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Software Glitches Cause Airport Delays in Britain

Posted by michael on 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."

5 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Re:This may not be the place for OSS... by abucior · · Score: 2, Informative

    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?

  2. belgocontrol uses mandrake linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    belgian aviation control center

  3. OSS would be bad idea! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    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.

  4. Oh well by rasherbuyer · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  5. Open Source ATC by Reality_X · · Score: 2, Informative

    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