09:09:54 +1100 Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.1007 (Gnus v5.10.7) Emacs/21.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:6iGiq4TfCKl5TlLGzVW7YuyDv8o= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii NNTP-Posting-Host: snoopy.microcomaustralia.com.au X-Trace: news.melbourne.pipenetworks.com 1101247773 202.173.153.89 (24 Nov 2004 08:09:33 +1000) X-Complaints-To: abuse@pipenetworks.com X-Abuse-Info: Please forward all headers to enable your complaint to be properly processed. Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news1.optus.net.au!optus!news.mel.connect.com.au!news-south.connect.com.au!news-north.connect.com.au!news.alphalink.com.au!news.melbourne.pipenetworks.com!not-for-mail Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6399 Date: 2004-11-24T09:09:54+11:00 List-Id: >>>>> "Simon" == Simon Wright writes: Simon> bitbucket@invalid-domain-see-sig.nil (Robert Kaiser) Simon> writes: >> Very True. In fact, I think open source even has (or could >> have) an advantage in mission critical applications because of >> the potentially huge number and skill of reviewers. Simon> They have to be competent and -- possibly more difficult -- Simon> motivated! open source doesn't mean unpaid for... If a company really wants an open source solution, they can pay programmers to write and maintain it. They can sell the hardware with the source code to the customer giving the customer the security they can check every line of the code independently for safety if they so desire (and not just take the companies word for it when it says it is "safe"). I doubt this is going to happen though, for a variety of reasons. One such reason is if the customer has access to the source code, presumably they can change it; I doubt the aviation authorities are going to like this... In this country, for instance to get a GPS receiver that is rated for GPS non-precision-approaches, the software *must* be written so that GPS way points cannot be updated accept via approved update. -- Brian May