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Software Glitches Cause Airport Delays in Britain 194

Posted by michael from the abort-retry-ignore dept.
bnoise writes "There has been air traffic delays of up to 6 hours today above UK (and this includes north atlantic flights). A BBC News article points out the reasons: a software upgrade. Another article gives more general information about the delays. Companies pin-pointed are IBM (initial development) and Lockheed Martin. If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry... By the way, is there any Open Source project in the aviation sector? A search on Freshmeat gives back 5 projects."
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Software Glitches Cause Airport Delays in Britain More

Software Glitches Cause Airport Delays in Britain

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  • Better to have airport delays than airplane crashes :/

  • Interesting news but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Marx_Mrvelous ( 532372 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:28PM (#3537775) Homepage
    I seriously doubt that open source is the solution to this problem. Honestly, there are glitches in OS projects, too, that get by review. I don't like this spin put on this story... OS is *not* the holy grail of software development!

    Oh well, time to burn some karma for a neede rant ;)
    • And if this had been developed open source, how many contributors would there have been? This kind of software is more like an internal development project for an organization, albeit outsourced, than it is like a general release application. The companies developing this gain none of the benefits of open source development (wide expertise available to the project, many eyes to review, etc) whilst giving up all of their development effort to their competitors bidding for the next, similar, project for some other country.

      • Re:Interesting news but... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dthable ( 163749 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:42PM (#3537896) Journal
        I think someone needs to step out of the glass box. This comment wasn't written by anyone with any amount of development experience. The number of programmers working on a system still don't solve all of the problems. The root cause of this defect isn't listed. If it is a code mistake, then it might have been caught by a different group of developers. What if the defect cause wasn't a mistake, but a lack of understanding about the requirements? External system feed was incorrect? Does your open source model prevent this? I could take the best programmers in the world and give them incorrect requirements and guess what? You'll get incorrect software. I guess then you'll be touting the benefit of closed source then.
        • Open source programming may not result in fewer bugs - but they do get fixed quicker. If the program requirements are incorrect that's the customer's fault - it's not up to the programmers to change what they're asked to do!
          • Open source programming may not result in fewer bugs - but they do get fixed quicker
            Data??

            If the program requirements are incorrect that's the customer's fault - it's not up to the programmers to change what they're asked to do!
            On any medium-large sized project, requirements are usually set by a project lead and program management, not customers. It usually is the programmer--er, usually developer/designer today--who helps refine, subtract from, and add to the requirements. The customer just wants a way to do something--it's rarely his/her fault that the resultant design is incorrect. That isn't to say there aren't exceptions to this.

          • Open source programming may not result in fewer bugs - but they do get fixed quicker

            You need look no further then Slashdot to know that your statment is not always true.

            Just have a look at how long it took the guys here to fix all of the page widening bugs up, what was it again? 6 months?

            ...and all they have to do is some simple string filtering....

    • Re:Interesting news but... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Psiren ( 6145 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:38PM (#3537856)
      Agreed. Software that runs air traffic control, and airplanes themselves, not to mention other saftey-critical roles, needs a lot of careful coding. A lot of money is spent on software like this.

      And what use would open sourcing it be? Granted, there may be the opportunity to look through the code, but how many home hackers have a spare 747 sitting in the backyward to test their changes on? The whole idea of open source is to a allow contributed development. I fail to see how that would help in this situation.

      Who is going to be motivated to work on software that they can probably never run themselves?
      • Don't forget the insurance side of the equation...

        What do you think would happen to the insurance if you life-critical programs aren't made by a corporation, but by a team of individuals. Something goes wrong, who do you point your finger at???
      • Who is going to be motivated to work on software that they can probably never run themselves?

        But they could install Linux on the air traffic control system, run TuxRacer in the 1337 round green screen radar display and tell slashdot all about it.
    • Sorry to make this sound "Katz"-ish, but try and follow.
      You make an air-traffic control program open source. An airport decides to use it. A quality hacker, yet terrorist, jumps into the project (honestly, how difficult is it to get into an Open Source project? I haven't heard of one needing a background check). His code is quality for a long time and gets put into the program. He becomes a trusted member. He pulls a "DirectTV" hack (pieces of code, in several different packages that work once the package is complete) that causes many deaths.

      Yes, this could happen in the software company that creates the software now, but it would be a lot easier for a terrorist to get into an open source project...

