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Comment by petee | Hacker News Reader

Haha, that's surprising though, since these are important systems, if there is an update, doesn't it mean something really needs to fixed, i.e, gps rollover? Any bug left unpatched seems unacceptable

Maybe I have more faith in the 'system' than I should...

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Sometimes, perversely, important systems are the _least_ likely to be updated. Operators require extensive testing before widespread application of the updates, which takes time.

We're talking about the same manufacturer that's responsible for the 737 MAX fiasco. I'm not sure how much trust I would want to place in their software.

You're putting trust in their software whether you upgrade it or not.

You forget that Boeing doesn't own these planes. These aren't Tesla's. We are currently in an era were it seems to be expected that the manufacturer automatically update their software without the end user intervention, ie Tesla, Windows, Apple, etc... Thats not how it was done in the past, particularly when the bandwidth didn't exist.

I don't see how this changes what I wrote.

Not necessarily.

Different components could be made different companies. While flight controls and handling fly-by-wire could have been Boeing, the FMS could be (e.g.) Honeywell, GE.

The FMS, AFCS ("autopilot"), and (primary) FCS are three distinct systems per ATA iSpec 2200:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATA_Spec_100/iSpec_2200

Things can be more blurred with fly-by-wire, but can still be conceptually separate.

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