my final post on the matter. Flarm has been closed since its inception.
there are 30,000 units installed it works. it's proven. it's trusted. it has done so for more than 12 years. it's saved many, many lives. the purchase cost is acceptable and very reasonable. support is good and it's free. it's available from different sources at different price points. it's a cheap, reliable and a proven form of life insurance for gliding. it's a saturated market (only a few hundred new units needed every year, globally.) just to continue to provide the services that they have done either Flarm have to maintain a control of market share or if they opened it up then they would have to change the model and likely change everyone for annual software updates. simple economics. the "letter" published by mr khun, is spam and refuted by Flarm. nothing has changed, it works as it always has. we have a great solution, at very reasonable cost, why put any of that at risk? > On 8 Mar 2016, at 1:47 PM, Al Borowski <al.borow...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > As an engineering student I independently came up with the concept as > a final year project - then discovered FLARM had beaten me to it a few > years earlier. As part of my research at the time I am confident I > found promotional material where the FLARM protocol would be "released > to the public in the interest of safety". Clearly this policy changed > as adoption increased. > > Frankly - a device that uses a GPS and an all-in-one RF chip to sense > collision risks was within the capability of a single final-year > student a decade ago. I'd imagine it'd be much easier today, with > low-cost sensors, Chinese PCB fabrication etc. There is enough talent > on this list to develop a similar product several times over. > > The idea that a "rogue" device would cause a dangerous situation seems > laughable. Flarm does not used licensed radio frequencies and has to > accept the risk of interference from other devices anyway. One risk > would be if someone makes a competing device by reverse-engineering > the protocol and stuffs it up. This risk is minimised by opening the > protocol in the first place. > > Open protocols brought us things like free email (imagine if each one > cost 5 cents to send!), the Web, and the entire PC clone market. > Ideally the aviation regulators would have championed a simple, cheap, > easy to implement standard before a closed one became a monopoly. > > Best regards, > > Al > > On 08/03/2016, tom.wilk...@internode.on.net > <tom.wilk...@internode.on.net> wrote: >> >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia." >> To:"Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia." >> Cc: >> Sent:Tue, 8 Mar 2016 09:51:44 +1030 >> Subject:Re: [Aus-soaring] Update from Flarm on Unsolicited Email >> Circulation >> >> Mercy sakes. You guys are going to run me out of popcorn soon. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Aus-soaring mailing list >> Aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au >> http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > Aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au > http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring _______________________________________________ Aus-soaring mailing list Aus-soaring@lists.base64.com.au http://lists.base64.com.au/listinfo/aus-soaring
