Spot on, Joe. The difference between creating software (Linux for example) and an airliner is the barrier to entry for "participants".
The risk for Linus Torvalds was his time or rather passing up the opportunity to do something else with it. The risk for an open source manufacturer to propose a new wing design would be in the tens, if not hundreds, or millions of dollars.
Torvalds' work, stunning as it was, had no warranty attached to it, which is the case for open source software. I might be very willing to risk a couple of days and some CPU cycles on an interesting piece of open source software, but I'm not risking my life flying in something where no one entity has legal responsibility for its design and manufacture.
Open source brings a wealth of creativity and function that most of us, myself included, could never hope to produce on our own or afford to buy. But it always comes with the inherent risk that if something goes wrong, you're dependent upon the kindness, of which there is much, of others or your own potentially inadequate resources to fix it.
At 35,000 feet, I'd rather not have to post to a mailing list if the wing looks like it's going to come off.
Not sure who the vested interests are, but the FAA sort of likes to know who's building things and who's accountable for them, particularly when hundreds of live are at stakes.
Open Source software is rarely used, without exhaustive, proprietary testing in life-safety applications. At least not by responsible practitioners.
Spot on, Joe. The difference between creating software (Linux for example) and an airliner is the barrier to entry for "participants".
The risk for Linus Torvalds was his time or rather passing up the opportunity to do something else with it. The risk for an open source manufacturer to propose a new wing design would be in the tens, if not hundreds, or millions of dollars.
Torvalds' work, stunning as it was, had no warranty attached to it, which is the case for open source software. I might be very willing to risk a couple of days and some CPU cycles on an interesting piece of open source software, but I'm not risking my life flying in something where no one entity has legal responsibility for its design and manufacture.
Open source brings a wealth of creativity and function that most of us, myself included, could never hope to produce on our own or afford to buy. But it always comes with the inherent risk that if something goes wrong, you're dependent upon the kindness, of which there is much, of others or your own potentially inadequate resources to fix it.
At 35,000 feet, I'd rather not have to post to a mailing list if the wing looks like it's going to come off.