They'd lose the ability to differentiate themselves (only on this specific criteria, but definitely affects overall competitiveness), thus having to compete more on price, which is great for customers but bad for companies.
I used to work for an airline as a software engineer (different from a company that makes airplanes, but you brought up airlines, so I think it's valid).
We definitely attempted to write the best code as we could given the circumstances, but we had issues doing so:
* airline margins are razor thin, so salaries are comparatively low, which means
* the best employees frequently left for other opportunities, causing
* management to institute an over-reliance on process and tech debt from poor engineers to build up like crazy, and then
* management's priority was always "keep the lights on" rather than repay any tech debt or start new ventures.
Eventually we were working on an unmaintainable codebase, spending way too long to ship each feature, and the situation was not improving.
It was not a wonderful environment to work in (hence my departure).
> * airline margins are razor thin, so salaries are comparatively low
Excluding executive pay, of course. Oh and excluding stock buybacks (which increases shareholder value, consequently greatly increasing the value of executive compensation).
Razor thin margins which result in $200 million (give or take) in quarterly profits are not exactly sad stories.
In summary, the non-executive employees are paid as little as possible to keep the company operating. And by operating, I mean that the bottom line/shareholder value is all that matters. Safety is really just a bottom line consideration. If an accident or two happens, and an eventual death payout is made, as long as the bottom line is not greatly affected, there will be no change in corporate behavior with respect to paying people properly and not cutting corners.
Arguments like this are absurdity taken to the max. Any executive's pay is a tiny tiny fraction compared to the combined salary of all the employees. Even if you set that salary to zero and divided it up all equally to all the employees (fractionally, so those who already make more get a bigger cut) the engineers would only get a couple dollars extra.
Secondly stock buybacks are similarly tiny compared to how much money a company actually has to give to its employees. Run the calculation some time. You need to be looking at revenues, not profits.
> I used to work for an airline as a software engineer (different from a company that makes airplanes, but you brought up airlines, so I think it's valid).
Airframe software is a totally different ballgame than airline operations management software.
When I worked on the 757 on flight critical systems (stab trim) the engineers I worked with took great pride in making the designs as good as possible. Nobody wanted to sign off on a design that they'd get a phone call on years later as being the cause of a pile of dead bodies.
I personally am proud that none of the stuff I worked on or any of the guys I knew worked on has been a factor in any incidents I've ever heard of.
We're talking about open sourcing, not ripping off copyrighted code.
Would depend on licensing but in any event, once you start showing how the sausage is made others can find inspiration to develop their own code, at which point you can start getting into a costly legal battle over whose idea it originally was, whether certain algorithms are protected, etc...
My point is simply that there's no upside for Boeing to open source their code.
You've got that backwards. There is no downside. Software does not an airplane make, even though there are now attempts to use software to fix airplane design issues.
You wrote 'Airbus' as though Boeings R&D in their software would somehow magically translate into an advantage for Airbus. But Airbus should also open source their code, and for exactly the same reason. In fact Airplane certification institutions such as the FAA and counterparts could easily mandate the open sourcing of every last bit of software to create a level playing field.
But Airbus has been doing the computer aided flight longer than Boeing so mabe it would be more push back from airbus to not give Boeing any free code?
The whole idea that you could not open source it with such restrictions that a competitor could not use the code is so strange. It is perfectly possible to open source code in such a way that you can't use it for free in your own commercial product without a license.
The whole idea that by open sourcing you will automatically turn their code into code that maximizes social prosperity (safer? cheaper planes? doubtful) is so strange.