      Just another example/reason that Open Source isn't the answer for everything (don't get me wrong, I'm an open source advocate myself, I just know some of its limits).


    • Not only that but i dont know i woudl want every possible terrorists in the world reviewing airport database structure, and air controll software protocols. Somethings need to be available for classified eyes only. To be quite honest the OS spin put on this story is reminisent of some 15 yo wanna be code monkey desperate to have an educated opnion.
    • Speaking from exeperience working in the industry open source is in NO WAY RIGHT. First of all the facilties to test these thing are hella expensive. You need a complete mock up and simulators. Secondly you need a FAA clearence and speciall FAA training meetings. These also cost money. Third you need to be close to the expensive lab so you can test. 4th you need a ton of configuration managment people. 5th you need to have very tight code reviews, and security consideration.
  • You'd think software that provides such critical service would be thoroughly tested.
    • Unless you've completely and absolutely modelled the exact same environment 100% (not 99.9%, not 99.9999%, but 100%), then there is always an element of risk. Recreating a whole ATC system is likely prohibitely expensive, but on top of that you need to model the existing system and the interactions that are happening to it, and that can be very difficult.

      I guess the point is that it's easier said than done. Many best plans were waylaid by the tiniest difference between assumptions and the implementation environment. ATC should be a level above, of course, but it looks like the tiny element of risk caught them.
  • If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry

    Post all your "WTF is that supposed to mean" comments here! :-)

  • If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    Yeah, of course, there is never _any_ problems at all that can occurs when using free software.

    My score for this "news": -1, troll.

    • Absolutely! Hell, Linux can't detect the sound card in my laptop(made by one of the biggest companies in the world, that has put a lot of money into Linux - oh, and BTW, Alan Cox owns one of the self same models). So pardon me if I don't accept it as theNirvana of the computing world. I still lov eit as an idea - and I'm close yo getting some OpenBSD into produciton in my company - but you know, this story deserves more that just some rant about open/free software.

      The problems in the UK air traffic control, are, to my mind, general problems associated with any project of this enormous scale. Before West Drayton was transferred to Swannick, it was already handling more flights than Swannick had been designed for - so it's no surprise to me that they stillhave problems.

      Oh, and the reaon for the delay is not that there is any risk to passengers; when the sstems fail they go back to pieces of paper, and all works safely - just slowly!

  • What would they use? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Joseph Vigneau ( 514 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:31PM (#3537791)
    If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry.

    Then they'd have to waste their time arguing the merits of gairport versus kairport...

    Remember kids- "Open Source" apps have glitches, too...

  • I'm a big Free Software fan but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evilpenguin ( 18720 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:31PM (#3537794)
    Open Source isn't a magic bullet for this kind of thing. Software Engineering is the solution to this kind of thing, and no one has a monopoly on that. The amount of crap code in the Open Source world and proprietary world is, in my experience, roughly equal. (Actually, I think there is a bit more crap code in Open Source, but it doesn't get used much). The difference is that with Open Source/Free Software you know what you are getting and with closed/proprietary you don't.
    • But since this is a custom development, not a shrinkwrap, the customers almost certainly do have access to source.

      This is a testing problem : the new terminal software has generated server traffic of a volume that wasn't expected. Might be a terminal software bug, might be a system design problem, might be a capacity thing that they weren't expecting.

      Either way, adequate testing would probably have avoidede it - but testing big client-server systems is pretty difficult, as the live system is often the only viable test platform. Credit to the ATC people that they were able to back off the upgrade and continue to run at night-time loading : better than the crash-and-burn that failed upgrades more often cause.
    • it sounds to me like the project management was the real fault here. IBM obviously didn't want to be associated with it way back in '94, they *sold* it... and from the description, they were in the position of making something prespecified, not consulting on the project. seems like somebody realized that they weren't making the right thing.

      i think it's more than just a software engineering issue - it really appears that they couldn't define their problem space adequately, everything points to a basic misunderstanding of what needed to be done. monumental botch. this is the sort of thing i expect from the US government. ;-)
  • > If only they were using Open Source Software
    > in the aviation industry...

    Then what? They'd never have to upgrade? Yeah, never upgrading is something OSS users are well known for.

