Embedded Open Source Summit 2023

Traditionally, safety-critical flight software used in aerospace is closed, proprietary code from a handful of commercial vendors. Although open-source software could provide several benefits, there are significant hurdles that prevent widespread adoption. First, we list some of the potential benefits of open source for safety-critical aerospace applications. Second, we present an overview of the key concepts and standards for flight software. Third, we identify the objections and concerns for using Linux as the avionics real-time operating system, which is software that generally needs the highest levels of assurance. For each objection, we suggest a possible path forward to address the concern.