[FRC Blog] Event Results and API Data

[Rachel Lim]

Originally Posted by Basel A

I'm not sure whether or not open source FMS is a good idea yet. Certainly I think the community would be very on board with helping out. One additional point: wouldn't open-sourcing FMS open FIRST up to 2012-style sabotage?

Originally Posted by Eugene Fang

The best security is achieved when everyone can see the problems and then fix them, not through obfuscation. Security achieved because "no one knows how our internals work" is bad practice.

Although it's not a perfect analogy, this sounds like various Wikipedia debates I've heard. On one hand, letting anyone edit pages leads to incorrect/biased information, sabotaged pages, and edit wars. On the other hand, Wikipedia is one of the largest, easily accessible sources of information--and most of the time other editors fix incorrect information.

Without any relevant experience, my guess on this would be that if FIRST decides to open source it, they open up the possibility that experienced mentors and students are able to help. However, they also open it to the risk that anyone can sabotage it if they like. Of course, there are far worse consequences to this than just a sabotaged Wikipedia page, which FIRST has to consider carefully.