  • Freshmeat? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by QuodEratDemonstratum ( 569501 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:31PM (#3537799) Homepage
    Pardon? There's a world of difference between
    • A flight planning tool for pilots
    • Perl module for processing aviation weather reports.
    • Parses FAA weather briefs into individual NOTAMs/METARs/PIREPs/TAFs/etc.
    • Local weather data accumulation for Web sites
    • A Linux port of the X-Plane flight simulator.
    and an ATC system for trans-atlantic airspace.

    I think we're being trolled!

  • This is one news story that's worth looking at.

    I really like the little photo captioned "Skies in UK Becoming Increasingly Crowded" that shows about five jets at the same time!

    I can't believe that's a real picture. If its, they're begging for some collisions RSN.

    • Think that's bad? Drive past heathrow airport at night and you can see a line of 6 or 7 airborne jets heading towards the runway....


      • Drive past heathrow airport at night

        I won't take you up on that dare:)

        Last time I was at Heathrow I bumbled in on a redeye from JFK, where I did the standby thing for 12+ hours in the comfort of an airport waiting lounge.

        I counted it a great success to lug heavy luggage on the underground to King's Cross.

    • Heh. Well, at least the planes are flying in opposite directions from one another. And since they're at different alts, I suppose they might miss each other's tail winds.

      So, I say, GOOD JOB!

    • Re:Look at the Story! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Contact ( 109819 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:53PM (#3537994)
      That's definitely photoshopped. The other responder states that you can see planes queuing at Heathrow (London's main airport) which is true, but these are queued behnd each other, usually at least 2-3 minutes apart.

      I've worked at Heathrow (Concorde taking off about fifty yards away is impressive, but it's very weird as it's completely silent - the soundproofing in those buildings is astoundingly good) and although the skies are getting a little cramped, a picture like the one that adorns this story would give most air traffic controllers a heart attack.

      I'm a little disappointed in the BBC. Photoshopping composites to illustrate a news story is quite common, but this particular picture could easily be perceived by naive readers as genuine - I think this is straying dangerously near to FUD.
      • Actually, if you hold you mouse over it for a second, the alt text of "Photomontage" comes up. Still, they should have made it more obvious.

        Story with pic, BTW, is here http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1993000 / 993586.stm [bbc.co.uk]
      • but these are queued behnd each other, usually at least 2-3 minutes apart

        No, dear, not at Heathrow, it's 90 seconds max usually. Just sit there with a watch and count them. Or listen in on the radio.

        If there's a 3 minute gap it's because they've lost one.

        • Sat in my hotel room last night in Central London (on the flight path but not looking towards Heathrow), I could see 3-5 Heathrow bound aircraft at any one time.

          Heathrow claims to be the busiest airport in the world (and if you look at landings compared to capacity, they're probably right - airports such as JFK have a lot more termini and runways). Also remember that London has 4 other airports, serving domestic and overseas travel.

          The combined weight of traffic of this, together with a 50% loss of ATC capacity, easily explains why my flight home this evening was delayed 4 hours, and when I got to the airport, some were already sitting at 6+ hours.

  • This may not be the place for OSS... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PoiBoy ( 525770 ) <brian.poiholdings@com> on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:32PM (#3537808) Homepage
    As much as I enjoy using open-source software for many things, I would prefer to fly knowing that the software controlling air traffic was produced by a small number of companies. First, something as critical as air traffic control is probably best developed by very knowledgeable experts with extensive backgrounds in air safety. While many (most) OSS contributors are great programmers, I doubt if many truly understand the needs of air traffic control. Secondly, as many companies and PHB's say about OSS, if someone in my family were in an airplane that crashed due to air traffic problems, I would like to hold someone liable if there was a software glitch that should have been found and fixed before being deployed. Of course, mistakes happen and we shouldn't look to sue everytime one occurs, I'd still feel safer knowing that if there were gross negligence I would have some legal recourse.

    • You're missing the point of using OSS in this arena. The issue here is not one of open sourced ATC software, or typical OSS developers creating ATC software (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, judging by the quality of many OSS pieces). It's one of the tools of the trade being OSS.

      The risk of any glitches that may arise as the result of using OSS as the core building blocks of any mission-critical/life-encapsulating project such as ATC may actually be less than the closed source arena. We've got hundreds of examples where errors in OSS are fixed correctly in a more timely manner than many of their closed source counterparts.

