In many minds, the situation is unclear. They do not know who is the actual owner of an open source project and how they can use the project outputs. In Open Source, the ownership is separated from the usage:

• The ownership goes to the project
• Anyone is able to use the content of a project

The situation is clear and prevent unmanageable patchwork of ownership to avoid any blockage. Every one is free to use the software as long as he respects the licence and the software belong to the project (in many case the project is managed by a foundation).

I hope the situation is clear now.

Ben

Commodification, indeed. ATM suffers from fragmentation. Commodification can be a way to create common functional block to bring ATM towards a higher level of features at a cheaper price.

ATM Business is complex. There are as many environments as airspaces. However common features in ATM system can easily be identified (e.g. middle ware, tracker, quality monitoring, communication node and interfaces). Such common features could be shared by users and industries grouped in a community. Only basic parts of the ATM system would be put public. This means that some modules of an ATM system are freely available and others stay private.

We can believe that ATM software will follow the PC hardware evolution: IBM PCs are made of “off the shelf” component. By design it is open for cloning by other manufacturers. As a result PCs are de facto standard and as such compatible with each other. In 2 decades it replaced almost every other platform (minicomputers and mainframes). By the way, PCs are getting more space in ATC centres computer rooms and desktops.

Some may argue that IT market is far from “life in stake business” like ATM or Aircraft  However Boeing has implemented an open source approach on his aircraft design. Before Boeing used to design aircraft completely and to give plans to suppliers. Today, Boeing suppliers start from scratch and deliver complete sub-assembly to Boeing factory. Aicrafts are considered as a giant Lego. Actors intervene in the production according their know-how and expertise. Consequently, it used to take 13 to 17 days to assemble a 777 now it last 3 days to have a 787 in one piece. The 787 program leader said: “That way we get the best ideas from everybody, as opposed to just ours”.

In Open Source working arrangement, basic functional blocks would be available. The starting point of ATM system project would be move towards a higher level of features, expertise and safety compliance. As a result effort available would be put on customer focus solutions with more effort available for safety, rather than technical re-implementation of the existing.

Some may argue that industrial partners will then loose money and do not innovate in such market condition. However this has never been observed in domain where such phenomena occur. As matter of fact, although prices are drove down, efficiency and average wealth levels went up. Vendors still compete on support, services, branding and channels. Circumstances for a win-win situation are therefore put in place.

Ben

Source: Wikinomics

For commercial-closed software, we observe overhead as many companies are working separately on the same functionalities implementation. These companies run as well safety analysis on their own. Time and money is lost on creating several time the same features and checking safety.

Open source projects improve software quality by applying the following statement - “With enough eyeballs, all bugs shallows.”

Multiplication of actors (ANSP, industries, regulators and international organisations) using and so assessing the safety of their software will combine different perspective for the safety analysis. Let me explain, if different actors playing in different fields in ATC  look at a software to prove its safety they will have different perspective (and be interested in different part of the software). By combining these perspectives, their is more chance that the software is fully safety analysed.  This will cross-fertilise and increase the solution level of safety.

These actors assess the safety of the same functional block bringing more information, consequently more safety cases can be built. Sharing of safety analysis content and results reduce the cost of safety. Each software user does not need to run a full safety analysis but can built on top of information given by others.  It will be almost criminal to use it blindly but as content as well as result are shared  adoption is foster and safety cost is driven down. This leads to a situation where the level of safety increases and less money is required.

Proprietary solutions lead to effort fragmentation. Only few people have a complete access to the software. The company releasing the software will provide required evidence of safety compliance, however only people inside the company will have a deep access to the software to test it. Users will be able to test the solution as a black box, where people having access to the source can be tested as a black box of course but also as a white box. Better testing – better safety. Requirements traceability can be observed by user on their own and not only demonstrated by the provider.

In addition, effort available inside a industry company is reduced compared to a whole community working with the software. The company would also benefit from this. Safety will be assess by the user community, leaving more effort available for implementing new feature (safety compliant of course

I strongly believe that safety level can be boost by Open Source and Community working arrangent. At the same time, cost of safety will be driven down because spread on more people.

This is something to think about.

Ben