Re: [Axiom-developer] Re: AMS Notices: Open Source Mathematical Software

[M. Edward (Ed) Borasky]

Michel Lavaud wrote:
> > If the plane I'm flying is built based on simulations with commercial
> > mathematical software tools, I surely want them to be the best.
> >   
> If the plane I'm flying is built based on simulations with commercial 
> mathematical software tools, whose accuracy is guaranteed in the usual 
> way, i.e. no guarantee at all except refund for the price of the 
> software whatever consequences and it is forbidden to get the source 
> code to check if it is correct -  then I will for sure take the next 
> plane, if it has been built with free Open Source software :-)

[snip]

I've heard this argument before -- it's fallacious on a number of 
levels, and I don't have time to dig into it right now. But I want to 
remind people that:

1. Aircraft used to be designed with slide rules and mechanical desk 
calculators. The equations involved are "open source" in the sense that 
everyone who is a professional aeronautical engineer learns them in 
college, knows them intimately. What today's computers allow us to do is 
build larger and more complex aviation systems that are more economical 
on fuel.

2. Very few aircraft crashes are caused by design flaws of any kind, and 
even fewer by incorrect software. Human error at the time of the flight 
and sabotage/terrorism/military actions are the two main causes of 
aircraft crashes. The only really blatant example of a design flaw 
causing aircraft crashes I can remember was the DeHavilland Comet. That 
was not a software flaw as far as I know -- I'm not even sure scientific 
computers were available outside of the military when the Comet was 
designed, and they would have been on the scale of a Von Neumann/IAS 
machine, or maybe an IBM 704, if they were.