      As to the legal liabilities, those rest squarely on the shoulders of the developers of the ATC code, not on the tool creators. The ATC developers, were they to find a heretofore unseen bug in some OSS tool, are in a position to fix it and/or report it to the package maintainers. This would help avoid those nasty little workarounds that lead to nasty code that much harder to maintain/certify.

      • Hmm - the problem was correctly fixed the same day. I think that that was pretty timely, and wouldn't have been accelerated by use of OSS methodologies.

        This isn't "sweep it under the carpet and hope no-one notices" in the way that Windows/IE bugs have been. I would have thought the fact that the eyes of many thousand passengers (and the additional cost involved), plus headlines on all the UK news media all day made that scenario unlikely.

        Performance-impacting ATC bugs get fixed as quickly as it is possible to fix them.

    • I agree. Scrutinizability (is that a word?) of code is great for cryptographic systems, but for air traffic control, the key is testing, testing, testing. I was a programmer on an air traffic control project for three years (before getting into games development). It was amazing just how rigorous the testing process was for the software I was working on. (To be fair, it was also amazing just how many bugs still managed to slip through the cracks in the various stages of testing).
      I wonder whether Open Source development could guarantee the same amount and quality of testing.
      Have there been any large Open Source projects where the end application was safety-critical?
    • on the other hand, it would be cool if the company that developed it put the source out there for public review so that the software engineering-savvy among us could go, "holy fuck! you're going to direct our air traffic with this? there's a potential buffer overflow on line 1293 of file xxxx.cpp."

      after all, i assume that when a government puts out that kind of cash for custom software that they get the source along with it. that makes it public property right? release it to the public then.
    • I would prefer to fly knowing that the software controlling air traffic was produced by a small number of companies. ... I would like to hold someone liable if there was a software glitch that should have been found and fixed before being deployed.

      I'd just like to respond to the myriad posts that seem to assume that open source development is only done by part-time programmers in their basement who post version 0.0.2 of their foobarnator to Freshmeat. We're talking about about a billion-dollar project to develop software for one country's air traffic control center. Is it so hard to imagine that countries could collaborate on the development of this kind of software? At some point, a plane from the UK will be handed off to French ATC. I'd feel safer knowing that the billion dollars spent on development had gone to world-class programmers, rather than to regional pork barrel.

      The "who do you sue" argument is rubbish. Until software engineering lives up to its name, open source development can be considered no worse than the rest of the industry. EULAs on shrink-wrap software and contracts for custom software inevitably disclaim any warranties. If you're an important customer, you can expect a bug fix, but you can't sue for damages.

  • Of the five projects referred to in the post, one is a "flight planning tool" (whatever that is), three collect weather data, and one is a Linus port of a flight simulator. None of them are air traffic control projects.

  • Considering that it has become an example of 'How not to implement a large and complicated computer project'

    Years off schedule, millions over budget. Hang on, sounds like a government project!

    • as much as people like to bitch about government projects, consider this. . . how many private companies take on engineering projects of a size comparable to the things that governments are tasked with? maybe someone like bechtel can handle such things well, but there really aren't many who can.

  • There are flight control/traffic control projects in open source..

    Anybody who has caught transport to LA and flew out did so on open source traffic control all the way from the train transport to flying out..

    the software runs on Linux currently....

    There awas even an article in several linux magazines..

  • I'm just checking the BAA [baa.co.uk] (British Airport Authority as was). My my flight home from work is due to take off in 2 hours, but looks like it will be delayed by at least 2 more hours. Ah well, the joys of being a roving consultant.

    At least I have photos [popey.com] of [popey.com] my [popey.com] wife [popey.com] to remind me what she looks like.

    And no, trains are no good either! :-(
  • If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    Oh, come on, just because we live and breathe open source software, doesnt mean that it wouldnt be bug free. Advocation is one thing, zealotry is nother. GEEZ!

  • SNAFU (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cally ( 10873 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:38PM (#3537854) Homepage
    It's situation normal for the UK. I can't remember a public-sector IT project that hasn't run hugely over budget, over schedule, and most of them are eventually abandoned. Tony Collins (writer for Compuer Weekly) has written books on the subject. And yet still we carry on repeating the same stupid PHB-driven mistakes as last year. Afterward there's an enquiry by the National Audit Office, various private sector companies are scapegoated, and yet are welcomed back with open arms when they tender for the next mega-project. NATS (national air-traffic control system) is already a disaster of this type - wildly over budget and > 5 years late (IIRC). Yes folks, FIVE YEARS LATE. Actually the chief villains are EDS, Anders - uh - Indenture, Cap Gemini et al. Having worked at Logica for a while (a similar "IT Services" house) I have to say I would never go back to such an organistation... nowhere is mediocrity, political manouvering, lack of technical knowledge, and being told what to do by one's suppliers so exalted as in public sector IT projects. Of course Blair are just starting to fawn over Microsoft (having been granted an audience by Bill Gates: the notion of there being some sort of backlash or alternative to Microsoft doesn't seem to have crossed their minds.

