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 Path: g2news1.google.com!news4.google.com!newsfeed2.dallas1.level3.net!news.level3.com!newsfeed-00.mathworks.com!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!news-peer0-test!btnet!news-in.ntli.net!newsrout1-win.ntli.net!ntli.net!peer-uk.news.demon.net!kibo.news.demon.net!news.demon.co.uk!demon!not-for-mail From: Simon Wright Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Would You Fly an Airplane with a Linux-Based Control System? Date: 24 Nov 2004 06:07:30 +0000 Organization: Pushface Sender: simon@smaug.pushface.org Message-ID: References: <0UCrFDGa5NAr@eisner.encompasserve.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: pogner.demon.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: news.demon.co.uk 1101276859 692 62.49.19.209 (24 Nov 2004 06:14:19 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@demon.net NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 06:14:19 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.1 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:6408 Date: 2004-11-24T06:07:30+00:00 List-Id: Brian May writes: > >>>>> "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... But (my point was) that if you expect a huge number of reviewers you must pay them in some currency; and giving them something really interesting to review is one approach. > 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. Our prime customer (the UK MoD) usually requires full source disclosure anyway, to that would be nothing new. I don't see that being able to view the source necessarily equates to being able to change a delivered system in the field. You would have thought that some digital signing technique/dongle would be possible -- after all, if a customer wanted to change the firmware he could, with enough physical access. -- Simon Wright 100% Ada, no bugs.