Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
larger number of parallel software product development lines will hardly be
able to survive.
A study funded by the EU Commission [22] has identified a potential av-
erage cost reduction of 36% for the corresponding R&D by the use of FLOSS.
As a result, a significantly lower cost of ownership for vehicle operators would
accelerate the ETCS migration on the vehicle side.
3.9
Benefits for the ETCS Manufacturers
The core of the ETCS software functionality defined by UNISIG subset 026,
to be implemented in each EVC, is a published and binding standard require-
ment and therefore not suitable for defining an “Unique Selling Proposition”
(USP).
As a result it makes perfectly sense from the perspective of manufacturers,
to share the development cost and the risk for all R&D of the ETCS core
functionality even with their competitors, often practiced in other industrial
sectors (e.g. automotive).
Involvement of several manufacturers in the development of openETCS
will help to enhance the quality in terms of security and reliability (stability
and safety) of the software, because different design traditions and experi-
ences can easily complement each other.
As a FLOSS-based business model can no longer rely on the sales of the
software as such, the business focus has to be shifted to services around the
software and even other add-on features to the product. That means the
business has to evolve into service contracts for product maintenance (fur-
ther development, performance enhancements and bug fixes). It thereby helps
the ETCS equipment manufacturers to generate a dependable long-term cash
flow, funding software maintenance teams even long after the hardware prod-
uct has been discontinued and to cover long term maintenance obligations
for the product even by third parties, helping to reserves scarce software
development resources for future product R&D.
With respect to the scarcity of well educated software engineers from
Universities, FLOSS has the side effect, that openETCS can and most likely
will become subject to academic research, generating numerous master and
dissertation thesis's and student research projects.
3.10
Benefits for Operators and Vehicle Owners
The use of openETCS is a better protection for the vehicle owner's invest-
ment, because an obsolescence problem on the hardware side does not nec-
essarily mean discontinued software service. Modification of the ETCS ker-
nel can also be developed by independent software producers. This enables
competition on after-sales services and enhancements, because not only the
software sources but also associated software development tools are accessible
to all parties.