    Sigh. And tax just went up 1%, allegedly to fund the health service, but if they just stopped pissing away hundreds of millions per project on stupid obvious mistakes they'd have MORE than enough to fund education, health, law & order etc.

  • That's the last time they use VBScript for their systems then.

  • So you're at 30000 feet, browsing the source (Score:3, Funny)

    by vkg ( 158234 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:39PM (#3537863) Homepage
    for the air traffic control system for the airport you're about to land at.... and you notice a bug.... or a long jump... :-)

    Perhaps there are some things it's better not to know!
  • I don't understand the OSS statement. People don't (usually) die if linux crashes, but people can die if airport or plane software goes down. I personally feel much better knowing that air traffic control software and plane software was written by a company that got paid to do it, and that can be held accountable if something goes wrong. The thought of risking my life on software that was developed in someone's spare time makes me shudder. The problem in this article is the exception, not the rule, for aviation related software which is usually very well tested and debugged.

    • I couldn't agree more...

      Ever try to get the Debian group to commit to a date for anything? They're practically indignant about putting out software when they feel like it, and if you don't like that you should go elsewhere. Yeah, I want folks like that backing my mission critical systems (I'm just using the Debian group as an example. There are other development groups out there who have a similar attitude toward release schedules and updates)...

      When the OSS world grows up I'll trust them with my flights. Until then, they can make editors and MP3 players all they want and I'll be perfectly happy...
  • ...how, precisely, would this solve the problem?

    I'm sure, if it progressed anything at all like Mozilla, we'd get a production-quality air traffic control system in, oh, 50 years. Meanwhile, I would have to walk to Australia.

    - A.P.

  • What it is... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 1984 ( 56406 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:43PM (#3537904)
    They're talking about a couple of things. Southern UK mainland general air traffic (excluding TMAs of airports etc.) was handled a centre at West Drayton. This was exceptionally long in the tooth, generating lots of fun stories about forty year-old computers etc.

    They decided a while back to replace West Drayton, and built "the world's most advanced" air traffic control centre, at Swanwick. Many years after it was due, Swanwick opened for business recently.

    Of course the didn't just switch over and shut down West Drayton. To the press, West Drayton was a "backup". In fact it was (is) handling a bunch of movements. And a couple of months back, they had a large system crash. This was, as usual, sold as "problems with old computers" playing up. From inside NATS (National Air Traffic Service) one hears a different story: something about sysadmin (if you will) error knocking the thing over.

    But Swanick is late and expensive. At heart, it's an IT project, after all...
  • I know this is slashdot and very heavily biased in the direction of open source, but come on.... Why the constant barage of completely non-sensical comments about how open source would/could save the day where another closed source solution failed. This seems like a perfect example of where open source has little if no place. I completely agree when the problem domain contains something that open source developers have at home. But when was the last time you went to a friends house and checked out his new air traffic control tower?
    And furthermore somebody point me out an open source project as complex as an air traffic control program that has had no bugs? While you do get the advantage of peer review of code if it's open source, there are always bugs. And honestly... if somebody posted on freshmeat or slashdot about their new beta air traffic control program, how many of you would do a full code audit? It's not exactly a sexy project or something you could use at home...

  • Mistake #1 was a bad assumption (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Art Popp ( 29075 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:45PM (#3537914)
    From the article:
    "But software is advancing at a tremendous pace, so it becomes obsolete every 18 months."

