> I drive a bus so I wouldn’t know - however, if a Boeing plane needs updates and the electronics isn’t turned on every so often then there’d be a problem; just like those upgrades that automatically download to your PC.
Actually it would probably be IMHO a security violation to attach such a system to the open internet, since it would allow access to the system from outside the intended means of communication. More likely, a software upgrade would be a controlled manual process with explicit checklist style instructions that must be manually checked off in sequence. Automation in this situation might mean less control over the system since at any given moment in time, the system is in an unknown (either updated, out of date, or in between) state for each software subsystem in the system. There might be dozens, hundreds or thousands of software subsystems, each verified to work with each other (or not), but always accompanied by version designations of the associated software and hardware environment in which it is certified to operate.
Within each hardware and software subsystem, there normally is a process that governs how changes are made to a subsystem to produce a future version. Usually that process is some form of ISO 9000. It has a test component which regulates how subsystem tests are created and changed (generally, a procedure analagous to the manner in which the subsystems themselves are changed).
All of this is usually very time consuming and expensive. It becomes very tempting to take short cuts. Perhaps the problems with the boeing 737 max are the result of some short cuts that were taken to avoid massive testing requirements. These short cuts were apparently taken during a recent period at which boeing stock was at (then) all time high prices, which possibly makes it so much the more embarrassing for boeing, especially at a time when they are looking for government handouts to prevent massive layoffs due to covid-19 problems and this problem. The presence of so many avionics software related problems on so many different products may indicate a high level organizational failure to recognize and properly manage avionics system software. Software management is IMHO often not unlike dodge citXXXXXXXXX an art form.
It wouldn’t have been to the open internet but to the company’s intra-net.
PS: it’s up to maintenance to ensure of the upgrades. When we fire up the system it had better be the latest version; this is Airbus. I don’t know how Boeing does it.