Open Source Satellite Control

Posted by michael on Friday September 6, 2002 @02:09PM from the many-hands-make-light-work dept.

Debra writes "Have you ever wondered how you harness a satellite control system written in three languages, on four development platforms, and deployed to multiple client environments? With open source, naturally. When one wrong move can cost millions, you must rely on teamwork, smart design, and open standards to keep the project -- if not the satellite -- from going down in flames. This article covers software engineering basics, taking advantage of outside solutions, and scripting multi-million-dollar manuvers."

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Reliability? by delta407 · 2002-09-06 14:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

Open source software is plenty stable -- when it's mature. But, when "one wrong move can cost you millions", can you afford a kernel oops because someone forgot a \n?

See, in this case, the nice part about commercial software is that you have someone to blame, and you at least stand a chance in court (IANAL, but it would be under contract law), so you have an opportunity to recoup your losses. In this case, an "oh yeah, fixed in CVS" isn't good enough.