    Um, no, it's hardware that doubles in speed every 18 months. The approval rate for new aircraft technologies (at least in the states) is unbearably slow. This is clearly a weak excuse for the correctly identified problem:

    "The basic stumbling block was not to get off-the-shelf components and software"

    Maturity couldn't be a more critical issue to this kind of software. Where half a day's downtime can cause inconvenience to 10% of the population of your island, and ignoring a problem can get people killed, you need a proven winner. Software for managing the traffic over the UK should not even have been considered unless it had been proven for years of service controlling airspace over something noticably less crowded than one of the hubs of global trade.
  • Last time I was at Heathrow (not Swanick) there was an NT Blue Screen of Death on one of the arrival/departure monitors. There's reliable computing for you.
  • OpenSource Voluntary labor projects are all fine and dandy when the projects are small or at least incremental and there are enough interested parties that can work on it for free. But why would a bunch of geeks want to implement an air traffic control system just for fun? It's not like we all have our own back yard air traffic control problems we are trying to solve.

    My gut instinct is that this would be a large system, that would need a Software Requirements Document, and some amount of an acual software engineering process in order to be successful.

    And if OpenSource means the "Operating System", how do you know they aren't using Linux already?

  • I know what happened... (Score:3, Funny)

    by thrillbert ( 146343 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:52PM (#3537975) Homepage
    After the upgrade from Win2k to XP, someone forgot to turn off the 'Auto Update' feature. The systems last night decided to download and install the IE rollup patch and now their IE can't run the AirPorter.v1.jar.

    The bright side of the story is that the air traffic controllers will no longer be able to have their AOL instant messenger open due to compatability issues, which makes sure their focus will be on the planes flying about.

    ---
    Don't piss me off or I'll write a shell script to do your job..

  • Ludicrous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dmccarty ( 152630 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @12:53PM (#3537997)
    Headline example:
    bnois writes, "The California Highway Patrol has been reporting that during rush hour today several large bridges in San Francisco, including the Golden Gate Bridge, have had sections collapse, sending cars and trucks hurtling to their demise below." If only some qualified engineers had drawn up the plans in their free time and let the general public view them first for errors. Does anyone know of some plans like that on Fresharch?

    Linux is a great example of the open-source mindset at work. And there are other great examples of open source projects that work. But the idea that Open Source is the cure-all for all projects big and small is ludicrous. Whoever wrote "If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry" has obviously never been involved in a 100-person project that spanned years and was responsible for critical operations.

    Declaring Open Source to be a cure for all ills is like treating every disease with the same pill. It just doesn't work that way. Open Source software is great when people can unite for a common cause (usually against a common competitor, which Microsoft convienently happens to be) and produce a good product. But thre's no evidence that an Open Source project would have worked where this upgrade failed.

    Closed source might not be your model of choice, but it solves the same problem. Software engineers writing code which is never released to the public don't do their jobs any worse because of it. You might think that the purity of the code is flawed by company management bent on releasing buggy products for profit, but the open source alternative is a Mozillian, buggy product that is years behind schedule and never quite ready. Don't assume that just because a model you don't like has a failure the model that you do like would have worked.

  • If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    Since they used commercial (aka. evil) software, they were able to pass the blame to an entity other than themselves. Maybe they are trying to publicly state that they did nothing wrong (other than choose IBM). The airport was 100% overbudget so it would make sense to pass on the blame whenever possible.

    If they had chosen oss, it doesn't mean that this so called technical glitch wouldn't have happened. No software is bug free.

    Now they can bitch at Lockheed and perhaps get it fixed fast. If it was oss software, I doubt you would be guaranteed to get a team dedicated to fix a problem.

    "Fix wha? I got an exam next week, sorry dudes gotta study."
    - or -
    "I have a big project at my real job. I'll fix it when I get around to it."

  • belgocontrol uses mandrake linux (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    belgian aviation control center

  • Open Source and Software Validation? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by blair1q ( 305137 ) on Friday May 17, 2002 @01:01PM (#3538045) Journal
    The economic value of the open source development model is that directed validation is unnecessary.

    The code is released, and the horde of developers does trial-by-fire validation for you. They run it in real-world usage and report bugs itinerantly for others to fix or sign-off on.

    That's not feasible for programs where using the code means implementing it in an embedded system responsible for safety. The downloaders won't have the hardware to test it on, and putting it in use to test it misses the point of validating it.

    But it's not as though the validation systems in use today are much better. Simulators and debugger-controlled code exercisers create sort of a chicken-and-egg problem. Recursive review decreases the probability of certain kinds of errors, but not to nil.

    --Blair
  • This is why I never use software for mission-critical applications. Software is buggy. It's the truth. It's a law or something. Buggy. Doesn't work.

