A post made on r/MicrosoftFlightSim is the latest to ignite some controversy in flight simulation circles with a FlyByWire developer accusing iniBuilds of swiping code from their product and putting it in the upcoming A320neo V2 that the company is, together with Microsoft, currently preparing for release in the next release. Here’s what we know.

Code stolen?

A post made earlier today seems to suggest that iniBuilds has taken code from the open source FlyByWire project and incorporated it into their A320neo V2 project. The author of the post, purporting to be part of the FlyByWire community team suggests that code is being taken and then incorporated into the project.

iniBuilds violating GPL licensing
by inMicrosoftFlightSim

The FlyByWire team operates as an open source development team with their code freely available and open to public use. The software is covered under GNU’s GPLv3 software license (you can read the whole license if you want to here) which does offer some protections and agreements when code is reused in other projects. It means other projects have also made use of FlyByWire’s work with Headwind’s A330 being a prime example. That project is also freely available and also licensed under the same GPLv3 license. A good example of how open source development can work.

With iniBuilds, if the allegations are true (which I emphasize they have not proven to be), its more sticky with for developer doing the project for Microsoft.

The FlyByWire response

Its crucial to note too that the post was not made by FlyByWire as a collective but by a single developer. FlyByWire have issued their own brief statement saying the following:

We are investigating the recent unauthorised disclosure of internal information and cannot comment on it at this time. We apologise to all relevant parties for the poor actions of one of our team members.

FlyByWire on Facebook

Clearly the post by the individual developer, who has since deleted their Reddit account, is not something that FlyByWire intended to have shared.

There are a lot of questions of course right now. Was the code actually stolen? What are the legal implications? Will this affect the roll out of the A320neo V2 in the next update?

This is the part where I say that I am not a lawyer nor a software developer so I’m at the limits of my understanding of both the software and legal implications. This may well be a tempest in a teacup to borrow a phrase. I do hope that this is a momentary hiccup and that both teams are able to continue to do the great work that they both have been doing. Never a dull week in the world of flight simulation!