At 07:27 18 November 2012, Roel Baardman wrote:
Its amazing how some folks feel its necessary to attack a company that
has
done, and continues to do, a huge service to the worldwide glider
community.

I sincerely hope you and everybody else, including Flarm, get that these
requests are made in (what we think is) the best interest of safety. I
like
Flarm, but I see some room for improvement. So in
the end, I would like to see if I can make Flarm get even better. I am
sincerely worried about what happens when multiple pilots crash in the
USA.
Also, perhaps I can help improve the format, thus giving the Flarm team
time to work on features which are beyond my knowledge.

Also, I feel I'm not asking much. I think I've figured out the LFLA
format
a bit, but I would need some small details to decode it. Raw code, from
for
example tiny snippets of flarm firmware or the
php range checker on their website would be more than sufficient I think.
This sounds like 5 minutes of work to me.

Using the "and what have you done for safety?" Argument is a bit odd I
think, as this assumes that only (commercially?) released work matters.
I,
for example, have done a Msc thesis on wireless
networking between airborne gliders, also with safety in mind. Does not
ever commercially releasing my work give me no right to comment on
aspects
of Flarm? Others have way more experience
in programming, testing and using glide computer software. Should they
have
shifted their focus to safety in order to critisize others? I think not,
and to me it kind of sounds like an instructor is
telling a solo pilot "what do you know?".

For crying out loud, just get some smart kid at MIT to reverse engineer the
damm thing and have done with it.