    Hardware, OTOH, rings true. Hardware will never let you down. It is built for the long haul, and will always be loyal by your side. I'd go to the end of the world with hardware.

    I won't let software walk the dog.

  • OSS would be bad idea! (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I read a few where they say OSS would be a good resolution, but I agree that it is best kept a secret. The Air Traffic System does now run under linux and I know this for I am the one who troubleshoots it. From experience I will have to say that it runs better on Linux then what is was written for. There is a lot of data that flows threw this place and trying to track every little plane is not an easy task. But have no fear as we do have some of the best programmers around making this thing work better. For a system that was written in pascal back in 85, its still holding fairly strong. You try to write something that can track about 8000 fast moving objects in a 3D space.

  • Crap (Score:2)

    by nakhla ( 68363 )
    If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    I hate to say it, but that's a bunch of crap. Do you mean to tell me that in the history of open source software there has NEVER been a release that contained a bug? If that's the case, then why do we have things like Red Carpet? It's software. Bugs happen. That's life. Whether you're talking about closed source or open source, there will always be problems. Unfortunately, the open source community seems to think that they have the answer to all of technology's problems.

  • The UK based trade paper, Computer weekly has been tracking this project for quite some time now..

    Check out the recent article here [cw360.com]
  • One reason is this: the difference between air traffic control software and an open source MP3 encoder or web browser is that anyone can run the latter 2 examples in a real-world situation. I can encode MP3s or browse the web and really put the software through its paces quite easily. I can make changes, compile, then test. I can participate easily in the development process.

    How do you suggest the average coder puts his copy of OpenATC to the test? Start controlling planes from his bedroom? Maybe have all the kids in the neighborhood clear their bicycles and bigwheels for takeoff? I wonder if the testing phase for ATC software is a bigger effort than the actual development.

  • Oh well (Score:2, Informative)

    by rasherbuyer ( 225625 )
    The new system was five years late, and now we're the only country in the world to have privately owned air traffic control.

    Look at our rail network and then tell me that's a good idea.

  • Blah (Score:1)

    by unicron ( 20286 )
    The OS talk on this site is sad. You guys have the innate ability to turn anything into an OS discussion. "Oh, last night I ate that Olive Garden, it wasn't that great." "You should've had the OS breadsticks, man!".."Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?" "Um, uh, fuck Microsoft?!"

  • If airports started using open source software, it would make it that much easier for terrorists to recalibrate the Dulles International ILS beam to 200 feet below sea level.
    • its not really a beam ... radio ;-) but you could monkey with it ...
    • I think you mean to be funny, but you illustrate a common misconception. If terrorists could "recalibrate the ILS beam", opening up the source code isn't necessarily going to make it easier for them to do it. It's going to make it more likely that someone else will see how they might do it and fix the problem. What you describe is the oft-debated security-through-obscurity. Never works.
      On the other hand, Open sourcing air-traffic-control isn't necessarily going to help this situation any. You've got to have a reason to work on an OSS project -- most people aren't going to have any reason to devote the time that's necessary to make something like this work perfectly.
  • If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    Yes, and if only your aunt had balls, then she would be your uncle.

    Seriously, how can you equate any OSS project, even the Linux kernel, so something like an ATC system? OSS is not a magic pill folks.

  • I work for a company that does some of the largest ATC systems in the world (not lockead but a direct competitor). The idea of having an open source solution to ATC is stupid. Every job/country has slightly different needs (up to 50%!). On top of that the requirements phase can take up to 2 years to hammer out. Then the design phase is atleast 4-6 month. while coding really only takes 2-3 month. The testing phase is another year. Its not a job for the fant of heart nor something you can just jump into. It requires a team of 30-40 people (only half coders) to put together systems like this. You really think it would be good to have an open source ATC system? Further more the hardware only is stagering ... 2K X 2K monitors are expensive. Not to mention having to stuff a fully loaded string (70+ machines and displays). so please ... think before you speak OSS is nice but there is still a real need for people that do this work. Give us some credit ... don't say its a cake walk and be done by a group of volunteers until you've actually dont it :)
  • ...I'd be deathly afraid of using 3rh33t hAx0r's open-source software "Find Yo Damn Plane, Foobar! v69.666" if I were ever coding something that would keep track of commercial airplanes.
  • OK, it's offtopic, but I noticed one of the quoted officials is blessed with the name "Butterworth-Hayes".

