Originally Posted by
salad-dodger
There’s always someone who bangs on about access to source code in these sort of discussions. Oooh, we’ve secured access to the source code. Great, now what?
Do you have any idea what else is required to maintain this sort of complex software and everything else that is needed beyond the source code to be able to do it?
It is what is often referred to as ‘non-trivial’. The effing understatement to understate all understatements!
Taking on the software is no joke but Huawei bought the source code of my former company some years ago and ..... surprise...... it looks like it was a smart move for them. Maintaining it is similar to any other effort - you have to train people and they have to practice doing it. It's not free of course but it can be done. At the very least you can work out what's going on when you have some problem by reading the code and should you need to reverse engineer it you start from a position where its potentially better than designing a new aircraft.
Most importantly though, if you feel that is all paranoia, you get to fix the bugs that matter to you - that your allies look like they aren't getting around to yet.