    One assumes that Miss Hayes insisted on compounding their names so that she would not become MRS. BUTTERWORTH, full of buttery maple-flavored goodness.

    Aiiight, I'll go soak my head now.
  • Welcome to GNU/Air, this is your Captain, Richard Stallman speaking. Our departure from redmond will begin shortly. Please sit back and enjoy the complementary gift basket containing Debain CD's, Marijuana and Freedom Fighting Tux Action Figure. Once again, thank you for flying GNU/Air.
  • IBM? Lockheed!!? Looks like the UK has been bought-out by the corporate machine, and the eGovernment-Hyper-Online-Network-Gateway-Marketing -Bullshit thing has been sourced out to Microsoft. There are plenty of great programmers and companies in the country.
  • Yeah, because when a plane goes down due to a glitch, you can go sue RMS.
  • If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    Because of course, upgrading Open Source software never causes problems. In fact, if they were using Linux, it would be so efficient the passengers would be arriving before they left.

  • Open Source ATC (Score:2, Informative)

    by Reality_X ( 23422 )
    Whilst "If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry..." is stupidity beyond belief, ... there are actually a few open source air traffic control programs available....

    OpenATC [openatc.org]
  • Flightgear [flightgear.org] is an open-source flight sim that kicks ass. Check out some screen shots [flightgear.org] - especially this one [flightgear.org] or download it [flightgear.org].
  • I don't think the open-source activists were trying to say that the ATC software would be bug free if it was open source, i think they were trying to say, that an ATC system should be something the government is incharge of - since it involves stopping large bits of metal hitting civillians its definatly not a project that you should source out to any old company, and especially not a company who will write closed proprietory software, or hires a bunch of lay-abouts who take 6 months off, and write the whole thing in a week. (Ive done projects that way - they are bad). IBM are not exactly faultless (my replacement Deskstar just arrived). The software should be open source since it is probably funded by tax-payers and generally, the population wants to be able to see the code that is keeping them safe everyday, even if they have little input. For all we know with the capitalists outthere, IBM could have been sold to Al'Qaeda.
    • generally, the population wants to be able to see the code that is keeping them safe everyday

      Which population would this be? I fly regularly with people who are easily in the smartest 1% of the population, many of whom are extremely technically literate. And none of them care to see the code. I don't think any of them would have enough industry (note not coding, industry) knowledge to understand it even if they did want to.

      You don't get out much, do you?

      • What i ment, was that saftey organisations and other bodies set up by the people should have access.

        Most people don't understand the law! you need a degree in law before you can even begin to comprehend its complexity, even then there are still laws that you will never use. But it the government decided to source-out law-making to some other company, and decided not to let other people look at it on the grounds that "people might find loop-holes in it to get them out of trouble" then the general public would be pretty pissed off... oh, no wait, they _do_ do that.

        You don't get out much, do you??
        • Funny, I didn't see anything in your reply which suggested that the general population gives a rat's ass about seeing the code. Just a non-relevant non-comparative example. Really, no-one cares. Perhaps they should, but they don't.

  • Open Source (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fizzlewhiff ( 256410 ) <.moc.liamtoh. .ta. .nonnahsffej.> on Friday May 17, 2002 @02:20PM (#3538707) Homepage
    If only they were using Open Source Software in the aviation industry...

    Yeah, I'd like to see how quickly the Open Source community could fix the problem during the opening weekend of Episode II.
  • From the article:

    "But software is advancing at a tremendous pace, so it becomes obsolete every 18 months."

    Um- software is not obsolete if it continues to do the job it was designed to do, in fact it is trusted more if it has been reliable for so long.

    I would feel safer trusting my life to an 8 year old DOS program than to a 6 month old Linux or Windows one.

    The only way I can see an old bespoke package being worse than it used to be is if it had to handle a lot more requests than it used to, since it will probably scale poorly.

    graspee

  • While it's perhaps inappropriate for Air Traffic Control software to be Open Source in the traditional sense of the words; it is very appropriate to open the code for open peer review because:-
    • Our nations' taxes paid for it.
    • Our nations' safety depend on it.
    • Our travellers' time is valuable.
    • The developers need to know that the world is watching their keystrokes,
      so that they are encouraged to press the correct buttons.
    That is why it is correct to open the code to public view.

    This [erlang.org] is the reason you get dialtone reliably when you pick up the 'phone.
    It would work for Air Traffic Control too.

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